It was never supposed to be like this. I'm sure i was all optimistic and positive about every new some i heard once. Must have been a very long time ago...
Katy B - Katy on a Mission
Hoo~fucking~ray. The British Urban scene has finally disappeared up its own arse with the most pathetically named artist ever, who has made a pissweak cover version of the dubstep/drum and bass remix of La Roux's In For The Kill. Its got all that etheral sound about it which makes people like Fearne Cotton use words like "goosebumps" and "deep". Utter crap.
Eminem and Rhianna - Love The Way You Lie
No, wait! I know what you're all thinking, but I can find something positive to say about this record: The imagery of Rhianna being burned to death is a welcome break from Eminem's uninspired and repetitive rap.
Brandon Flowers - Crossfire
Oh joy. What with The Killers having recorded all four of their good songs and being completely bankrupt in terms of new ideas, indie's Mr Standoffish has decided to record a solo album. This lead out single is like Human, but without the stupid chorus. I've heard Val Doonican and Perry Como make more interesting and edgy music.
Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
Mrs Russell Brand is becoming very slimy in her recent material. What with the filthy California Girls video and now this rather uneasy song encouraging teenagers to get out there and get shaggin', i'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that she can't make music about anything else.
Rhianna - Hard
I actually had to look up what this was called, seeing as most of the song is just that tribal "ay-e-yay-o-ay-e-yay-ay-ay" that all black music writers turn to when they can't be bothered to write any proper lyrics. It sounds like the even more tedious b-side to the equally dismal dirge Rude Boy.
Roll Deep - Green Light
No, seriously. Fuck off now you tedious chav pricks. ANY record that has the nerve to use lines like "Look at the skirt on that" can fuck off to the pits of hell without passing go (but sadly collecting far more than £200). What sort of fucking pond scum level human detritus buys music like this?!?
Aggro Santos - Saint or Sinner
Speaking of nasty chavs, its our old friend Mr Santos, whom (just like his last record) is still sat in a sticky corner of some dive of a club looking at girls dancing with a couple of rohypnol in his sweaty hands. Its a shame because ignore Santos' slimy rhymes and you've got quite a good rave track being ripped off in the background.
So then. Perhaps i should stop doing these reviews. I get the feeling sometimes that i don't have anything positive to say, but its not like that really. I'm just turning into a grumpy old man who doesn't get all this current wave of bad British street music. Perhaps the problem is that any idiot can download a copy of FruityLoops from Rapidshare and start calling themselves an artist. Particularly if they can get one of their mates to do a few slimy rhymes over the top about how he's gonna find himself some skirt. Clubbing and partying should be about music, not the other way around.
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Saturday 28 August 2010
Jopijedd's Radio Memoirs
This is possibly part one of a dynamic mini series (like American TV used to make in the late 80s), possibly not. Depends how carried away i get with it, i suppose. The premise is that i'm going to go for a wander through my memories of radio.
I've got vague memories of BBC Radio Bristol all the way back to my early childhood. The likes of Roger Bennett and John Turner over breakfast and during the morning were probably the first radio shows that i expressed a preference in. Through the eighties, the playlist on Radio Bristol was probably a bit edgier than it is now, featuring more chart music than the station currently carries. Admittedly, the top 40 was probably a lot safer in general than it is now, but even so the station felt more on the pulse in those days. You also had a wide variety of specialist music programmes, one in particular which sits in my mind was the Sunday afternoon offering with Tristan B offering various black and dance music. The closest you have to anything like that now are the BBC Introducing programmes which go out in the dead of the night, which are all part of the bigger BBC Introducing strand which runs nationwide.
Other memorable early listening experiences included The Top 40 on Radio 1 with Bruno Brookes (which was simulcast on Bristol's FM frequency at the time as R1 was MW only at the time), Radio 2's Pick of the Pops (with Alan Freeman) and other local radio programming such as Steve Yabsley's legendary Saturday morning show, but more of that later.
On a family holiday to Cornwall, i was treated to my first radio cassette recorder which lived conveniently on a shelf at the end of my bed for many, many years. From that time, i would generally wake up and listen to the radio in bed, particularly Radio 1 as they had now started broadcasting in the glorious FM stereo. The first breakfast show presenter i remember on Radio 1 was Mike Smith, who was coming towards the end of his tenure as i started listening. It becomes very easy in times like these (where the workings of a radio station are far more displayed and talked about) to forget that back in those days that we didn't get months of warning when schedules were due to change, so it came as something to a surprise to me when Simon Mayo popped up and the format of the show changed. But not all surprises are nasty ones and i soon settled down to Mayo's warm presenting style with newscaster Rod McKenzie and weather reporter Sybill Ruscoe (who was later replaced by Diane Oxenberry) acting as sidekicks in a similar manner to the way that Dominic Byrne and Tina Daheley are foils to Chris Moyles on the current breakfast show.
Of course being a scholar at the time, the main times i heard the radio were during the breakfast show and later on through the afternoon with Steve Wright, whom i found entertaining as an 11 year old, but now enjoy considerably less. I think this might be down to the fact that he's still effectively doing very similar material to the same format over twenty years later. What i used to find particularly frustrating was the reliance upon the Bank Holiday Monday stalwart "Best of the Guests" programming in which tedious celebrities were dragged out for Wright to fawn over. In truth, they'd have been miles better off just getting one of the station's junior DJs in to play some damned music. In terms of the time it must have taken to edit the interview material together, it'd probably have been cheaper as well.
During the early 90s commercial radio began to play a more important role in the West. GWR had been steadily gaining momentum over the past few years to a point where it was well established, particularly in the urban areas. New upstart Galaxy had also come along, offering a younger and fresher range of programming and music than otherwise offered by local stations. Radio 1 on FM in the Mendips was (and still is to this day) very patchy, mainly on account of not having a local transmitter and relying upon the transmission from Wenvoe in South Wales.
