Silent Night... (would be merciful)

Am i feeling festive yet? Judge for yourselves.

X-Factor Finalists - You Are Not Alone (Sony)
A few charity records are worthwhile jaunts in search of donations to worthy causes. This one isn't. If you're thinking of buying this records, donate a quid to Great Ormond Street hospital (as they'll receive considerably less than that for each copy of this dreck sold), then get yourself checked in to a mental clinic. One of Michael Jackson's weaker songs covered by a load of wannabes trying to be as dramatic as their prepubescent bodies will allow. Hideous.

Jason Derulo - Whatcha Say (WEA)
Featuring an overly autotuned Imogen Heap sample (without which the song simply wouldn't exist), Jason Derulo is the lastest tedious one (s)hit wonder to come out of the USA R&B factory. The highly objectionable message behind this song is "I've cheated on you, but its OK because i'm going to be famous". This song includes such seismic lyrics as "When the roof caved in and the truth came out, i just didn't know what to do". About as deep as a puddle as thirty times less enjoyable.

Black Eyed Peas - Meet Me Halfway (Interscope)
Perhaps i'm missing something with the latest BEP album, because from what i've heard so far they've forgotten to write any songs and just ad-libbed a few cliches in the studio. This one is no different. Will-i-Am and Fergie sound terribly bored and unable to get excited about the bland mundanity of this tedious record.

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance (Interscope)
This song simultaneously awakens the love and hate receptors in my brain. On the one hand, we have the most stupid earworm of the year, but on the other it detracts from what is actually quite a good pop record, particularly in the second half where Gaga gets the excitment and passion up to a level that the Black Eyed Peas haven't managed since "Shut Up". Judged on this, if she could get over including stupid noises to keep toddlers happy, Gaga could develop her sound to become acceptable to people with an IQ in double figures.

Rihanna - Russian Roulette (Mercury)
In which Rhianna whines on and on about what a disaster her relationship with Chris Brown was in about as subtle a manner as Hitler used to demonstrate his dislike of the Jews in 1930s Germany. This appears to be an indication that the public is bored of her nasal whine too, as her new album (Rated R) debuted only one place above Chris Moyles' Parody Album on its first week of release, which wouldn't have been expected for the follow up to the multi-platinum tossdisc "Good Girl Gone Boring".

Ke$ha - Tik Tok (Columbia)
First things first: stop spelling your name with a dollar sign. Its pathetic. More pathetic than when Hepburn tried to convince people they were a proper serious rock band. Now, on to this anthem to excessive consumption of alcohol, bad autotune and pretending that you're living your life in a mobile phone commercial. Its all produced in the ADHD, gimmick obsessed manner of all current music coming out of America, so teh kidz love it and think "HEY THATS WHAT WE DUZ WHEN WE DRINKZ CIDER IN DA PARK INNIT".

Leona Lewis - Happy (Sony)
Well you're clearly not.

Mariah Carey - I Wanna Know What Love Is (Mercury)
Even a performance by Her Plasticfacedness on the X-Factor couldn't propel this poorly concieved, weak ass cover into the UK top ten. Tedious R&B slosh at its worst.

Westlife - What About Now (Sony)
I completely fail to see the point of this - Daughtry's original AOR-wailalong wasn't that brilliant and Westlife only serve to make it a bit wetter.

Sugababes - About A Girl (Island)
Jade Ewen certainly made a bad career choice when she joined the Sugababes at the release of what appears to be their weakest album to date. Working with American-styled producer Red One (who is clearly working too hard and spreading himself thinly at the moment) on this song that retreads lots of previous work without adding anything new.

50 Cent ft Ne-Yo - Baby By Me (Polydor)
After the dismal failure of the "Curtis" album, Fiddy has returned with this charmless attempt to impregnate gullible females. Bound to be the worst record since Jeremih's "Birthday Sex" for causing teenage pregnancy.

Alesha Dixon - To Love Again (Asylum)
Whats that you say? Alesha is on Strictly Come Dancing? You're repackaging her album? It needs more material to hide the fact its a blatant cash-in? You've got Gary Barlow's phone number? He'll spend three minutes writing a lacklustre song? Oh goody.

Paolo Nutini - Pencil Full of Lead (Atlantic)
Its nice to know that whilst the majority of artists are busy trying to sound as interchangeable as possible, Scotland's answer to Jack Daniels (aka Mr Nutini) is busy recording twenties influenced skiffle in this great little traditional pop song.

Chase & Status ft Plan B - End Credits (Ram)
This unexpected hit for Chase & Status has seen their turbocharged Drum & Bass sound toned down a little for a collaboration with Plan B. It still manages to produce a thought-provoking bit of British music without any acknowledgement of the novelty sounds coming from across the atlantic at the moment. My only criticism is Plan B's dreadful diction on the line "and my mind starts thinking", which becomes "...starts finkin'" and completely puts me off the rest of the song.

Taken by Trees - Sweet Child of Mine (Rough Trade)
This hippy cash in bollocks is the sort of thing specifically designed to appeal to people who don't really like music by know they're supposed to have a preference for something. As a result, they'll find something that sounds familiar, like this watered down acoustic version of Guns n' Roses 90s hit. Utterly hideous, and Rough Trade should be ashamed of themselves for releasing this sort of derivative, uninventive tripe.

Timbaland ft Nelly Furtado and Soshy - Morning After Dark (Interscope)
Timbaland has forgotten to write a song and this collection of sound effects, weak hooks, autotune and production gimmickery doesn't conceal that fact at all.

Lily Allen - Who'd Have Known (EMI)
Another cash-in late single to be added to an album in order for it to get released all over again. Ms Allen has decided to rewrite Take That's "Shine" and remove any of the passion or joy that it ever had, instead turning it into a song about drinking wine, without even sounding as if she's enjoying it. If this is her last single for several years (as she is apparently trumping), its an absolute turkey to go out on.

The Big Pink - Dominos (4AD)
Its nice to know that gimmicky shit is not just confined to America. Talentless London-based tossbags "The Big Pink" are responsible for this advert driven, one line chorus with no saving grace nor substance to speak of. The fact that the media takes music like this as serious indie is a tragedy.

Roll on 2010.

Retune, retune, retune.

Good radio reception of a variety of broadcasters is essential for what has now become quite a patchy affair in making a decent day of radio listening....

0300-0600: Radio 2, Alex Lester.
Since Greg James has left the early breakfast on Radio 1, it has plummeted into the mire of dreadful local radio standards. I keep expecting to hear Dev crash into adverts for double glazing hawkers. As such, i've reverted to listening to Alex Lester during stupidly early mornings at work. If i'm being honest, i'd forgotten what a good broadcaster Lester is, and the range of music played on the slightly off-beat "Best Time of the Day" show is eclectic and for the most part very listenable. Just be sure to retune on the dot of 0600, because you really don't want to be listening to the Daily Mail toting racist bore Sarah Kennedy.

0600-0630: Kiss 101, Matt & Caroline.
Ordinarily, Matt and Caroline's antics on Kiss 101 would be a winner for me, but the competition after 0630 (of which more below) is just a bit too strong. Kiss need to learn that their product at the moment is very inconsistent. I appreciate you can't have hyperactive breakfast DJs on all day, but nor should you be venturing into the bland. If we wanted bland, we'd listen to Heart. Kiss loses half a point for having piss poor DAB coverage compared to the BBC Mux.

0630-1000: Radio 1, Chris Moyles.
Make the most of Moyles, because he's not going to be on Radio 1 for ever, although his stay of execution might be extended if the popularity of the new presenter line up doesn't perk up. Following a difficult start to the revised younger schedule, particularly for Fearne Cotton, for whom the number of hate groups on Facebook is quite astonishing. The thought of putting a no-mark foetus like Nick Grimshaw on the Radio 1 breakfast show would instantly lose the station 75% of its listeners, and controller Andy Parfitt knows it.

1000-1100: Radio 1, Fearne Cotton or Radio 2, Ken Bruce
This is a tricky one, and it all depends on my mood. Fearne Cotton isn't the broadcaster that Jo Whiley was in the weekday morning slot and puerile features like Gossip Guy only serve to be irritating and demonstrate that the British public really are as vile as i think they are. But overall, the show is still entertaining for the most part. Over on the other side, Ken Bruce's show runs at an entirely different pace with the entertaining Popmaster quiz attracting some very special people (and i don't mean that in a particularly complimentary manner).

1100-1200: Kiss 101, Kisstory (James Merritt)
For the most part, James Merritt is a slightly identikit commercial radio broadcaster, sounding much like any other daytime DJ on Kiss or Galaxy, however the Kisstory hour is superb. Kisstory brings together an hour of dance music (and the occasional R&B track) from the past twenty years. Their choices are massively varied, avoiding many of the same tunes which could come up over and over again in favour of some well researched songs which haven't been heard since they were originally released. Like Radio 2 earlier on, retune quickly to avoid the terrible Nikki Elise (i bet it doesn't say that on your birth certificate) and her slurred garblings.

1200-1400: BBC Radio Bristol / BBC Somerset, Steve Yabsley
There isn't really much on at this time of day, Fearne Cotton's R1 show is probably the best of the National stations unless you want to hear angry rantings from idiots on Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 show. The alternative is the brilliant Steve Yabsley on Radio Bristol or Somerset. Yabsley's show is properly daft old-school radio entertainment, not that far removed from the random, tangentical humour of The Goons or The Goodies that isn't particularly fashionable at the moment. Yabsley has been doing this sort of thing in one form or another on Radio Bristol for around two decades now, his main claim to fame having been that he worked with Chris Morris on the "No Known Cure" Saturday morning show, which Yabsley continued to run in a similar spirit until moving to weekdays.

Sadly, precious little else on Radio Bristol / Somerset matches the enthusiasm and entertainment of Yabbo. Tim McSweeney's Saturday version of the show comes closest (and indeed Sweens often collaborates with Yabsley on sketches for the weekday show). The rest of the schedule is pretty much standard BBC Local Radio fodder.

1400-1600: Radio 1, Greg James
I've made no secret of the fact that i'm a fan of Greg James and his weekday afternoon show is exceptional. Just a shame the first hour clashes with Steve Yabsley.

