Radio for people who hate thinking for themselves

Don't get me wrong, there have been some marvellous pop songs over the years. The problem i have with one particular broadcaster is that they only have a playlist of fifty of them.

Global Radio's "Hot Adult Contemporary" broadcasting arm is commonly known as Heart. One of their gormless slogans is "More Music Variety", which i think is supposed to be ironic. Sadly my workplace has certain areas where Heart can be heard 24/7 which means whenever you need to hear a song by Adele, you can always do it. If its not Adele, it is Kelly Clarkson's current carbon copy of Bruno Mars' "Just The Way You Are" (a Heart staple last year) which is titled "Mr Know-it-all". And if not that, Christina Perri and her wailing "Jar of Farts".

I lost it today during the barrel-scrapingly awful "Time Tunnel" guess-the-year feature, pioneered by Noel Edmonds and Simon Bates on Radio 1 and now copied by every creativity free ILR station in the country. The same six safe, tedious records from each year get trotted out each time. Perhaps it'll be George Michael's "Careless Whisper". Maybe we'll be treated to "Finally" by CeCe Peniston. Or how about another spin of Giorgio Moroder's "Together in Electric Dreams" with Phil Oakey out of off of the Human League. On their own, some of these records are bearable, but I just cannot percieve a point in my life where i would ever want to listen to such a boringly thin playlist. The output of Heart genuinely makes Radio 2's music selection seem edgy and challenging.

Then i start ranting, sometimes even out loud. I'll often comment that "Heart is radio for people who hate music", which i firmly stand by and nobody ever challenges me. It just seems to exist as a conduit for beige audio wallpaper, occasionally punctuated by Toby Anstis plugging some shithouse of a quiz where you have to guess the celebrity talking. You know, like EVERY other ILR has done since time immemorial. And of course the commercials, for the same eight products and services that the commercial department have convinced the managers thereof to purchase airtime.

Heart provides nothing to British radio. They've swallowed up over a dozen locally managed stations, some of which were better than others but they all had an identity that people in the region could understand and relate to. In their place they have provided a tedious, repetitive parade of weak features, repetitive commercials and bland presenters for people who have tedious, repetitive lives that they just want to get over as quickly as possible. So maybe i was wrong about Heart being for people who hate music; perhaps they hate life entirely.

Creative Excellency

So what do i actually rate at the moment? Well, i've been shopping recently and bought heaps of albums and compilations. Here are some highlights:

Chromeo - "Don't Turn On The Lights" (Aeroplane Remix) is a marvellous slice of deep dish disco.
A Brand - "For Blood" is the first track on their "Future You" album which is dark, broody and hooky arthouse indie pop.
C-Mon & Kypski have released a best-of album, "From Scratch til the Fat Lady Sings" which is a great collection of funky hip hop beats that'll probably get ripped off by every talentless R&B tosser over the next five years.
Das Pop's album of last year "The Game" isn't as immediately accessible as their preceeding eponymous album, but they have demonstrated a development of their wonky pop sound to include new influences, notably the late 70s transitional period of rock music. Standout tracks are "Skip The Rope" and "I Me Mine".
School is Cool have just released their debut album "Entropology", which adds energy to the wave of new tech savvy guitar bands threatening to break through with strong traditional songwriting.
Whilst i'm not a huge fan of all of the work of Skrillex, the track "Bangarang" is excellent being free from the po-faced twattery demonstrated on "Breakin' A Sweat".
Just to prove that all hip hop doesn't have to be a pale rip off of somebody else's work, Undefined's album "Crimes Against Logic" shows a talent for constructing classic rap tracks that is rarely demonstrated these days. The opening title track is particularly excellent.
M83's dreamy marvel "Midnight City" is a sweet wall of classic pop sounds.
A couple of top finds on Studio Brussel's excellent Switch compilations are twisted marvels "Handbraekes" by Riho, which is a lively, rhythmic collection of tortured bleeps and abstract effects and "Tetris" by Doctor P, a cover of the music from the Nintendo GameBoy given a hilarious speed Dubstep makeover.

So who says i'm not positive every so often...?

Creative Bankruptcy

Nobody wants to admit it, but some of the world's biggest artists are completely creatively spent and they're fully aware of their predicament. How do they rectify this? By ripping off underground and foreign artists hook, line, sinker and copy of Angling Times.

Until recently, i hadn't been aware of the Major Lazer tech-dancehall track "Pon de Floor", but i guarantee that 95% plus of the people who hear it would say it was Beyonce's 2011 hit "Run The World (Girls)". Producers Switch and Diplo collaborated with Vybz Kartel on the track in 2009 and it was a high profile hit on the dancehall scene, although attracted little in the way of mainstream attention.

Now i'm fully aware that sampling is an accepted part of the modern music industry and some really inventive cover-remix hybrid tracks have been produced over the past decade, but Beyonce's wholesale theft of the Major Lazer track is shameful, especially as she couldn't add anything aside from her asinine, rhythmless warbling vocal. Total effort made? A couple of hours at most. The only saving grace is that Beyonce's version was re-produced by Switch and Diplo.

But this new age of plagiarism isn't just an American phenomenon. Ben "Plan B" Drew recently started airing "Ill Manors", the first musical offering from his forthcoming film of the same name. To say it is not an original composition would be an understatement - the music on the track is lifted wholesale from Peter Fox's 2008 German language hit "Alles Neu" (Everything is New). Fox first found mainstream success as part of dancehall act Seeed, then moving on to record his own massively successful solo album "Stadtaffe" (City Ape).

Drew has added little to the original instrumental save for some crappy broken dubstep beats. The lyrics are far more inventive than Beyonce managed, harking back to Drew's pre-Stickland Banks rap album "Who Needs Actions When You Got Words", but to anybody who knows Peter Fox's broodier and far more menacing original, the words don't matter because its a pale immitation of a great original.

It comes as a sad day when the likes of Nicki Minaj and her ADHD lyric style over some weak sampling of early 90s european hardcore dance isn't as repugnant as it should be. Her latest single "Starships" is just one long collection of disjointed sounds and a complete mess. It'll probably be a huge success.