22 November 2010

I’m struggling… It’s now 6 months ago that fag smoke last passed through my lips and I still want to light up as soon as my fingers hit the computer keyboard. I’m now convinced that smoking is one of the most addictive habits and its various chemicals lodge themselves in one’s body for a very long time. I went cold turkey and I can now understand why nicotine replacement treatments are so popular. I smoked for many years and it looks like my craving for a fag is set to also last a while yet.

First it was called Pop Idol before Simon C got his hands on it and called it X-Factor. Then in 2010 X-Factor changed its name to FLOG IT! Yup, that’s what this show is all about, whether is paving the way for contestants (winners and losers) to get ‘instant hits’ when they depart or signed acts releasing new albums/singles. So far it’s been a sellfest with no less than three male groups in last week’s show flogging their imminent releases. And we lap it all up as if our lives depended on it. Cheryl’s had her tit in the till as usual with an impeccable miming display. Then there’s the programme’s press office feeding tit-bits of gossip to hungry tabloids and celeb mags - is it any wonder that certain newsworthy artists seem set in concrete and unmoveable? It’s just sell, sell, sell - judges, guests, competitors, makeover and coaching peeps - the last thing it now is an honest-to-goodness talent show…

Heard of Emma’s Imagination (Emma Gillespie)? She’s the wonderful Scottish singer/songwriter who won the Sky It Must Be The Music talent show. I understand that Emma is in the studio finishing off her debut album, however, I have been trying to obtain some music to play on our radio show and ended up writing to her on MySpace, with no response! If you’re out there Emma here’s a message for you: COMMUNICATE!

I’m gonna get my hearing checked again. Matt Cardle’s absolutely murdered a great song (’The Last Time I Saw Your Face’) on Factor but was hailed for his performance. Then Fearne Cotton on Radio 1 said that Ellie Goulding’s version of ‘Sweet Disposition’ on the station’s Live Lounge was “beautiful.” For me it was one of the worst things I’ve ever heard. Maybe it’s just that I don’t listen enough to these more positive views enough to get brainwashed… My message to you is a simple one: Listen with your own ears and not some jiffy bag’s who thinks everything is “awesome” or “wicked.”

Which leads me to BBC Radio 1… They are now boasting the fact that Chris Moyles has many people working on his morning show which must be the most costly in the broadcasting universe. Moyles alone earns over £400,000, give or take a few thousand, and the show is full of verbal shite that is neither funny nor interesting, with great music as rare as hens’ teeth - hell there’s about 4 songs per hour. Now all this got me wondering…

My major complaint about Radio 1 in particular is that few (usually major) pop acts grab a huge slice of airplay leaving not even crumbs for many other more worthy musicians. The BBC could do some very important things: Reduce the number of times play-listed songs are played each day/week by at least half, stop the elevation from the lower play-lists to the A-List, and reduce the number of weeks to 2 rather than the 7-8 that currently exists. Include ‘Live Lounge’ and Festival sessions into the daily/weekly number of plays. Reduce by half the advertising  and jingles, and other non-musical garbage. Then the biggie… Double the number of songs played per hour on daytime radio. This final trick would provide additional airtime for acts that can’t get arrested on Radio 1 right now. By doing this the shite music they play gets watered down (yes, they can even keep their precious frigging playlists) and the range of music played is dramatically expanded and improved (albeit with a new set of more fairly rewarded DJs).

On Sunday night’s Sessions radio show between 10pm-midnight I played 26 songs including one song that lasted ten minutes (http://www.shakenstir.co.uk/index.php/features/calon-105-fm-shakenstir-session-playlists/features/5656/), and I gave all artist, album and song titles. IT CAN BE DONE!

2009 was a brlliant album release year with some great rock albums more than justifying their position in our Best Of The Year list. The problem is that many of them were never played on BBC Radio 1. One of those albums was The Enemy’s MUSIC FOR THE PEOPLE which we played many times on our radio shows. The Enemy’s Tom Clarke has criticised BBC Radio 1’s decision to overhaul its music playlists in an attempt to attract a younger audience. The new criteria - which places emphasis on commercial acts (whatever that is) - was introduced early in 2009 after it emerged that the radio station’s average listener was aged 33 (oh the shock!).

In an interview with Mirror.co.uk, Clarke said the alteration had had a negative impact on guitar music.

“I think 2009 has been an awful year for music because in England, Radio 1 for some reason have stopped playing anything with a guitar in it,” he said. “What’s happened, their balls seem to have retracted into their lower abdomen, and they’re playing what can only be described as shite.” The singer described Radio 1’s current output as “diabolical” and “a shame” for new bands. “In trying to alienate all the older listeners in playing shit, then yes, they’re going about in completely the right way,” he said. “They’re just presuming that younger listeners want to listen to shit. I don’t understand it.”

You know what puzzles me about this BBC Radio 1 policy? Is assumes young school children are listening to the garbage it plays while they are at school which is not really possible - is it?

It’s that time of year when we start going back over the year’s releases to try and pick the best albums of 2010. I thought it would be much simpler than it was in 2009 - one of the best release years ever. But of course it won’t be because we tend to take the job very seriously and try to make the outcome as objective as it can be. We check out our site reviews and radio playlists, then we listen again to every album that is ’short-listed’. This year we’ve fallen badly behind with album reviews but as soon as we receive music, we listen to it - we listen to everything - for radio airplay and to provide a quick assessment before reviewing. If the album is not up to our standards after several plays, it is not reviewed or airplayed. The end result is piles of albums with potential for beatification - many more than I first thought there would be. What strikes me about 2010 is the large number of solo guitar albums released by some of the world’s truly great guitarists including Slash, Satriani, Beck, McLaughlin, Clapton, Sayce, Santana, Bonamassa, Norum and several more. Another development in 2010 is the melding of great rock ‘n’ rollers into ’supergroups’ including the latest Black Country Communion (Joe Bonamassa, Glenn Hughes, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian).

While BBC Radio 1 keeps trying to flog pop and dance the music world is rediscovering folk in its various forms with a huge range of music emenating from the USA, Canada and to a more limited extent from the UK. There have also been some brilliant re-releases and ‘ultimate collections’ from some very fine, established musicians. For the first time we’re actually going to play a very short list of contenders for top album on our Revelations radio show each Wednesday night - THE WHOLE ALBUM! Last Wednesday it was Eminem’s RECOVERY - after I managed to find a clean (no F-words) copy from the States.