1600-1830: Radio 1, Scott Mills
Scott Mills, along with current sidekick Becky, long suffering Chappers and TOTSOO (The One That Spoke Only Once) are in a rich vein of form at the moment, with some great ideas coming out of the show. If you listen from the start, you may want to avoid after 1830 as there tends to be some repetition.

1830-1900: Radio 4, Comedy Half Hour
Aside from the painfully unfunny, repetitive and predictable Count Arthur Strong, most of the current variety on R4 is highly entertaining and comes well recommended.

1900-2100: Radio 1, Zane Lowe
Just in case you're in need of re-energising, Zane Lowe is still full of beans well into the evening. Having heard a couple of shows he's done on the R1 specialist takeover days, Lowe would be one of the best choices to replace Moyles on Breakfast.

Radio Challenges

Its a tough time at the moment. Sara Cox is currently sitting in for Scott Mills on Radio 1's drivetime and the show is a single file conduit for Cox to polish her ego. Many have criticised Chris Moyles' team for being sycophants, but such a word could pale into insignificance compared to how Becky of Mills' team fawns over Cox.

Anyway, the net result is that i've been struggling to find something else to listen to. I've tried Andrew Collins on 6Music (too much chatter for a supposed music purists station, and contained an atrocious edit of the Doves' There Goes The Fear), Kiss (identikit presenter, too many adverts), Heart (just bland) and Amazing Radio (promising, but radio by democracy doesn't work as you always end up with the least offensive songs on the playlist).

So where do i go from here? Westwood on 1Xtra? The risk of some clueless it-prick on XFM? I don't know. I suppose my ideal would be someone broadcasting solid 24 hour archives of Armin van Buurren's A State of Trance show, then i could always lose myself in something.

Anyway, the other end of the day is just as bad. Dev's early breakfast show on Radio 1 is offensively bad. His sit-ins for Greg James were erratic, but passable. Now he's on his own, the ideas are about as poor as bad commercial local radio gets. Having heard Dev pricking on about how he was "going to enjoy destroying" something earlier today, I even toyed with the idea of listening to Sarah Kennedy instead this morning (and i fucking hate Sarah Kennedy) before discovering that Matt & Caroline on Kiss 101 start at 6am. Their Duracell Bunny-esque levels of energy are a bit disconcerting for 6am, but entertaining nonetheless. Its just a shame that everything good on the radio seems to be concentrated in a small part of the day. Perhaps we could have a channel on DAB called "Breakfast Radio" which just broadcasts hour long best-of selections of the best breakfast shows from around the UK.

Plagiarists are the new Gods

Review time? I should think so...

Pitbull ft Nicole Scherzinger - Hotel Room Service (Positiva)
Once upon a time, Positiva used to be a half decent dance label. Now they're releasing utter garbage like this which shits all over any respect that commercial electronic music was just about hanging on to. The riff is taken hook, line and sinker from The Nightcrawlers' Push the Feeling On, the main hook chant is taken likewise from The Sugarhill Gang's Rappers Delight and the rest of the lyrical content has all the value of a penny stuck in a dog turd. Nicole Scherzinger should be embarassed of being involved with this dreck.

The Veronicas - 4Ever (Warner)
The Veronicas' breakthrough single in the UK, Untouched was quite a fresh sounding bit of pacey, power pop. Sadly the follow-up is a straight rip of Pink's U and Ur Hand, trying so painfully hard to be cool. I tend to switch off when i hear lines like "Do i gotta spell it out for you?". Artistic licence is one thing, talking like you're a village idiot is just dumb. Overall, its quite a shame because their Radio 1 Live Lounge cover of Muse was quite promising. Speaking of which...

Muse - Uprising (Warner)
I'm sure Muse have already done this record at least fourteen times before. I'm sure the lyrical content of "They cannot force us / We will be victorious" is about as original as a track by Pitbull. I've heard people comparing Muse to Queen for their pomposity, but the key difference is that Queen managed to write some good songs on their later albums.

Cobra Starship - Good Girls Go Bad (Fueled By Ramen)
Pointless. Utterly pointless. I've heard this at least a dozen times and i still can't remember anything about it. Its like the equivalent of musical beige paint and much less entertaining. These tossers have apparently released three albums. God only knows what they use as filler if this is lead material.

Robbie Williams - Bodies (EMI)
Robbie Williams is desperately unfashionable at the moment, yet judging by this he is recording some of the most inventive pop music around. If you ignore the right wing Christian baiting lytics about Jesus, the choppy and unusual structure of the song is the perfect remedy to the passionless gubbins currently all over British mainstream radio. The problem is that because it is Robbie Williams, commercial playlisters will be falling over themselves to find an excuse not to play it, possibly in the vain hope that Williams will rejoin Take That and Heart will have a whole new album of playlist material, none of which would be fit to be a b-side of this.

Cheryl Cole - Fight For This Love (Polydor)
I didn't know Girls Aloud had split up. That press conference must have passed me by. Nevertheless, Cheryl Tweedy... sorry, Cole is pressing ahead with a thoroughly awful piece of R&B boredom. She sounds bored. Her backing singers sound bored. The producers must have been on intravenous drips of Red Bull to get through re-tuning her vocals so that it didn't sound like a tone deaf gibbon murmuring its way through three minutes of this insipid rubbish. Doing my best Derren Brown impression, I confidently predict millions will watch Cole miming badly to this on a forthcoming edition of X-Factor. What a coincidence that Cole's new album and X-Factor are happening at the same time.

Deadmau5 - Ghosts 'n' Stuff (EMI)
Just when you thought dance music was in a very ill state, Deadmau5 partially makes up for his stupid name by teaming up with Pendulum's vocalist Rob Swire for this storming tune which sounds rather epic in its construction, quite unlike the current minimalist, lo-fi trends. I'm still not convinced about Deadmau5 as an act, but this track is better than most around at the moment.

Jay Z ft Rhianna & Kanye West - Run This Town (Atlantic)
Jay Z ft Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind (Atlantic)
When promotion first started for Jay-Z's Blueprint III album, Zane Lowe played the excellent Death of AutoTune, seemingly a rant against overproduced, cliche ridden rap and R&B music. Its such a shame that the first two singles to gain airplay from the album were both overproduced, cliche ridden rap driven R&B music.
Run This Town is just ghastly. Rhianna's horrible nasal moaning sounds like she's barely concious and trying to alert somebody to the fact that she's lost a limb. Jay-Z barely opens his mouth, whilst Kanye West does his best to glorify the "running" of "towns", a non-veiled reference to glorifying gang culture and the vile activities that come along with it.
Then we have the dreary Empire State of Mind which plods along, being anthemic and inspirational for several minutes, providing you have an IQ below six. Any producer could have recorded this with a remit of "do something a bit epic and overblown".
Overall, both of these songs are pretending to be better than they actually are, mainly because of Jay-Z's name being on the cover. Nobody claimed that tracks like Show Me What You Got were classics, but the effortless fun of a track like that makes it a classic far more than either of these two.

La Roux - I'm Not Your Toy (Polydor)
Looks like the bubble has burst then. Having exhausted her supply of two vaguely catchy tunes, La Roux churns out this dross about not being my toy in lyrical sentiment which was last cutting edge in 1962. Her voice sounds strained and worse than normal throughout as well, grating even more than normal against the sub-Stylophone backing track.

Pixie Lott - Boys and Girls (Mercury)
Another case of plagiarism as Ms Lott does a weak, if inoffensive reworking of Rhianna's Shut Up and Drive. On the plus side - no Rhianna voice! Result!

All Time Low - Weightless (Hopeless)
Another bad emo band roll up with more plagiarism. This time, sing along the words of BoysLikeGirls' track The Great Escape and they'll fit right in.

Editors - Papillon (Columbia)
Editors are something of a marmite band. Personally, i can't see anything wrong with their update on the Joy Division sound. The modern-but-retro synth sound that so many bands attempt to produce is in abundance here, married up with a rich bassline. Lead vocalist Tom Smith's vocals are stern and unique amongst current bands, if possibly edging towards the overblown at times, but if Muse can get away with pomposity, surely other bands should be allowed to?

Jay Sean ft Lil Wayne - Down (Universal)
Jay Sean is apparently huge in America at the moment, and bearing in mind the fact that this is the country that went bonkers over R&B super-non-entities like Ashanti, it doesn't surprise me that his latest material is completely devoid of any interesting components. Gaining an American influence has robbed him of the small creativity his music has shown in the past. Guest artiste is Lil Wayne, the thinking man's barely coherent, sex obsessed pottymouth, whose appeal is a mystery to me. Unsurprisingly, he adds nothing to proceedings.

Dizzee Rascal - Dirtee Cash (Dirtee Stank)
Dizzee is another artist who has been spreading himself increasingly thin recently. If the warning wasn't loud enough with Holiday, then this is a clear warning his creativity is being wasted in favour of brash and clumsy commercial pop. The riff is unsurprisingly taken from The Adventures of Stevie V's 90s hit Dirty Cash but the raps are lazy and uninspired compared to what we've come to expect from Dizzee.

Young Soul Rebels - I Got Soul (Warchild)
Dozens of British urban artists have got together to record this rather odd and desperate sounding cover of The Killers' All These Things That I've Done. It is bound to make a lot of people very angry, milking the "I got soul but i'm not a soldier" refrain until it bleeds and i'm struggling to find anything it really adds to the original, but the enthusiasm of featured acts like N-Dubz and Chipmunk is quite infectious. It isn't a record i'd choose to listen to, but as it is being done for charity and will make a lot of people who take bands like the Killers far too seriously. At least a lot of these British artists actually have a personality, whereas Brandon Flowers doesn't.

Double standards

Lily Allen is angry about piracy! Muse are supporting Lily's anger about piracy!

http://www.nme.com/news/muse/47365

Apparently, internet downloads are killing new music. I'd argue that new music is doing a pretty good job of killing itself. Dozens of new bands are coming through every year, making music which pioneers new levels of blandness. Bands on their second or tertiary albums are filling them with remnants of how good their first album was. Listen to the likes of Temper Trap (or just listen to Friendly Fires to whom they are a tribute band) or The Big Pink (hammering a chorus until the listener's ears bleed) and you'll be able to hear just how lifeless and joyless a lot of new bands are.

