Somerset, via Bournemouth, is a long way from Nottingham, and so another long car journey this weekend brought more radio station hopping, in the hope of finding something to chase the tedium away down the M1.No such luck, of course. I've never been a big fan of the radio (I'd rather choose what I listen to next, ta very much), but it's only when you delve into the cesspit that is daytime weekend radio that you begin to realise how far the germ of modern, homogenised, watered down mass culture has spread.
Saturday mid-morning, and Patrick fucking Kielty appears on Radio 2. Kielty took over from Jonathan Ross - a self-important dullard if ever there was one, but at least he could argue that he had something to be self-important about, I suppose. Like his wages every week. Kielty, on the other hand, sinks to depths not heard since I was 12 by taking the piss out of people who try and do the Irish accent. He also tells us at least eight or nine times that, after he's got the slight annoyance of his well-paid job at the BBC out of the way today, that he's going back to Ireland for the weekend. And then he tells us each time how he's getting there, right down to the road numbers he'll be using. Anyone wanting to bump him off on Saturday would've had a decent chance. WHY DID NO-ONE DO THIS?
Kielty seems to be one of those modern "entertainers" (and that's in the loosest sense anyone's ever used a word) who think that if their agent gets them on the telly, in the papers and on the radio enough times, then people will love them. James Corden also suffers from this mightily disruptive ailment. Could they be more wrong? Answer: no.
Then there's "Jules", who tells us all how many traffic jams we're going to be stuck in with the sort of glee that can only make me think she was bullied at school. And if she wasn't, she certainly should be now, because she's possibly the biggest psychophant I've heard. And that includes that prick who's on Steve Wright's "Big Show" in the week. Jules laughs at everything Kielty says, and falls foul, in a very willing show of daft loyalty, to his centuries old gender-specific "humour" at every turn. Oh, yeah. Kielty has to remind you he's a man every five minutes. Presumably, he thinks that one day, he'll be deafened by the sound of middle-aged housewives' knickers hitting the deck. I have faith in womanhood, mind.
Of course Kielty could be an annoying wanker, but he might have decent taste in music, so we give him a chance. What saps! Scouting for Girls follows some awful Stevie Wonder pap, following a band called Train who should be derailed immediately and nationalised under workers' control so we can all kick fuck out of them for free.
Seriously, who the fuck makes chart pop music these days, and thinks: "Yeah, the kids are gonna love this rap about me taking them out for meal at Nando's, then proposing and putting a ring on a finger." AND ALL THAT SHIT. I heard castle rhymed with rascal in a song on Radio 1 this weekend. Lucky for the person singing that I didn't catch their name, that's all I can say. I was livid.
Truly, it's only when you listen to Radio 1 for longer than half an hour that you begin to realise the humming, throbbing mediocrity that 16-24s are force-fed nowadays. The DJs think everything "awesome" and "amazing" and they're going to tell you every ten seconds. I reckon if you said you'd just gone round and done a shit and a piss in their washing machine they'd proclaim it "awesome", before telling you that Radio 1 has Pendulum live from Reading this evening, and only then smacking you in the face for being such a dirty bugger.
Five Live, then. That'll be some kind of brief nod towards something of slight intellect, won't it? WRONG. I touch that dial only to find Fred MaCauley on a current affairs debate answering the question: Television or books - which has the more exciting future. FUCK OFF!
I switch the radio off and treat my Significant Other to a rendition of Morrissey and Siouxsie Sioux's 'Interlude'. Oh, how the miles fly by.
Download Chris TT's lost classic, 'Can't Stop Dreaming of Injured Popstars' here.
2 comments:
What a brilliant, right on post.
I often wonder if you find it easy, difficult or somewhere in-between to write these posts. It must be fairly easy for you; I mean, writing/editing is what you do for a living, right? I admire that, being able to write well and fairly quickly too. It's a skill I wish I had. I find it so difficult to focus even when I have to write something basic for work. The very few times I write about music, the motivation required to make me DO IT is immense. Sometimes a floodgate will then open (as it did with this piece on indiepop friendship I did for Scared to Dance) but not always.
Ah, it's always easier to slag things off that it is to praise them, I think. All sorts of irrationalities came come out, then. And these lot are easy targets, to be honest...
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