Sunday 1 December 2013

Radio Retaliation



There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is BBC Radio 6 Music.

A few years ago, when 6 Music was threatened with closure I was one of many twitter uses with a "Save 6 Music" twibbon. Remember twibbons? I had one because the brilliant Adam & Joe were on 6 Music, but they were my only experience of the station. Now I have to sit in an office where 6 Music is constantly on, and I wish it had been shut down at the time.

I accept that no publicly funded radio station is likely to play the combination of third-wave ska and Jamiroquai that would satisfy me, but this is supposed to be the home of alternative music. And every day it plays that same fucking Jake Bugg song repeatedly. I don't know much about radio, but isn't it bad to play the same song within the space of a few hours?

Obviously criticising someone else's music taste is stupid, but if you like Jake Bugg you belong in a fucking Saw trap. That way you'll know how the rest of us feel when we have to listen to that whiney prick who can't sing and is only famous because he wrote a song with "Bolt" in the title just before the Olympics. And this is meant to be the alternative. This station which plays The Killers and Sex on Fire and Florence + the Machine - whose nails-on-a-blackboard voice makes it impossible for me to do any work. Florence Welch owes me compensation.

It's the level of smugness that really gets to me. The idiots who host shows and the lickspittles who call in all share a feeling of superiority because their pop music has guitars. Every time they announce another awful fucking indie band it's with a sickening sense of disdain for those plebs who listen to Radio 1. I'd rather listen to Rihanna than the pretentious dreariness that populates 6 Music.

Worst of all is Lauren Laverne. The least discerning person in the history of radio, who apparently thinks that every track she plays is the greatest song ever. Every time she says "Maida Vale" it makes me want to punch the radio, and she talks like a three year old who's accidentally crawled into the BBC. I've heard her refer to Dame Judi Dench as "Dame J.D" and to Bristol as "Brizzle." This is a grown woman. Why don't they just bring in Russell Brand and be done with it? Oh I remember why, never mind.

So please join me with a Close 6 Music twibbon and enjoy Thievery Corporation. To get the full 6 Music effect, listen to it twice in a row.