Anyway, the internets is teh KILLINGE MUSEKS!! Perhaps Lily should look a little closer to home first. If her record label (Regal, part of EMI if i remember correctly) stopped putting so much pressure on radio stations to play out such small playlists over and over, then there would be more room for new music to be discovered. But of course, it is in their interest to have one artists hammered to hell on the radio and sell a million albums than it is to have ten artists get moderate airplay and sell a hundred thousand discs each because the overheads are lower. Ergo it is in the interests of record labels to have a small number of acts who sell massive numbers of CDs and downloads. Which is why Heart plays a Take That record every 15 minutes without fail.

And lets look at the two main acts party to this "outrage". Muse have a new album out, which sounds exactly like all their previous outings of pretentious prog rock. Any headlines help sell another copy. Lily Allen's most recent album was so repetitive and samey that its a proper challenge to listen to it all the way through. So why are they selling millions? Because Allen is a loudmouthed tabloid darling and Muse are apparently the saviours of all things rock. The NME says so. They've even given their current album and single the most stereotypical names ever in "Uprising" and "The Resistance", illustrating their current lack of any imagination whatsoever.

Anyway, i'm off to tape some songs off the wireless and see if i can do a high speed dub of the new Reynolds Girls tape without it going all squeally on me.

When Irish Eyes Are Sneering

I keep being told Terry Wogan is a national institution. I keep being told that the whole nation will mourn when he leaves the airwaves. I don't believe everything i'm told.

Lets consider the situation. Wogan has decided to leave the Radio 2 Breakfast Show at the end of 2009. The event of his final programme is three and a half months away. Wogan has plenty of time in which to decide when to make his decision public. He decides to do it on the one day when somebody else from BBC Radio is likely to be making some headlines, namely Chris Moyles celebrating his becoming the longest serving presenter of Radio 1's breakfast show. I've never liked Wogan's tedious drivel, but this calculated action only serves to mark him out as the most self-promoting arse ever to grace the airwaves. He couldn't bear to see somebody else get some column inches without upstaging them.

The BBC must be loving Wogan's timing as well, gobbling up the hope of Radio 1 getting some positive coverage by other media outlets.

Audioturds

Angry Anderson's even angrier sibling writes...

Lady Gaga - Love Game (Pissdiscs)
Seriously. Come on. What depths are there left to plunge after the lyrics "lets have some fun, this beat is sick / i wanna take a ride on your disco stick"? Actually, thats a rhetorical question. There are no depths left to plunge thanks to America's female answer to Beavis sniggering her way through another turgid bucket of sick that she can't perform live for toffee.

Jordin Sparks - Let The Music Play (Felchsound)
The world doesn't need another weak cover of Shannon's Let The Music Play. Especially when that weak cover features some abysmally poor rewritten verses about boyfriends. The mystique and starstruck vibe of the original has been replaced by words which the record label would describe as an anthem to clubbing in the same way that Play by Jennifer Lopez was. Horrible.

Escala - Children (The Phantastic Soundz of Monkeydung)
Oh joy of joys. Britain's Got No Talent's number one electric string playing muppets have recorded a cover version of Robert Miles' Children which joylessly sucks all the life out of it like a spider extracting the lifeblood from an insect. It really is that horribly bad and a shameless attempt to make money from something to which their regurgitation adds absolutely nothing.

Embarassing Single Reviews....

I should be ashamed of some of the things i'm about to write... Perhaps my standards are on holiday.

3-Oh!-3 - Don't Trust Me (Asylum)
Apparently a boyband from the states. This bit of inoffensive daytime radio power-fluff is quite a good listen with swagger to burn more hooks than Lady Gaga could fit on an entire album, plus bonus disc. Of course they're not as cool or in favour as some truly terrible acts at the moment, but if they produce more tunes like this they've got a potentially bright future.

Ian Brown - Stellify (Polydor)
A bit of an odd title, but don't let that put you off. This is Ian Brown's most instant song since F.E.A.R and begs for lots of airplay and attention, particularly as the 20th anniversary of the Stone Roses album is being trumpeted so much. This upbeat tune should be one of the anthems of the summer - perhaps we could get it swapped so that this gets played every other time Little Boots' Remedy gets playlisted.

Keri Hilson ft KanYe West and Ne-Yo - Knock You Down (Interscope)
I know its been around for quite some time now, but this has properly grown on me. What on paper looks like it should be a complete non-starter for my tastes, is actually quite uplifting and positive for an American R&B record. As it has burbled away fairly quietly in the charts over the past two or three months, it has gently become embedded in my mind without the damage that comes from the overplaying that this genre so often suffers from.

David Guetta ft Akon - Sexy Chick (Virgin)
The alarm bells should have started ringing when i heard the "featuring Akon" tagline, but i approached it with an open mind. Baaaaaad mistake. I'm concerned that David Guetta has been sold to the Americans following from the passable collaboration with Kelly Rowlands on When Love Takes Over. This tedious bit of bog-standard Akon toss is a shambolic slur on Guetta's name and seems to ignore all the soulful work he's done with Chris Willis in the past.

Jeremih - Birthday Sex (Def Jam)
Caution: Insultingly awful slow R&B song aimed at 15 year old chav boys who will make their 13 year old girlfriends pregnant. Should be outlawed under international law for that very reason. And learn how to spell your fucking name while you're at in jail as well.

Bloc Party - One More Chance (Wichita)
Chicago house barnstormer from the recently on-form Bloc Party. Sadly, the UK single release has been bodged on to two vinyl formats, neither of which feature the excellent dance remixes from the likes of Tiesto that have been doing the rounds on promo. If Bloc Party continue this interesting new direction that was started by the Intimacy album, then their future could be really exciting.

Sean Kingston - Fire Burning (RCA)
This is the really embarassing one. I've never been able to listen to anything previously recorded by Sean Kingston without wanting to punch a small child, steal their sweets and then taser them. But there is something about this record which is far more upbeat and likeable than anything else he's produced before, especially that piss poor Beautiful Girls offering. In fact, i'd even go as far as to say this is a quite good dance record for anything coming from the wrong side of the atlantic. Bonus points for not having his portly, slappable face on the cover as well.

Little Boots - Remedy (679 / Atlantic)
My remedy for Little Boots is not to listen to her god awful whining.

Tinchy Strider ft Amelle - Never Leave You (Island)
Tinchy Strider has come a very long way since his mainstream debut, Striderman. He's gradually moved over to a far more poppy sound and his positive upbeat tunes are now a welcome fixture in radio schedules.

Sugababes - Get Sexy (Island)
Simply hideous electro-girlpop shit aimed at the sort of people who think La Roux's lyrics are deep and meaningful. To paraphrase one of the lyrics: Silly girls. They actually buy this toss.

Holiday Radio

Something bizarre has been happening and for once, i can't decide whether its a good thing or a bad thing. The first week of Chris Moyles' summer break was taken by Scott Mills, but as a result of the Scott Mills Musical happening at Edinburgh during the second week, a different stand-in was needed. The result was the slightly odd combination of Vernon Kay and Comedy Dave.

Now when Vernon stood in for Moyles during the Comic Relief Kilimanjaro Climb, the show worked quite nicely as the features mainly stayed in place and Vernon had the rest of the team to bounce off. Vernon and Dave's show for the past week has sounded a bit local radio. Some of the features have been downright embarassing, where some of it has worked quite well. Overall, i just can't decide what the package was. Whereas there is a genuine chemistry of self-deprocating genius when Chappers and Dave are standing in on various weekend shows, the combination of Vernon and Dave seems to think it is far cooler than it actually is.

Vernon Kay's old Sunday morning Lie-In show was a painfully poor, the radio equivalent of his gormless gurning gameshow host persona, whilst his Saturday morning R1 show is fairly good. So perhaps its just a case of Vernon only working as a radio presenter in certain formats?

As a side note, the current Sunday morning Lie-In host, Sara Cox continues to go from bad to worse. She seems to be ignoring the traditional gentle Sunday format in favour of being shouty and playing music that doesn't fit in with the remit at all. Bring back Dick & Dom, all is forgiven!

Lily Allen

I quite liked the singles Lily Allen has released from her latest long player Its Not Me, Its You. On daytime radio they gently fit in to the schedule, even if Not Fair was fairly filthsome. I took the opportunity to listen to the whole album earlier this week and had to stop after about eight tracks because it just gets a bit too formulaic. In the confines of an album, each track is an overblown syrupy pop song peppered with scattergunned filth and swearing. Once you've twigged this, its impossible to listen to the album without getting enraged and track eight (the subtley titled Fuck You) was enough for me.

Its a shame because some songs (such as current single 22) show a bit of variance, but the default seems to be reverting to the standard formula of the rest of the album, which gets tired very quickly. There is only so much you can achieve when working in such tight confines.

Shuffling the pack...

Radio 1 is having a reshuffle in September, of which details have recently been released. I have no opinions on this.

Not really.

Weekday early mornings: Dev replaces Greg James
Greg James has been doing a sterling job on early mornings. I know this because when he hasn't been on the early morning slot and i've had an early start, i've found whoever has been on instead profoundly irritating. Dev has done a couple of short stints on early breakfast and sounded like a fish out of water. He also started hosting weekend breakfast two weeks ago, plugging it as an "entirely new show", obviously already knowing he was due to move on within three months. It seems like the revolving door of R1's weekend breakfast slot is still alive and well, the slot struggling to hold anybody for more than a few months as well as being the breeding ground for some truly awful "talent".

Perhaps Dev will adapt to the slot and settle in, but at the moment he sounds short of ideas and devoid of anything interesting to say. He'd be a perfect presenter for a Kiss daytime show.

Weekday breakfast: Moyles, Vitty, Byrne, Prideaux, Jones, Jones and (to a lesser extent) Fincham retained.

Chris Moyles and his exceptional team dodge the bullet with a one-year extension to their tenure on the breakfast show. Given that the show has sustained excellent ratings despite the printed media's attempts to push Moyles off air, this is entirely justified. I personally hope that the show continues to stay on air for as long as it remains fresh and popular.

