Commercial Radio loves new music, providing it's not too weird

James has contacted us to bring the second UK music to our attention. We hadn't noticed the first, but apparently it was a very successful week promoting British artists on Independent Radio. The commercial stations love to get excited about this coming together of all the stations, as if most of them weren't owned by the same three or four large companies anyway.

James is sceptical, and, frankly, we couldn't put it better ourselves. So we won't, we'll just run his email:

Part of me thinks it's great that
radio stations are doing something to promote British music. A couple of
years ago, in the week before the Brits, Radio 1 decided to devote its
entire daytime playlist to British music from the last 40 years, and it
sounded brilliant.

However... *Commercial* radio? As in 'Rob n' Kat's Morning Crew, brought to
you by Fellatio Nightclub in Kettering'? As in "You're never more than two
songs away from Daniel Powter"? As in 'Natasha Bedingfield Winning Weekend
(Don't forget your cue to call!)'? As in "Call now for your chance to win
£1000 in the Cash Climb (inexplicably hosted by a different presenter to the
rest of the show, who never asks callers where they're from)"? Since when
did Commercial radio care about promoting *any* sort of music beyond the
tracklisting of the latest 'Housework Songs' CD?

I flicked onto my local commercial station the other day. The first thing I
heard was a jingle proudly announcing "We skip out the wierd stuff... And
just bring you great music!". Now, I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure
'stars such as Amy Winehouse, Mika, Paolo Nutini and Travis' have released
their fair share of 'wierd stuff'. When they were getting started, tracks
like 'U16 Girls' were a long way from the polished likes of 'Sing'. They
were darn fine songs nonetheless, but I don't recall any commercial station
excitedly playing Amy Winehouse's debut single, or even Razorbastardlight's.
Why not? Because presumably they sniffily looked down on it as 'wierd
stuff'. If Paolo Nutini staggered soberly up to Cesspit FM one day with a
demo tape, would the powers-that-be say "Hurrah! Let's give it a listen and
maybe champion British Music!"? Or would they just call the police?

I suppose I'm just a bit baffled by this sudden interest in promoting
British music to 'fight back against the BBC'. The BBC has its faults, but
they do more to promote British music in one evening than the average
commercial station does in a year. They play plenty of 'wierd stuff' because
a) They can see the talent behind it and b) Some of us actually like 'wierd
stuff'. Commercial radio seems to jump in at the last minute, first sitting
back and letting the BBC (and other broadcasters) give airtime to a vast
array of artists, waiting to see which ones sell a million albums and *then*
deciding that they're worthy of a place on the playlist between The Fray and
The Fray.

Is this really "A unique dedication to the UK music industry"? Or does it
just mean every station is going to sound like Virgin for a week?