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.
Saturday 31 October 2009
Thursday 15 October 2009
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.
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.
Thursday 1 October 2009
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.
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.
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