Weekday mornings: Fearne Cotton replaces Jo Whiley

Jo Whiley has been a stalwart of Radio 1 for getting on for two decades, first as part of the seminal Evening Session (with Steve Lamacq) during the 90s and later moving to daytimes. Whiley has retained her love of the alternative and off-beat throughout, introducing many tunes to listeners who would otherwise have not heard them (including myself - i'd probably never had bought a copy of Sebastien Tellier's "La Ritournelle" had i not heard it on Whiley's show) and many will miss this aspect of her presenting.

Her replacement, childrens TV presenter Fearne Cotton, is probably making a very shrewd career move. It is particularly notable that since plastering herself with tattoos, the fickle TV industry have been less willing to book her as a mainstream presenting face, so a full time radio slot is a solid career choice that you can't argue with. Hopefully Cotton will show more dedication to this than she has done to the weekend breakfast and late afternoon shows she has co-hosted for the past couple of years with regular co-host Reggie Yeates, where other on air talent has been heard to refer to it as "the Fearne or Reggie show".

Having heard Cotton cover for both Whiley and Edith Bowman before, i'm not enthusiastic about her as a replacement for Jo, but she's aeons better than some gushing, guffawing idiot like Annie Mac or Nick Grimshaw whose scripted enthusiasm is just painful. Given that R1 are clearly moving to reduce their average presenter age, Cotton isn't the perfect choice, but it could have been far worse.

Weekday afternoons: Greg James replaces Edith Bowman's Film Show

Edith Bowman has been living on borrowed time since the departure of Colin Murray from the afternoon slot. The re-branding of the show as a film-centric vehicle proved to be the final redirection under Bowman's control. I've commented in the past about some of the features on Bowman's show (such as "My Life in Music") which are badly scheduled for the target audience and i stand by this, so hopefully Greg James will bring across the energy of his morning show to some new output in this slot. James has been developing excellently since starting out on R1, not sounding out of his depth when covering for Scott Mills, even if he does sound like he needs somebody to bounce off every so often.

Weekday drivetime: Scott Mills retained

Now, while researching this i discovered that Scott Mills is actually the same age as Chris Moyles, having always assumed him to be younger. Anyway, the output of Mills' Drivetime show has been consistently good over the past couple of years, with the only possible weakness being the Friday 6pm "Friday Floorfillers", which specialises in sub-Kiss levels of bad dance remixes of songs which don't benefit from the Four-to-the-Floor treatment.

Weekday evenings: No changes yet publicised.

Weekend early breakfast...
Whoever decided the "specialist" shows should overspill from the night before until 7am is making a serious mistake. We're not all into Annie Nightingale's brand of slurred twaddle about how Dubgrime&bass is going to be bigger than Jesus (although Sunday morning's Ras Kwame is considerably better).

Weekend breakfast: Dev departs...
As usual, the "exciting new" presenter of Weekend Breakfast departs after a few months, so perhaps we can expect another couple of months worth of Chappers and Dave with their Motorway Service Area related features. I've got my fingers crossed. The show has desperately needed a stable presenter since Spoony left (since replaced by Nihal, Fearne & Reggie, Nick Grimshaw, a Chappers & Dave stint and Dev)

Saturday morning: Vernon Kay retained.
Sunday morning: Sara Cox retained (the Lie-in show).
Vernon Kay's Saturday morning show continues to be entertaining, with Kay also managing to occasionally fill in for Moyles on weekday mornings whilst gelling well with the rest of the team. Sadly, Sunday morning's Lie-in show has been completely wrecked by Sara Cox whose abrasive, self-obsessed presenting style doesn't fit in with the laid-back attitude of the show, nor does the often painfully bad music chosen since she took over. Regular readers of this blog will know i love Chappers & Dave and their tenure preceeding Cox was exactly what the Lie-in show needed - relaxed, enjoyable radio playing a much better variety of music. I can't help feel that somebody with the musical knowledge of Jo Whiley would be much better suited to taking over the Lie-in slot than....

Weekend afternoons: Jo Whiley replaces Nihal.
Nihal has carved out an interesting niche in weekend afternoons, providing a well refined and well paced show. It is a shame therefore to see a man who is on top of his game replaced by somebody who might find it difficult to adjust to a completely different slot to the one she currently fills. It is obvious that Nihal is currently one of the hardest working men on radio, having often been on Radio 1, Five Live and Asian Network all within the same week, so perhaps he is looking to calm down his schedule a bit.

Weekend early evening (Request/Chart): Reggie Yeates goes solo.
As Fearne Cotton departs to the Weekday morning show, Reggie Yeates takes over the two weekend shows singlehandedly. Out of the two, i think Yeates will struggle more with going solo as his style seems to struggle more when he doesn't have his playmate to bounce off.

So then Smartarse, what would you have done?
Well, some aspects continue to be pleasing, particularly that the supposedly trendy oaf George Lamb still isn't allowed anywhere near Radio 1.

If we go in order, i'd have kept Greg James on early breakfast as he is very good at it.

When Moyles does step down from R1's Breakfast show, i personally think his replacement should be Zane Lowe. I know it sounds nuts, but think about it - Lowe's style is the complete opposite of Moyles; where Moyles can be lethargic, Lowe is a comparative Duracell bunny. Where Moyles is often accused of not playing enough records, Lowe not only plays them but massively enthuses about the music he plays. Lowe's two bank holiday breakfast "takeover" shows have both been solid listening and demonstrating massive potential if Radio 1 wants to be taken seriously as a music broadcaster.

For weekday mornings, i'd be struggling to nominate somebody to replace Jo Whiley. Radio 1's daytime programmes have been notoriously difficult to get right. There have been some classics (such as Mark & Lard's afternoon show), but these are almost always remembered at the expense of some utter turkeys (Emma Forbes, anyone?). Perhaps Andy Parfitt could just admit he made a mistake and get Colin Murray back for the slot - at least then those who are complaining about R1 moving away from promoting cutting edge music might be satiated.

Again, the afternoon show is a difficult one to call. If Radio 1 want to continue the film obsession theme of the show, perhaps they should just go the whole hog and employ James King as a full time presenter.

Of course, it is taken as something of a given that when Moyles leaves breakfast, Scott Mills will take over. As Mills has been very entertaining when Moyles is on leave, i can't fault this as a strategy, but it doesn't really push the envelope very much. Greg James is almost sure to be promoted into Mills current drivetime post when it is vacated.

And what of the rest?
Well, i'd like to see Nihal retained in some form for mainstream broadcasting.
New talent for R1 also needs to be recruited from sources other than 1Xtra.
Presenters need to be recruited on account of them being passionate about what they do, not just fashionable.
I'd also like to hear a show where music criticism is allowed as well as praise - at the moment, Chris Moyles is the only presenter far enough above the line of fire to be able to do this. Perhaps a weekly, hourly show concerning additions to the playlist and an uncensored panel of critics would be a good route to take. I'd volunteer to be a panelist in the pilot.

Lazy Politics and Boring Summer Records

Two singles that caught my ire this week....

Green Day - 21 Guns (Reprise Atlantic)
Green Day went all political on our asses with their "American Idiot" concept album, the concept being that punk bands could make music with a more meaningful sentiment than that managed by Sum 41. Sadly they are now taking themselves far too seriously, with the first single banging its insistent "Do you know your enemy?" chorus ad infinitum until the ears of listeners bled with RSI. This second single (just like "Boulevard of Broken Dreams") is slow, dreary and plodding which leads us to question whether Green Day are even still a rock band. The song itself is a lame rip off of Shawn Mullins' "Rockabye" and Scott McKenzie's "San Fransisco", but oh isn't it political as its talking about people being killed in wars.

Pitbull - I Know You Want Me [Calle Ocho] (Positiva)
Hooray. Its summer. Which means it is "summer anfem" time, innit? God give me strength. Take one portion each of the following: Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso's "Umbrella"; The Bucketheads' "The Bomb" and some piss-poor lyrics of the "You know i wantcha". The net result, a massive hit bought by idiots everywhere, too dumb or blinkered to know the originals which were mercilessly fisted into this pathetic shambles. Positiva should be ashamed of releasing this bullshit.

Shocking third album syndrome

The Arctic Monkeys are back and Jesus H Christ, doesn't anybody who listens to Radio 1 know it. Jo Whiley played the new single "Crying Lightning" twice on Tuesday and since then i think every daytime show has been duty bound to play it. For those of us who like to have the radio on in the background all day, its getting interminable. If it were not an Arctic Monkeys single, it wouldn't be getting played at all, let alone every two hours. It sounds like a watered down QOTSA backing track (thanks to Josh Homme's production) with a watered down Alex Turner vocal over the top. Worst of all, Turner is verging towards a worrying mid-lantic accept from his native South Yorkshire twang. Whilst that may have been at home on the Last Shadow Puppets album, it just sounds banal here.

I think the moral of this tale is not to worship the output of a band just because of who they are. If they're recorded something that is shit, don't play it just because the band is fashionable. Likewise, don't ignore something good because a band isn't fashionable. And most importantly, a song isn't brilliant just because it has been used on an Apple commercial.

Make some decent music or shut up.

Pop stars can be an irritating breed. Particularly when they start getting over making their trite pop twaddle and start voicing stupid opinions. Today's shooting-star idiot is Elly Jackson (aka La Roux, a name she has to use to sound even more pretentious than her painfully middle class real one) in comments which i can only assume are supposed to be ironic.

Ref: http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/music/newsid_8131000/8131238.stm

Ms Jackson (possibly not the same one that one of Outkast got pregnant) has denounced all R&B as "very kind of empty, like hollow and not rooted in anything good or healthy". This comes from the foetus who brought us the complete inanity of "I'm going in for the kill, i'm doing it for a thrill. Oh, i'm hoping you understand and now let go of my hand", lyrics that are painfully cliche, trite and about as challenging as the easy crossword in Nuts (14 across: Breasts! Rhymes with "pits". (4)).

Now don't get me wrong, i despise a lot of the same R&B that La Roux does, but i struggle to see any value in her lyrical content either. It all comes straight from My First Book of Girly Feistiness in the same way that Soulja Boy's lyrics come from My First Book of Bitches and Bling. Neither are showing anything inventive or new.

