Thatcher: Suddenly the Ding Dong row makes sense

Now, finally, the reason for the Ding Dong fuss has become clear, thanks to this BBC News report:

DJ Paul Gambaccini said Sunday's show had become "part of the BBC history of censorship".

In some religions of Northern Europe, the Gambaccini is a mythical creature whose appearance sharing an opinion on the deceased represents the start of that person's journey into the afterlife.

The argument over a song has obviously been crafted to tempt the wise counsel of the Gambaccini from the spirit world.

In related news, it seems that Rob Wilson, Tory MP for Reading East, doesn't know very much about recent history:

However, the Conservative MP for Reading East, Rob Wilson, said the track should be played in its entirety.

He said: "I think that Margaret Thatcher would be horrified having helped free millions of people in eastern Europe and been the symbol of freedom around the world that she could in any way have censorship in her own country."

That's right, Rob. The woman who spent our cash so lavishly trying to stop publication of Spycatcher, and who created the farce where Irish Republican statements had to be rendered like some form of badly-dubbed foreign movie would be horrified at that. Jesus, the woman even tried to redact British Airways plane liveries.

Thinking about Whitney Houston

In the way the smell of a dead antelope brings carrion birds out from the forest onto the plains, the news of Whitney Houston's death has attracted Paul Gambaccini and Pete Waterman into the BBC News studio.

At least their arrival took some of the stress off the early responders.

Gambo and Waterman can construct a eulogy from absolutely nothing.

If the drummer from Howler fell under a tank during an ill-starred visit to the Bovington Museum, Gambo and Waterman would be able to fill five minutes with figures and significance. It's what they do. The rest of us might struggle.

The surprise, though, was how BBC News was struggling before they managed to squeeze into a room with a camera and an uplink.

When Jackson died, it was pretty easy for the generalists to have something to say - Thriller, Rockin' Robin, comeback tours. You could skirt around the kiddie-fiddling and addictions.

Houston has sold tonnes of records - the biggest-selling female artist, announces Gambo, looking up from his slide-rule. So why was it hard for the news team to bring a balance to the bit where they weren't mopping up the Brown marriage, and the brown?

Gambaccini, mic-ed up and settled in, trotted out an explanation of Houston's style. Melisma. Or what - I think it was the NME - once described as "utterly undisciplined vocal gymnastics".

The "undisciplined" was unfair - Houston's style was something she was clearly more in control of than much else in her life. But the gymnastics was spot-on. And it was the gymnastics which is prancing about on the floor waving ribbons rather than the sort that uses bars and springboards and horses.

Effectively, a lot of showing off disconnected from the need to relate to anything else. Houston's songs might as well have all been a capella, as she was out the front, doing her thing in the foreground, rather than working with the music.

A capella? No, she could have just had the introduction, to announce to the audience what song was going to be bent to demonstrate her skills.

Impressive enough skills, but utterly, utterly soulless, too. I think this is what makes her feel distant; a Whitney Houston song is a bit like reading computer code in a language you're not familiar with - you can see that it is crafted, but, as code, it does nothing to you. Nothing for you.

Drop the code it into a machine, and it can work.

Plop a bit of Houston onto a soundtrack of a movie, and - oh, it's about love. That sort of makes sense.

Stick her bellowing I'm Every Woman onto the start of an Oprah show, and it does a kind of empowering thing. That makes sense.

Pump I Wanna Dance With Somebody into a hen party, and carnage ensues. That make a kind of sense.

But just take the music out, and listen to those notes being shuffled around, and what have got? It's like that opening sequence to Emma Thompson's sketch show; the feeling that you've been given a role of watching a very clever person being very clever. All you are meant to do is applaud.

Compare Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You with Houston's cover. Houston's is more vocally accomplished, anyone can see that.

But Parton's version is a woman telling a lover that her love will always be there, even as she's leaving. She lives the song. She sings the words. She tells the story.

Houston sings the same words, but she's having so much fun playing with them, there's no story. No lover is conjured, there's no hand being held fats and allowed to drop. Sure, you can bung in clips of The Bodyguard into the video which will do the job, and when people buy the record and take it home, they can picture that, right?

But Houston's performance should be doing that. Instead, she's off showing off her vocal range. If there was someone being dumped when she was singing the song, it's the equivalent of being dumped by somebody who doesn't make eye contact and who insists on doing it in Latin.

Her version of I Will Always Love You is actually all "I", no "You".

And as Waterman and Ganmbo both revealed, part of Houston's legacy is to have raised a generation of female singers who think that the melisma is a short-cut to emotion. That to try and convince a song is full of real feelings, all you need to do is skeeter up and down the scale like a monkey on a piano.

Houston could pull of the trick, but never nailed the problem. In her wake came a bunch of singers who couldn't even do the trick well. Look at Aguilera's eyes roaming the room during the Lady Marmalade video - "is this is, mom? Have I got it?"

Waterman reveals that during Pop Idol they had to ban people from trying to do Houston songs. Ostensibly, there were too many doing them, but you can just imagine a room of people without Houston's technical skill trying to pull it off. Like a bunch of First Aiders at a train crash deciding they'd try to do the amputations.

I think even Whitney Houston fans know this is true, too. Many of the Twitter tributes this morning (ignoring those from people who have suddenly turned out to be her biggest fans) have been about when the songs were playing, and not the performances themselves.

And maybe this is why the early commentators on the News had struggled so much. Houston gave great soundtrack, and had technical skills you couldn't argue with. But not much warmth, not much feeling. You could admire the plumbing, but plumbing isn't much to love.

