When did Radio 1 become so annoying? Every week there are countless radio shows dedicated to R'n'B, Dance, Rap and House music. Theres even something for the Alternative kids among us, but when it comes to Rock and Punk, the fans are let down. The best Radio 1 can do is stick on a weekly 2 hour Rock show at midnight and a weekly underground Punk and Hip-Hop show for a couple of hours at 2am! Who is awake at that time of night?
Turn on the radio on any Friday or Saturday night and you can guarantee there will be some big hard house tune pumping out. Tune in at most weekend afternoons and there will the R'n'B chart or some other R’n’B related show. But, what if you want something a bit better? Something to get your teeth into and have a jump around the house to? Well, the Evening session does a pretty good job, (until it gets axed at the end of the year anyway! The one good thing Radio One had going for them, and they’re going to get rid of it).
But what if you wanted something a bit harder, something to scream to, something to play a bit of air guitar to whilst jumping off your bed? You would have to wait up until midnight on Tuesdays. You may think that seem rather stupid seeing as 95% of the population have to rise and shine bright and early on Wednesday mornings for School/college/work. But this is exactly what those little darlings over at the BBC expect us to do.
Maybe they assume that those who listen to rock music are a little weird and that we are all gothed up devil worshiping vampire freaks. Maybe they think we all wear black and stay up all night practicing our witchcraft and sucking blood before turning into our coffins with a nice Bat to munch on. Its not even like we can tape the show so we don’t miss it 'cos it goes on for 2 hours and as we all know most blank tapes only take 45 minutes on each side. Are we supposed to set our alarm clocks for 12:45am to get up and turn the tape over to record the second half of the show?
Even if you do have the willpower to stay awake until 2am on a weeknight, you almost feel ashamed of yourself for listening to it. Huddled around your radio at midnight, not daring to have the volume up too loud in case you wake someone up. You would feel like some pervy old man sitting on a park bench wearing dark glasses spying on all the children playing on the swings. It’s as though its been banished to such an unearthly hour because rock is wrong and bad and we should be embarrassed to be listening to it.
As for the Punk show, well don’t get me started. What kind of time is 2am to put on a radio show? Okay maybe Punk isn’t one of the most popular kinds of music, but I know for a fact it would be a thousands times more popular if it wasn’t stuck on in the middle the night – or is that morning?
Who will be listening at 2am? Maybe it’s their way of keeping the minority happy by showing they are willing to playing something a bit different. Well I'm sorry but I’m not happy, and if I was a big hardcore punker I would be even less happy. How can punk bands even begin to get a bit of recognition of no one is willing to be sensible about it?
Maybe this wouldn't be such a big issue if the Radio schedule wasn’t so packed full of R'n'B and Dance shows. What is so special about R'n'B that gives it the right to a special R’n’B chart on Saturday afternoons anyway? What happened to equal opportunities? What happened to Radio 1 playing "all the new music"?
Yeah so all that R'n'B crap maybe more popular but that’s only because that’s all anyone ever hears. If more people had access to rock/punk music, maybe there would be more variety in the charts, more guitars and screaming and less of the all singing all dancing foetus’ and ghetto kids with attitudes.
Hey, Mr DJ, all I'm asking for is a bit of consideration. All I want to do is have a little rock around my room at a sensible hour. Once a week would be enough for me. Is that really too much to ask for?