The font of happiness

There is some brilliant music around at the moment. Its just a shame that it is painfully unfashionable (not sounding as if it is being created by a prepubescent girl who wears too much makeup using an Amstrad CPC to play various platform games and sample the noises). Anyway, amongst the anger i promise i'll be happy about some tunes today:

Starsailor - Tell Me Its Not Over (Virgin)
Odd choice of a comeback single, sounding like the traditional difficult second single from any Starsailor album. It limped into the low seventies of the singles chart a month or so back, despite probably deserving better but EMI are too busy shitting themselves over anything female doing bad synthpop at the moment to promote it properly. The song itself is a bit of standard Starsailor work, doing the "low-key, but quite epic" quite well. What is worth looking out for is the utterly superb b-side on the CD single, "In Their World" which sees the band taking a different direction and sounding far more loose and like they're enjoying themselves.

The Gaslight Anthem - Great Expectations (SideOneDummy)
A top bit of slightly garagey sounding pop-rock which boasts more hooks in one song than the entire last Kooks album did. Give it a few listens and its impossible not to find yourself singing along with the chorus.

The Gossip - Heavy Cross (BMG)
Fitting quite nicely into the current trends is the return of The Gossip and the awesome voice of Beth Ditto. Heavy Cross is my favourite Gossip single ever, building on the shrieking choruses and scruffy neo-punk of "Standing in the Way of Control" and adding a much more refined level of songwriting and production. On the strength of recent live radio performances, the band are a much tighter unit than they were when they embraced the skins generation a few years ago.

Lady Gaga - Paparazzi (Interscope)
Just in case anyone was suffering from Gwen Stefani album track deficiency, this bollocks is now being paraded across daytime radio.

Basement Jaxx - Raindrops (XL)
I'm trying to work out why everybody is getting quite so excited over this Basement Jaxx comeback single. Its a bit of painfully average discopop which doesn't seem to offer anything other than a few extra vocals that wasn't done by practically every record released by Roule in 1997. And what really puts me off is that the creature on the cover looks like a Womble.

Florence and the Machine - Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up) (Island)
Proving that not all of the current wave of pop is pish is this rather fine tune from Florence and her Machine. Its a bit Kate Bush in places, but with a hooky and overground production that makes it more mainstream fare. Unlike many of her peers, Florence also has some very interesting references in her lyrics.

Craig Phillips and Nick Bateman have a lot to answer for...

Yay. Big Brother is back and i'm officially taking less interest in it this time. But that doesn't stop me having opinions about the people going in. Cue an hours worth of hate fuelled, judgemental opinions....

Freddie.
Public schoolboy cock. He's the sort of shitbag that Jarvis Cocker was singing about in "Common People".

Lisa.
Stereotypical butch lesbian. I'm sure she should be in Ashes to Ashes because she reminds me of the attitudes of 1982.

Sophie.
Dumb blonde model. Another vacuous page three model only put in to quell the desires of tabloid readers. Apparently has delusions of being Paris Hilton.

(Advert break)
So far, I think it would be more interesting if they'd put in the three blokes off the Lottery advert who break into a football ground and have a kick around.

Kris.
Sex obsessed prick. Its clear that the reason there isn't enough love in this world is because
Kris uses far more than his fair share on himself. Probably has HIV.

Noirin.
Supposedly religious self-adoration addict. Apparently unable to find a dress that fits.

Cairon.
Fucking fucking American. If i wanted to watch irritating Americans, i'd watch ITV2. I have my suspicions that he thinks he's the fresh prince. Has the potential to be more irritating than Science. Oh, and PULL YOUR TROUSERS UP.

(Advert break)
The Lucozade advert bumpers are looking awful. Perhaps we could get the BT flies back.

Angel.
Very odd Russian (and just consider the range of that statement for a moment). I spent the first fifteen seconds of the vignette thinking she was a man. Totty for Lisa perhaps?

Karly.
Another braindead wannabe. Outside of her looks, body and clothes, she clearly has no awareness of the rest of outside world. Will fight with similar ignoramus Sophie.

Marcus.
Lunatic comicbook obsessive. Put in to keep the geek hardcore satisfied.

(Advert break)
I must buy myself a new Wilkinson Sword Quatro Skin Bikini. Just to keep the MHP massive happy, the sound levels between the programme and adverts are all over the place.

Beinazir.
The Mouth of the Middle East. Has the possibility of becoming likeable providing she doesn't open her gob too much. I don't rate her chances.

Sophia.
Junior June Sarpong. Feisty enough to be interesting and potentially very entertaining even though she does look like a twelve year old and is giggling like a buffoon upon entry to the playpen.

Rodrigo.
Camp Brazilian who looks like Nelsinho Piquet, which is a bad omen as he'll probably fail to take the corner at the bottom of the stairs and go flying off into the crowd.

Charlie.
ADHD Jack the Lad. Looks like he should be working for a recruitment firm or a cowboy plumber.

(Advert Break)
People sometimes say Hollywood isn't dumbing down, i disagree. A film with the title "Drag Me To Hell" leaves so little to the imagination that you may as well get attacked with a nailgun when you buy a ticket to see it. On a completely separate issue, i'm now left wondering how much Vimto you can soak up with a new Taxpax Pearl with improved applicator.

Saffia.
Very stupid name. Almost identical vignette to Karly extoling her ability to be a bitch. Also has two children who will be without her during her tenure in the house. Perhaps they'll benefit from being without the permanent bile-spouting from their desperately insecure mother.

Sree.
Indian Mummy's boy. Delightfully anachronistic views, almost empirical. Could well clash with airheads already in the house.

Siavash.
Impossible fashion victim. Another one with a huge, self-obsessed head who comes across as a Donny Tourette wannabe, which is setting your sights about as low as its possible to do.

So there we go. I make that about three people who have the potential to be vaguely likeable.

I have anger issues and this isn't helping

Escala. There. I typed it. Without projectile vomiting all over the room. I have many reasons for hating them:

1. Bad miming - Britain's Got Talent (25th May 09), saw the first reprise performance of a previous act and they were it, doing an attrocious Classic FM cover of Led Zepplin's "Kashmir". Seriously, Puff Daddy added more to it when doing his "Come With Me" adaptation.

2. Bad choice of covers - anybody who sees fit to do piss poor covers of Robert Miles' "Children" and Rob Dougan's "Clubbed to Death" which have none of the power of the originals need shooting. With poison darts. Poison darts that will promote a lingering and painful death.

3. Gurning - yes, you're miming badly with a violin and however many faces you pull it doesn't make you sexy, attractive or in the slightest part talented.

4. Success - because Britain is so dumb that this album will probably sell millions. Probably to people who own iPods.

5. Duplicity - have we all forgotten about Bond then?

6. Name - At their first audition, they named themselves as "Scala", thus duplicating the name of the off-beat etheral choral covers group from Belgium, masterminded by the Kolancy Brothers. If you can't even check if your band name has been taken yet, you can't give that much of a shit about what you're doing. I know! I'm going to form a band called Oasis!

So there you go, before buying Escala's album, ensure you buy EVERY other album ever produced because it'll be a more worthwhile use of your time, money and attention span. That includes "My First Album" by Lolly, "Fiesta Macarena" by Los Del Rio and even "Pretty Odd" by Panic at the Disco.

Dumbing Up

A few years ago it was all the rage to accuse any and every media outlet of "dumbing down", a process by which (usually in order to appeal to a larger market) programmes and publications lower their expectations of the knowledge and or capacity for learning of their audience. There is still the odd murmur of such issues on "Points of View" or "The TV Show", but by and large the media has moved on to other issues, normally concerning the marital status of ladies with enhanced breasts.

It wasn't just the populist media that was accused of dumbing down, even the likes of BBC Radio 4 were occasionally accused of insulting their audience with a small number of comedy series which didn't suit the traditional 18:30 audience. A few years down the line, and having heard four of the five current offerings in the (now firmly established) tea-time comedy slot, Radio 4 is not only entertaining, but delightfully engaging.

As this is a Tuesday night, and the only one missing in my knowledge Wednesday's fantasy spoof "Elvenquest", we'll start with Thursday's "Hut 33". This slightly formulaic sitcom is rather traditional recalling a great number of series past, few of which have made a major impact, but having come to the series halfway through without any previous knowledge, the characters are easily picked up and the situations (set around the comings and goings of wartime codebreakers at Bletchley) are gently comic and entertaining. The series certainly beats a number of unintelligible and confusing sitcoms which have appeared and disappeared over recent years.

Friday sees the long standing tradition of "The News Quiz" which continues in the same vein of political and current affairs satire that it has done for several decades. Admittedly the show isn't quite as formalised as it was back in the eighties, but the level of the subject matter tackled is still respectably high. Current popular panelists are reliable performers, with the likes of Andy Hamilton, Frances Wheen and Jeremy Hardy being expertly directed by current chair Sandi Toksvig, who graduated to the head of the table when Simon Hoggart retired.

Across the weekend now to Monday, with "The Museum of Curiosity". This series introduces three guests each week who offer an exhibit to the museum and the guests are certainly an eclectic mixture of comedians, authors, poets, scientists, artists, historians and probably many others i've forgotten. On paper, the show sounds like half an hour of tedium, but the guests speak about their donations to the museum with such infectious enthusiasm and passion that the show exceeds all expectations and works beautifully. The show is presented by the Yin and Yang duo of John Lloyd and Sean Lock, with occasional direction from Bill Bailey who (given his high profile and regard) is rather quiet during the programme. There were some raised eyebrows at the concept of the programme when it was first commissioned and reviewers clearly didn't quite know what to make of it when it first appeared, but it has now found its feet and the key to its success - passionate, knowledgeable contributors able to deliver several entertaining minutes on their subject matter.

Tuesday continues in a similar vein. "Heresy" is now well established as a reliably performing programme which gives educated opposition to received opinion in a gentle everything you think you know is wrong format. Victoria Coren provides a well informed voice of direction in the show formerly chaired by David Baddiel and a panel similarly structured to that of "The Museum of Curiosity", with a slightly stronger bias towards comedians and humourists.