The other great revolution of the early 90s was the revelation of the Radio 1 comedy slot, which i only came to know during the later part of its run. The Chris Morris Music Show (of which i taped every episode off air, having borrowed tapes of On The Hour from a friend at school and decided that i was a fan of Morris) was a staple of my Wednesday evenings during 1994.
If i'm honest, my specific memories of the more mainstream radio from this 91-96 period start to get a bit woollier for a few years. I didn't have a great following for any show in particular and i don't think anything on the daytime spectrum really piqued my imagination. I didn't think much of the Radio 1 daytime presenters of the likes of Simon Bates, Emma Freud, Lisa I'Anson and Nicky Campbell and anybody broadcasting at the time on ILR was pretty much interchangeable with the next presenter. I had taken far more to making my own mixtapes (a habit which continues to this day) and sourcing my own playlists mostly from the bottom of the bargain bins of our numerous local record shops.
This seems a sensible juncture to leave it for now. Partially as a preview (and partially as an aide memoire for myself), part two will concern MTV Europe and the massive influence it had over my future listening habits; Viva Northern Europe; Computers and Radio 4; What i missed from 1996-9 and Listening to GWR on the 18. Even later on, we'll get on to Taping the Dark Lord; Conversion to Radio 2; Conversion back to Radio 1; the birth of my obsession with radio and my current listening habits.
I've got vague memories of BBC Radio Bristol all the way back to my early childhood. The likes of Roger Bennett and John Turner over breakfast and during the morning were probably the first radio shows that i expressed a preference in. Through the eighties, the playlist on Radio Bristol was probably a bit edgier than it is now, featuring more chart music than the station currently carries. Admittedly, the top 40 was probably a lot safer in general than it is now, but even so the station felt more on the pulse in those days. You also had a wide variety of specialist music programmes, one in particular which sits in my mind was the Sunday afternoon offering with Tristan B offering various black and dance music. The closest you have to anything like that now are the BBC Introducing programmes which go out in the dead of the night, which are all part of the bigger BBC Introducing strand which runs nationwide.
Other memorable early listening experiences included The Top 40 on Radio 1 with Bruno Brookes (which was simulcast on Bristol's FM frequency at the time as R1 was MW only at the time), Radio 2's Pick of the Pops (with Alan Freeman) and other local radio programming such as Steve Yabsley's legendary Saturday morning show, but more of that later.
On a family holiday to Cornwall, i was treated to my first radio cassette recorder which lived conveniently on a shelf at the end of my bed for many, many years. From that time, i would generally wake up and listen to the radio in bed, particularly Radio 1 as they had now started broadcasting in the glorious FM stereo. The first breakfast show presenter i remember on Radio 1 was Mike Smith, who was coming towards the end of his tenure as i started listening. It becomes very easy in times like these (where the workings of a radio station are far more displayed and talked about) to forget that back in those days that we didn't get months of warning when schedules were due to change, so it came as something to a surprise to me when Simon Mayo popped up and the format of the show changed. But not all surprises are nasty ones and i soon settled down to Mayo's warm presenting style with newscaster Rod McKenzie and weather reporter Sybill Ruscoe (who was later replaced by Diane Oxenberry) acting as sidekicks in a similar manner to the way that Dominic Byrne and Tina Daheley are foils to Chris Moyles on the current breakfast show.
Of course being a scholar at the time, the main times i heard the radio were during the breakfast show and later on through the afternoon with Steve Wright, whom i found entertaining as an 11 year old, but now enjoy considerably less. I think this might be down to the fact that he's still effectively doing very similar material to the same format over twenty years later. What i used to find particularly frustrating was the reliance upon the Bank Holiday Monday stalwart "Best of the Guests" programming in which tedious celebrities were dragged out for Wright to fawn over. In truth, they'd have been miles better off just getting one of the station's junior DJs in to play some damned music. In terms of the time it must have taken to edit the interview material together, it'd probably have been cheaper as well.
During the early 90s commercial radio began to play a more important role in the West. GWR had been steadily gaining momentum over the past few years to a point where it was well established, particularly in the urban areas. New upstart Galaxy had also come along, offering a younger and fresher range of programming and music than otherwise offered by local stations. Radio 1 on FM in the Mendips was (and still is to this day) very patchy, mainly on account of not having a local transmitter and relying upon the transmission from Wenvoe in South Wales.
The other great revolution of the early 90s was the revelation of the Radio 1 comedy slot, which i only came to know during the later part of its run. The Chris Morris Music Show (of which i taped every episode off air, having borrowed tapes of On The Hour from a friend at school and decided that i was a fan of Morris) was a staple of my Wednesday evenings during 1994.
If i'm honest, my specific memories of the more mainstream radio from this 91-96 period start to get a bit woollier for a few years. I didn't have a great following for any show in particular and i don't think anything on the daytime spectrum really piqued my imagination. I didn't think much of the Radio 1 daytime presenters of the likes of Simon Bates, Emma Freud, Lisa I'Anson and Nicky Campbell and anybody broadcasting at the time on ILR was pretty much interchangeable with the next presenter. I had taken far more to making my own mixtapes (a habit which continues to this day) and sourcing my own playlists mostly from the bottom of the bargain bins of our numerous local record shops.
This seems a sensible juncture to leave it for now. Partially as a preview (and partially as an aide memoire for myself), part two will concern MTV Europe and the massive influence it had over my future listening habits; Viva Northern Europe; Computers and Radio 4; What i missed from 1996-9 and Listening to GWR on the 18. Even later on, we'll get on to Taping the Dark Lord; Conversion to Radio 2; Conversion back to Radio 1; the birth of my obsession with radio and my current listening habits.
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