Wonderful Radio, Marvellous Radio!

Broadcaster, author, film-critic and all round good-egg, Andrew Collins, writes here in praise of Smooth FM. He argues quite convincingly even though I feel he may be 'taking a position' on the matter. Still, I can see what he means. The 'race of pygmies' that is British music radio today makes Smooth an unlikely contender for music fans.

I've been living in Ireland for some years now and, until recently, I always assumed that Irish music radio was a poor relation to it's British counterpart. I'm quickly becoming disabused of the idea. I've been over in Scotland (which, sadly, is a region of Britain) for a week now (helping out with the quantitative easing) and I'm honestly struggling to find anything, musically speaking, to butter my parsnips with.  

Right now I'm listening to 6 Music. The music is generally alright but the DJ is George Lamb who, complete with fawning, irritating posse, comes over like a latter day Steve Wright. Didn't we get over all this some time ago? Turns out, no. 

Over on Radio 2 in the afternoons we, inexplicably, still have one Steve Wright who, unsurprisingly, comes over like a latter day Steve Fucking Wright. And he's followed by Chris Evans! Are we in some kind of time warp here? What's going on? Other stations I've dipped into and notable for their sheer unrelenting, awfulness include Real Radio and Forth FM. I'm sure these losers pretty much sum up commercial radio for the way we live today. 

I love classical music but I find Radio 3 thoroughly depressing. Is there some kind of Messiaen tie-in here? If not, can't we have something good please? I'd suggest the awesomely uplifting "Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis" by Ralph Vaughan Williams as a start point. So I flick onto Classic FM and there's some bloke called Simon Bates on. Surely it can't be ... [checks]  ... yup, it's the soft-headed, militaristic gobshite himself playing endless Elgar, no doubt. I was even briefly and horribly exposed to the soi-disant Gentleman Cheesemaker, Alex James, one morning on this channel. Actually he was ok but I've taken agin the fringed fop and that's that. 

So much hatred you may say? Well I just need a bit of musical balm in my life at the moment and I'm having to find it for myself. Of course I could listen to Danny Baker (if I lived in London) or Marc Riley or Mark Radcliffe but who wants to be listening to the radio at 8pm when there's perfectly good footy to be watched or beer to be drunk? Not me, mate.

To borrow from Elvis Costello, I need some sound salvation but (British) radio is leaving me overwhelmed with indifference and the promise of an early bed.