Perhaps i've been listening to Radio 1 too much recently, but the intellectual stimulation provided in the tea time comedy slot on Radio 4 looks to me like a definite move noted by the rather clumsy current slogan "Radio for Curious Minds: BBC Radio 4". Long may the curious minds find their entertainment in this refuge from the gloss and glitter of everyday life.

Bored. Stop now.

Its another collection of single reviews. The title refers to the first review...

Little Boots - New In Town (679/Atlantic)
Laptop pop stops here. The genre is officially five songs old and completely exhausted of ideas. The best idea left is apparently this dire shitbag rehash of Pink's "Feel Good Time" with el generico "we're going out" lyrics, some abysmal electronica (to make it qualify for the Laptop Pop tag) and no imagination whatsoever.

La Roux - In For The Kill / Bulletproof (Polydor)
More Laptop Pop. Sadly, La Roux (Elly Jackson to her friends) has missed the target with both of these songs. Both have promising musical structure and verses, but the sheer triteness of the choruses takes some stomaching; "I'm going in for the kill / I'm doing it for the thrill / I'm hoping you understand / And now let go of my hand" and "This time i'll be bulletproof" (repeat three times). Its a real shame with Bulletproof as the rest of the song is rather good. The cult of shit ultra-repetitive choruses is spreading as well...

Dizzee Rascal & Armand van Helden - Bonkers (TBC)
On paper, this is a superb idea. Rolling off the back of Dizzee's success with Calvin Harris on the respectable "Dance With Me", Dizzee scripts some lyrics over an Armand van Helden tune. On the first listen it works nicely, but it just doesn't stand up to repeated listening. Dizzee has written one verse and a chorus which get repeated over and over and over. And over. It just gets utterly boring and tedious, particularly when in high rotation on Radio 1, Kiss et al. A proper wasted opportunity.

Kasabian - Fire (Paradise/BMG)
Kasabian are a band who have brought us some brilliant songs over their past two albums, but this isn't one of them. Its another case of having lots of ideas, none of them very good and trying to build a song out of them. The whole thing just sounds weak and like album filler.

Beyonce - Halo (RCA)
Another case of shit chorus syndrome, in which Beyonce sings the word "Halo" over and over again until your ears bleed. We know you're a diva with a gigantic range, but for heavens' sake employ some bloody songwriters for your next album!

Ciara & Justin Timberlake - Love, Sex and Magic (BMG)
Sometimes i wonder what i've done wrong in my life to deserve such punishment, particularly when i hear drivel like this. Unlike Ciara's previous few songs which troubled the charts, this has no hook, no redeeming features and no point to its existance. Ciara's performance has seen more processing power than Kanye West did on "Love Lockdown" and Justin Timberlake has been brought on board to sell three extra copies.

Prodigy - Warriors Dance (Take Me To The Hospital)
The best Prodigy single since "No Good (Start The Dance)" and finally a decent song after years of polishing Keith Flint's ego and pretending to be all punk. If anything could have added a bit of rave to the Nu-Rave movement, this single would have been it. Just a shame its two or three years too late.

Girls Aloud - Untouchable (Polydor)
Another Pet Shop Boys rejected b-side, eh? I give Cheryl Cole about three months before she deserts the sinking ship.

Alesha Dixon - Lets Get Excited (Asylum / Atlantic)
Just as the Alesha showboat is moving across Europe with "The Boy Does Nothing", the UK is given this rather calculated single from everybody's favourite dancer. Despite singing "Lets Get Excited" over and over, Alesha doesn't sound particularly excited and the whole thing sounds a bit plastic.

Flo-Rida & Wynter - Sugar (Atlantic)
This song has one redeeming feature - the fact that Eiffel 65 should get royalties from it.

Green Day - Know Your Enemy (Reprise)
Green Day are now sounding like rich old men trying to stay topical, trying to still be punk and failing on both counts. The previous "American Idiot" concept album which explored some interesting territory was at least inventive in deviating away from tedious plastic protest pop, but this sounds like a band very bored, resting on considerable laurels.

So there we have it. I'm very grumpy at the moment, after previously harbouring enthusiasm about some of the music that was doing the rounds over the winter.

Hits & Misses - the Radio 1 specialist show takeover day

Monday 13th April saw Radio 1's second takeover day where presenters from the evening (and in some cases, dead of night) take over a daytime show for the bank holiday. As i listened to most of it, here are a few thoughts.

Zane Lowe (Breakfast 0630-1000, normally Chris Moyles)
Radio 1 are very lucky to have a presenter with the abilities of Zane Lowe. His presentational skills are very adaptable and he demonstrates his versatility by moving from the old "Evening Session" slot into a mainstream breakfast seamlessly. Admittedly, the music choices were a bit wild at times, but Lowe delivers a consistently good and entertaining show with a mix of music more akin to what Radio 1 should be, in my humble opinion. He clearly wasn't daunted by the presence of Davina McCall during the final hour of the show, which would probably phase lesser talents.

Huw Stephens (Morning, 1000-1300, normally Jo Whiley)
Probably the most similar presenter to the normal output, normal indie-phile and Welsh output specialist Stephens produced a competent show with a good mixture of indie and pop including plenty of variety. In a similar vein to my favourite radio presenters, he manages to keep the show moving without being too shouty nor anal. Hundreds of 'yoof' presenters nationwide would do well to take a leaf out of his book. I think Huw Stephens is setting himself up quite neatly in the Steve Lamacq niche of presenting indie in a enthusiastic, but non-elitist way. My only real problem with the show came towards the end with some god awful dirge from Lil Wayne.

Overall, i probably preferred last year's Morning slot takeover from Rob da Bank, but Stephens did a sound job.

Daniel P Carter (Afternoon, 1300-1600, normally Edith Bowman's Film Show)
Alright, it isn't officially Edith Bowman's Film Show, but the persistent movie topics get highly draining if you're not really in to hardcore cinema thrashing. As such, i never have high expectations of this time of the day and given how poor Carter's show was this was probably a good job. Carter normally presents the Rock (or should that be RAAAAAAWWWWWWK) show from midnight til two one night during the week and on paper a daytime show from him should have been great, but sadly it wasn't. Almost all the music was either dire stadium rock standards (what felt like an eternity of AC/DC's "To Those About To Rock" was painful) or Slipknot / Korn style shouty thrash toss. And then to cap it all, he plays bloody Bat for Lashes. Carter's laid-back-or-possibly-horizontal presentational style is fine, but whoever passed the playlist for this show needs shooting. Even Kerrang's DAB station is more accessible than this.

Tim Westwood (Drivetime, 1600-1900, normally Scott Mills)
Westwood is potentially the biggest untapped talent in Radio 1. On the occasion they move him into mainstream hours, his output is hilariously over the top. Perhaps it would get tedious if it happened too often, but in the small doses we get at the moment, Westwood is brilliant. Two or three times, Westwood has co-hosted a show of some description with Scott Mills which should be a disaster on paper, but the two are surprisingly compatible as radio talents. The playlist for the show started off a bit obscure, but included just enough commercial music to keep me tuned in for the most part; Daniel P Carter take note.

Overall, a worthwhile day of broadcasting. I'd be very surprised if the BBC can hold on to Zane Lowe, but given the current climate for commercial broadcasters, his safest bet may well be to stay put. If Andy Parfitt (Controller of R1) could see the light enough to sort out the afternoon show (which has been poor since about 12 months before Colin Murray left) with somebody of the calibre of Zane Lowe or Huw Stephens, they'd be on to a winner. But i suspect that the next round of changes will see Greg James promoted into M-F Daytimes rather than one of the specialist show faithful.

The big question remains: Who will be the next to go?

Moyles remains a hit and is more likely to leave of his own accord rather than get pushed (interestingly, his show ticks almost none of the boxes of what should work on Radio 1, yet gets consistently superb audience figures).

Jo Whiley will eventually end up on 6 Music or presenting music programmes for Channel 4, and may possibly go on bad terms if a reformatting of her show is demanded.

Edith Bowman remains a moderately good presenter in need of a decent raison d'etre for her show - the constant movie thing is a shambles and Bowman overdoes the Luvvying with various actor types to a worrying level. R1 also needs to look at their output during the afternoon school run which is a main time for them to be securing their most desirable demographic of listeners. Yet every afternoon at 1545 we get the terminally shit "My Life in Music", which is even worse than Mark & Lard's Cheesily Cheerful Chart Challenge and at least that was broadcast off-peak. The feature does nothing but alienate the younger audience when some aged standard gets trotted out.

Scott Mills is obviously top choice for the breakfast job when Moyles moves on, but his recent forays into TV have been mostly well received and he is far more of a natural in the visual medium than his breakfast counterpart.

If i were a betting man, my money would be on Bowman being the next to go, but you never can tell in this business...

April's Assorted Anger

Another collection of musical musings. I apologise that i'm not in a good mood at the moment;

Lady Gaga - Poker Face
I'm mystified as to why this record is popular. It seems to be a badly produced half song with an irritating earworm. "Pa pa pa Pokerface. Pa pa pa pahkerface" she sings. Apparently men can't tell whats going on in her mind. Well duh.

TI - Dead and Gone
This is far less irritating that his last record, but i suspect we'll be suffering from it for ages yet as he's now 84% more famous as he's fulfilled one of the rapper cliches, namely being arrested for trying to buy machine guns. Come on, what the hell do you need a machine gun for? To prove your predictions about what'll happen when you're Dead and Gone?

Kings of Leon - Revelry
America's favourite nasal whiners notch up a third album from their "Only by the Night" album. Why on earth this tedious album filler track is picking up mainstream radio play is anyone's guess, the only possible plus side to arise from it is Chris Moyles' parody that is currently doing the rounds.

Akon - Beautiful
Another tedious identikit record from Akon. The only partial interest found around this one is that he's discovered how to make his records sound like slowed down versions of late 90s dance music, which would be fine if it was an instrumental. Instead we're punished with Akon's mithering.

Beyonce - Halo
In which Ms Knowles demonstrates that if somebody forgets to write a song, she'll just sing a few random words and it'll still be a massive hit. With a silent S.

Ciara - Love Sex Magic
America's #1 overpromoted dancer who can't sing has obviously fallen out with her record label and they won't pay for her to have decent songs any more. Love Sex Magic seems to rely on vocal post-production, backing singers and guest vocalists, yet Ciara still sounds awful. And its not even as interesting as the irritating Goodies.

Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
I don't get Fleet Foxes at all. I hear etheral, layered vocal folk music for people with beards and nothing even remotely innovative. Their albums should be released by a Glastonbury based record label who produce organic CDs on hemp discs.

Ironik - Tiny Dancer
The man who soundtracked a thousand chav funerals with his chipmunk vocals in Stay With Me returns with a useless Elton John sample being used to prop up a below average wander around the desert of uninspired rap. Why is he called Ironik? What is remotely Ironik about his music? The fact that he doesn't have a clue what irony is?

And i'm not even going to start of the latest bloody awful and pointless Girls Aloud record. I could almost stomach them when they were making half decent pop, but they just seem to warble along to any old toss now and count the money coming in.

Home isn't where Heart is.

Local Radio has recently undergone another shambolic rebranding with over twenty established, recognised commercial local radio stations being rebranded as "Heart" across the UK. Apparently they're the "better music mix". It must be 1985 again.

Their output is very dull and constant promotions for Lionel Richie and their networked Toby Anstis show (which seem to be the main idents being played on what used to be Orchard in Somerset) don't help.

One of the most notable losses is that of Bristol's GWR, easily the most popular and established ILR in the city. Outside of Bristol, the other parts of the GWR empire have been somewhat less successful, but within the city the (sometimes irritating) pro-Bristolian programming and idents were obviously a winner.

I just can't see people getting excited about a national brand taking over their local stations, particularly as similar rebrandings of grouped radio stations have resulted in abysmal listening figures. If the Heart brand was recognised as a quality broadcaster in locations where they were already active then there might seem to be logic behind this exercise, but i haven't yet heard any positive comments from casual radio listeners about their "new, improved" local commercial broadcaster

Its Grim(shaw) up North. And down South for that matter.

We'll open with something fairly indisputable: Colin Murray is leaving Radio 1 after making the most successful late evening shows since Mark & Lard were broadcasting in the slot over a decade ago. The playlists on Murray's show, along with his entertaining banter have been a highlight of evening broadcasting over the past two or three years, a welcome change from the usual tosh of "late night love", simulcasted commercial radio and the more esoteric end of the Radio 2 spectrum. It really comes across that Murray loves the music he plays and i don't think the show will quite be the same when he leaves.

Five Live's gain will certainly be Radio 1's loss. What is particularly sad is that Murray's replacement is an egocentric fashionista "it boy" who has greased his way from being a tea boy and street shouter for a Manchester ILR to apparently being first choice for any free airtime on Radio 1. Having made Weekend Breakfast unlistenable, he is now moving on to late evening Mon-Thur to make that impossible to comprehend by anybody over the age of twelve. Apparently, Grimshaw's biggest claim to fame is that he's had an argument with The Ting Tings. Bless.

Its not as if all younger DJs on the station are patently awful - Greg James is somewhat erratic on air, but is generally improving. Grimshaw just sounds like a Nathan Barley character whose presence is only there to irritate those outside of his circle of celeb mates.

Of course, there is likely to be yet another shuffle of weekends to accompany this as it has been confirmed he will be relinquishing his reign of terror over weekend breakfast, but with Radio 1 facing another DLT & Simon Bates moment, it makes me wonder who on earth they're going to drag up to replace him.

Sara Cox is an expensive liability for the station whom Andy Parfitt (head of R1) thinks needs more airtime to justify her presence, but the Sunday morning Lie-In show has been dire since she took over. She's just too shouty and tedious for the slot, quite unlike the affable duo she succeeded (see the Good Radio entry below).

Annie Mac may get more work as a result of being friends with Grimshaw, but we've really got to hope not - the Friday night "Mash-Up" show is an embarassment. If it was really all about "MASHIN' DA MUSIC UP" as we're shouted at in every trail and ident, we'd hear some dubstep, followed by Vivaldi, neatly segued into Falco.

Ultimately, the problem as i see it is that Andy Parfitt has no idea of what to do with weekends. Nihal (who is highly erratic but occasionally brilliant) keeps getting bounced around the weekend schedule, as do the trite airfluff pairing of Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yeates and it'll probably happen again in May but lets just pray that this time we finally get somebody worthwhile for weekend breakfast.

Rise of the bland

It is a truth universally acknowledged that we live in an age where the vacant and colourless will triumph massively over anything that might upset somebody. That is why Coldplay are so famous. But now, just in case you find Miley Cyrus a bit too edgy for your liking, there is a new act making records so bland that you'd be better off cutting discs of wallpaper out and putting them in your CD player (or on to your record deck if you're hardcore)*.

Ladies and Gentlemen, today's "what the chuff" moment on the radio was at the playing of "Love Story" by Taylor Swift. Imagine all the blandest, most tedious warblings of every bad AOR album track of the past twenty years being condensed down into one vile little turd pellet. Imagine the likes of the BBC local radio playlist for inane records electing a president. Imagine... actually, don't because this is one of the worst records ever.

The first rule when this song comes on the radio is to turn it off. If that isn't possible, then whatever you do, don't try and listen to the lyrics of the verses. There are already hospital wards filling up with comatose patients and the NHS can't take any more. Next, try to find something to bite on before you hear the "You be the prince and i'll be the princess" refrain which gets repeated often enough to apparently be the chorus, although the whole song mushes into one horrible puddle, so its impossible to be sure. And of course, always have your sick bucket on standby throughout.

I think what irritates me the most is that i expect America to be taken in by this shit, but it normally crashes and burns without a trace in the UK - see our refusal to accept Hootie and the Blowfish and a myriad of other tedious daytime radio acts if you don't believe me. Why is this suddenly flavour of the month in the UK? Who is buying it? Are there really some people who took their Coldplay CD back to Tesco** and asked for a refund because it was a bit racey?

Great Britain is quite capable of making its own inane, pissweak pop. We don't need to import it.

* - I know. They'll have bought it off ShI-Tunes and have it on their overpriced fashion victim wankpod.
** - Yes, Tesco. Nobody has ever bought any of the last three Coldplay albums from a proper record shop.

Silent Night

The Great British music industry has a reputation for taking a "quiet time" during the first few months of the year. In reality, it varies quite a bit. Some years are deathly quiet until May, whilst others have a burbling scene still going on from New Year. 2009 seems to be falling somewhere in the middle; there are some songs hanging around on playlists and download lists for people with no imagination - you know the sort, they're still paying to download "Run" by Leona Lewis. Honestly. Why would you do such a thing?

Anyway, in the chart with a bullet (we can only hope) at the moment are some of the following acts...

Eminem ft Dr Dre & Fiddly Tent - Crack A Bottle.
This song is conclusive proof that Eminem should take more time off as he's clearly not ready to come back. This boring, repetitive and overlong track burbles on for what seems like an eternity and Marshall's lyrics are the blandest they've ever been. Love or hate Eminem, his previous work has always been interesting, but this is just wallpaper. It wouldn't have been an album track on his previous releases. The inclusion of Dre is a partial bonus, but even his input fails to save it and the inclusion of lumbering goon 50 Cent is just painful.

Shontelle - T-Shirt
Really. You don't spell "Chantelle" like that. Ever. Even if you're a 14 year old mother with zero education and nobody to give you a sensible idea of how to spell your child's name. Aside from the stupid name, the record is a karaoke version of Jordin Sparks' "Tattoo" with horrendous materialistic lyrics about how Shunt is "sick of her dress and Jimmy Choos". Just to make it even worse, she's apparently the new Rihanna.

Katy Perry - Hot & Cold
Don't get me wrong, i quite like Katy Perry's off-beat spunky approach to pop, but the blanket coverage of every playlist in the country soon makes you sick of anything and this is one song which is suffering from massive over-exposure. Along with about a dozen other records, this is something that needs to be dropped from playlists right now and allowed to rest.

Chase & Status ft Kano - Against All Odds
Thankfully not a drum and bass cover version of Phil Collins, Chase & Status' hyperactive commercial D&B benefits from some excellent, well paced wordplay from Kano. Perviously i haven't found either act particularly enthralling, but this vaguely biographical track is inventive and far more interesting than Eminem's latest outpouring. If D&B and British Hip Hop can be happy bedfellows and the result this listenable then i'm all for it. Anything to free us from the American mass-produced dirge that our airwaves so often suffer from.

Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You
My life sucks every time i hear this record, but i'm not complaining about it.

The Ting Tings - We Walk
It doesn't matter if you re-record a track from your atrocious and rushed album, the song still sucks big monkey balls. The first three singles were the only thing worth listening to on their album and trying to flog it for as many singles this is just taking the piss.

And now, some things that you probably won't hear on the radio:

A-Brand - The Bubbles
They're Belgian, so thats a good start. You're unlikely to hear this record anywhere on British radio, but it is utter brilliance. It starts slowly and builds over four minutes to a crescendo the likes of which just don't seem to be fashionable in the UK at the moment, which is a shame because electronic powerpop is supposed to be all the rage. If they were fronted by a 20 year old girl with blonde hair, the music press would be pissing themselves with excitement, but i doubt it would sound as good.

Kate Nash - Don't You Want To Share The Guilt
This is actually a b-side to one of the 7" singles of Nash's final offering from her debut album, Made of Bricks and by the look of YouTube is a favourite live song. I don't think i've ever heard anyone so brilliantly try to paint a picture of the mental state of somebody trying not to think about the state a failing relationship and Nash's trail-of-thought lyrics are often beautiful and tearjerking at the same time. I just hope that Nash is working on developing her distinctive sound and flow over pressures to make a commercially successful second album with all the cliches that a lot of modern pop suffers from.

Listen Carefully.

Despite my eternal grumpiness, not everything is terrible. Despite having hands tied behind their backs, many radio stations continue to entertain me. Here is my guide to what to listen to at the moment.

BBC Radio 1 - The Lie-In with Chappers & Dave (Sundays 10h-13h)

For what most be the least hyped radio show ever, Mark "Chappers" Chapman and "Comedy" Dave Vitty (sidekicks to Scott Mills and Chris Moyles respectively) have found an excellent conduit for their talents on Sunday mornings. The format of the Lie-In show has been the same for some years, two hours of "classic" music from the past 15-20 years, followed by an hour back on the main playlists at midday. This suits Chappers and Dave perfectly, as they sound as if they're really enjoying themselves most of the time and their gentle self-deprocating humour is infectious and uplifting. The show doesn't feel like the overproduced and prerecorded (or pre-programmed) guff that many stations feel forced to shove out on weekends.

The benefit of being on air on a Sunday morning is that broadcasters won't be desperately chasing ratings and the show can be more relaxed. Sadly it looks as if Chappers & Dave will be replaced by Sara Cox when her current tenure as maternity leave for Jo Whiley comes to an end which will make Sunday mornings unlistenable, so enjoy radio’s smallest egos while you can because radio doesn't get much better than this.

BBC Radio 1 - The Chris Moyles Show (Mon-Fri 6h30-10h)

Ignore all the abuse that gets hurled at Moyles by practically the entire mainstream media, the Radio 1 Breakfast show is in good shape. Moyles is a headstrong personality who can be quite offensive if you don’t take the show as being produced with the tongue-in-cheek nature with which it is. Much gets made on the Digital Spy forums of how little music is played, but as you have the rest of the day to hear the Radio 1 A-playlist three or four times over, why do you need to hear it while you’re waking up as well? I’m quite happy to be entertained in the morning and Moyles does a sterling job of this.

The features on the breakfast show are very strong, with regulars such as the Monday Night Pub Quiz (on a Tuesday morning) and Friday’s Golden Hour being superb radio. New daily quiz feature (featuring a pre-taped Keith Chegwin) Cheggers Pop Quiz is one of the most instantly familiar features introduced on Radio 1 over recent years. There has also been careful attention paid to the new jingle packages, which have subtle and not-so-subtle jokes running through them, a particular favourite of mine being the intro for Comedy Dave’s tedious link, in which the jingle singer spends most of his time singing “Dave’s tedious!”.

Given how much effort has been put into refreshing the presentation of the show and the preparation the new Pop Quiz feature must take (considering the content of the intro, questions and clips), it should hopefully put to bed any snide accusations that Moyles and his team of being lazy broadcasters resting on their laurels to bed.

BBC Radio Bristol & BBC Somerset – Steve Yabsley (Mon-Fri 12h-14h)

Steve Yabsley has been working for Radio Bristol for as long as I’ve been a listener conscious of what i’m listening to. His Saturday morning show (for a period with Chris Morris) was a brilliant listen, with a superb collection of madcap sketches, lightning quick quips and puns, and a seemingly endless collection of odd and banal phone-in topics. His star always seemed to shine very brightly to me, in contrast with much of the wallpaper which is passed as BBC local radio.

Yabsley has since moved to weekday lunchtimes, to start with co-hosting with a female presenter and a severely toned-down sense of humour, in keeping with a more mainstream timeslot. Quite by chance during November 2008, I found myself driving a coach with a radio which would seemingly only receive Radio Bristol and BBC Cymru and made the delightful discovery that Yabsley had been properly unleashed back on to the airwaves, offering the same high spirited humour that had formerly been part of his Saturday morning show but now five days a week.

Having listened to the show several times since that happy rediscovery, the quality control is kept very high. Yabsley clearly puts in a lot of effort into sketching out the antics of the week and the show benefits from being consistently well put together, including the contributions from several regular listeners. Steve Yabsley deserves a much wider stage for his brilliant, broadly appealing humour, but given that he hasn’t received one in the past two decades, a youth-obsessed media is unlikely to give this consistently excellent broadcaster the huge audience he should be getting.

Studio Brussel (Entire station output)

The other entries listed here have been for particular shows, but if I was left with one radio station, it would probably be the delightful Flemish music broadcaster Studio Brussel, or StuBru to its friends. It probably shouldn’t be of any interest to anybody outside Vlaanderen (Flemish Belgium), but StuBru delivers the eclectic playlist that is completely lacking on any British station.

Broadly, the station plays a mixture of accessible indie, electronic and leftfield music, staying away from the inanity of standard pop playlists. Unlike most stations broadcasting current music, the variety of music has to be heard to be believed, mixing the likes of current indie bands, film soundtracks, new wave, Britpop, homegrown Belgian pop, folk, acoustic pop, alternative classics and Simple Minds. Nothing else i’ve ever heard even comes close to StuBru in terms of musical variety and that’s what makes it such a good listen. Even carrying advertising, StuBru still manages to do this subtly, usually having 2-3 minutes of adverts before news bulletins around the hour, something many British commercial stations could learn massively from.

I should also mention the commercial arm of the station, which compiles various compilation CDs, the highlight of which is the superb Switch series (not to be confused with the BBC’s ill advised yoof strand). Friday and Saturday nights on StuBru are given over to electronic, leftfield and experimental sounds under the Switch banner. For those of us who struggle to stay awake until 4am, compilation CDs are helpfully released every six months of so with the highlights of recent releases. Even with the pound being so weak against the Euro at the moment, they’re still essential purchases.


Honourable mentions:

BBC Radio 4 – Old Harry’s Game (Currently off-air)

Andy Hamilton’s brilliant story of the afterlife, set primarily in Hell is an absolute stormer with strong characters playing out excellently constructed storylines. It is also very funny, with many topical jokes being included throughout. Standout performances include Hamilton himself as Satan, Jimmy Mulville as the repugnant Thomas Crimp and Robert Duncan as Satan’s right-hand Demon, Scumspawn. The series was in danger of losing momentum when James Grout left the series (due to ill health), but series 6 was reassuringly back on form, establishing Annette Crosbie as new arrival Edith in a comfortably familiar role to that of Grout’s Proffessor Richard Wittingham.

BBC Five Live – Fighting Talk (Saturdays 11h-12h)

Colin Murray presides over this weekly peacock-like display of sports punditry one-upmanship, formerly hosted by Johnny Vaughan and Christian o’Connell. The format is simple – Murray introduces a number of topics on which the four pundits have to offer opinions avoiding the usual traps of clichés and easy answers to gain points. Even for somebody like me who doesn’t have a huge interest in sport, the show is consistently entertaining and very funny.

BBC Radio 1 – Scott Mills (Mon-Fri 16h-19h)

Scott Mills took over the ‘drivetime’ slot when Chris Moyles moved to breakfast five years ago and has developed a well organised and reliably entertaining show. In line with many shows I’m a fan of, the preparation for each show must be immense, with several topics being raised during the course of a normal show and the likes of the comic guessing game “Oh, Whats Occuring?”.

BBC Radio 1 – Zane Lowe (Mon-Thu 19h-21h)

Zane Lowe’s unstoppable enthusiasm knows no bounds. When the rest of us are winding down for the day, Lowe is just getting started on his Duracell-bunny-on-Red-Bull version of the old Evening Session show. Considering how few of the DJs on Radio 1 seem to have any genuine passion for music these days, Lowe is consistently enthusing over new music, a depressingly small quantity of which makes it over on to the main playlists, which are apparently reserved for tedious mass-produced American acts.

GWR Bristol – Bush & Troy (Mon-Fri Breakfast)
Kiss 101 – Matt & Caroline (Mon-Fri Breakfast)
Sadly, all of Bristol’s radio talent seems to be on air at the same time. Both GWR’s Bush & Troy and the Kiss breakfast gang headed by Matt & Caroline are entertaining acts offering great morning radio. The only downside to both shows in my opinion is the huge quantities of advertising material both stations broadcast which, in these days of reduced revenue from commercials, never seems to get any smaller, unlike the pool of advertisers who are paying for their 30 seconds of fame every five minutes. I appreciate that breakfast is the biggest paying time of the day, but the proliferation of adverts distracts from what are otherwise two entertaining radio shows.

Boring Girl Gone Irritating

The season of tedious back-slapping awards ceremonies for film is upon us and as usual i'm not excited. I've only seen one film which has been nominated for any awards and most of the ones that have been nominated really don't excite me, much like the annual music award festivities which are just as dull, celebrating braindead mainstream toss.

This year, the awards celebrating the achievements of the past twelve months are probably all going to be about Rihanna and her dire album "Good Girl Gone Bad". There have been so many singles milked off this album that i've lost count and yet the airplay they are blindly awarded by British radio stations is bewildering, particularly as her turgid, nasal whine isn't even a pleasant experience to listen to.

I'll admit that playground nursery rhyme anthem "Umbrella" was a well constructed pop song, and get that out of the way. Follow up "Shut Up and Drive" was entirely tedium-by-numbers, using paper thin innuendo in an attempt to stimulate the automotive industry. Fellow R&B boredom merchant Ne-Yo was drafted in to warble on "Hate That I Love You", which nobody would be able to sing now, despite it being thrashed for months by every commercial radio station in the country.

"Don't Stop The Music" was the fourth single to be lifted from the album, i presume an ironic preview of the following year of musical misery. This was followed by the mocking ballad "Take A Bow" and utter dross festival "Disturbia", a song which basically eschews any need for song writing for the most part by replacing lyrics with "Bam-bam-de-dam-bam-bam-de-baaam-bam". Its enough to make you want to punch babies. Seventh and please-God-let-it-be-Final release from the album was "Rehab", where Rihanna doesn't wanna smoke on dem cigarettes no mo-o-ooore", a rewrite of album filler track "Breakin' Dishes".

So in total, eighteen months of a-list radio airplay derived from one thrice released and repackaged album. If that wasn't bad enough, we had to have another dose of Rihanna's grating vocals as she guested on rapper T.I's comedy cover version of O-Zone's "Dragostea Din Tei", now retitled "Live Your Life". Complete with ao-ao-ao refrain and rewriting of O-Zone's original Euro-friendly "ma-i-a-hiiii" to warble on about "fancy cars", just to prove that the American black music industry can't make a mainstream record that isn't materialistic and completely bling based.

TI and Rihanna's donation to future landfill has got to be musical hell. The only possible saving grace of this tripe is the hilarious comedy verse about two thirds of the way through the song where Rihanna tries to rap, which is so bad i almost soiled myself the first time i heard it. Its almost worth listening to the song all the way through once just to hear it.

So there you have it, Rihanna is awful. End of story. Lets hope that 2009 finds a new act that the mainstream radio stations of the UK can wet their pants over every time they belch.