The NOTW and me: The Great Gambo

James M has been in touch to bring to my attention a story from Paul Gambaccini. Originally posted on the comments section of the New York Times, it was also picked up by Harry's Place. I hope nobody will mind me repeating the whole thing here, as its one of those stories that can't be retold too often:

In 1984, when I was a DJ on BBC Radio 1, I received a phone call at the station from a reporter from the News of the World. He told me it was in my interests to meet him.

“When?” I asked.

“Now,” he said.

I proposed a pleasant coffee shop in Soho, where I would at least get a decent hot chocolate out of this. The scumbag then informed me that the paper was working on a story it had obtained from a young man who had proved he knew me by recording a telephone conversation concerning subject matter not remotely related to the “story”.

The exclusive was that I had sexual intercourse with a number one male chart star on the floor of my kitchen during my birthday party in front of my guests, who included Boy George.

The only true part of this story was that I did indeed have a kitchen floor.

I looked the reporter in the eyes and said “When you were a boy, did you want to grow up to become this?”

I have longed for the end of THE WORLD for twenty-seven years. This week I am as happy as I have ever been. Now bring on THE SUN, THE SUNDAY TIMES and Fox News.

A handy reminder that the behaviour of Rupert's tabloids has always been stinking, before, during and after the editorship of Brooks and Coulson.

Mini Liveblog: Gambaccini remembers Michael Jackson

BBC News at Midnight puts in a call to The Great Gambo, who points out that he's actually quite in demand right now: "I"m getting calls from news organisations" and confirms that he knows, for a fact, that "this is the number one story in Japan right now."

Gambaccini also confirms that he once met Jackson's llamas - presumably while someone in the gantry was wishing they'd got the llama on the line instead - and recalls having had a conversation with "the late John Peel" about what a great showman Jackson was. Even if you didn't like his music, apparently you couldn't deny his showmanship.

"He was probably as clever as a fox" is Gambo's final judgement, having skated over all the unpleasantness by simply dismissing his personal life as "odd".

Now they've got a live link-up with people at Glastonbury who are hoping that it won't spoil the festival for them - "I hope it won't overshadow the great bands we've got on this year."

Meanwhile, over on Radio One

Chris Moyles has come under a bit of a sustained attack recently, with the Guardian suggesting he's too old, and Gordon Smart filling a page announcing his departure. Today, Ben Cooper, deputy controller of Radio One, gave him the sort of backing that would have a Championship Manager packing up his office:

Cooper was asked at a radio conference today whether Moyles would still be presenting Radio 1's breakfast show in 12 months' time, after a front page story in the Sun nine days ago claimed that he would be dropped by the station later this year.

"Make sure that you keep listening and you will find out by listening every day," was Cooper's non-committal reply.

Pressed further, Cooper said: "We have got contracts to negotiate … I think he is a very good broadcaster and I want him to stay on breakfast so long as he keeps connecting with the young audience we want him to."

Yes, you wouldn't want to say too much if there's a contract up for negotiation, but 'tune in every day to see if he's still there' is a somewhat weak endorsement of the man's position. You could look in the Radio Times, I guess, but given the last-minute yanking of the Andy Kershaw interview, even that wouldn't guarantee his job.

Still, on the bright side for Moyles, at least there wasn't a hint that he might be yanked off mid-show.

Cooper was talking at Radio Reborn, which had earlier seen Paul Gambaccini relaunch his now slightly obsessive attacks on Moyles:

Speaking earlier at the conference, Gambaccini said Moyles "encouraged bullying" and caused "human suffering" after a show in which he changed the lyrics to two Will Young songs and sang them in an effeminate, high-pitched voice.

Cooper counters that if he thought Chris Moyles was a homophobic bully, he wouldn't put him on the radio. You wonder how loudly Cooper would listen to the small voice of doubt as he draws up the schedule.

The Great Gambo's attack might have had a bit more weight to it if he didn't seem to be moaning about Moyles every time he goes out in public.

And it's not as if Gambaccini isn't above a little lazy stereotyping himself:

If Gambaccini had a modicum of sympathy for Moyles, then it was because the Radio 1 breakfast show had been extended from two hours, as it once was, to three-and-a-half hours today.

"Traditionally it was two hours," said Gambaccini. "That's what killed [former breakfast host] Sara Cox because three hours was too much to demand of a woman who had never been on radio.

"Now Chris is told to fill three-and-a-half hours at a time when there aren't any new good records. The factors really are working against an artist who engages in what I call blog radio. Just open the mic and hope something interesting comes out."

I'm sure Gambaccini didn't really mean to make it sound like he was suggesting that it was unnatural to expect a woman particularly to make a long radio programme - but sometimes when you write these things down, they can look quite bad, can't they?

And the suggestion that there just aren't enough "good records" to fill a programme really is the elder statesman showing his age. You seriously believe that Moyles talks a lot because there simply aren't enough songs to fill until the next weather forecast? You seriously believe that, even if Moyles did decide to shut up, there isn't enough worth playing to fill the gap?

Mini Liveblog: Jackson comeback

Pete Waterman and Paul Gambaccini have just popped up on Today to discuss the Jackson press conference, discussing in all seriousness if he could manage to keep singing for a two-hour show. As if it won't be on tape, with his mouth-hole being operated by wires and string.

Waterman - who is excited by the gigs - probably has it about right. Surveying the rumour of fifty nights, he said "get your tickets early [for early dates] - he won't be going past twelve..."

The Great Gambo: Like Adrian Juste, only more revered

Paul Gambaccini is quickly morphing into a one-man Daily Mail, with his persistent sniping at the BBC. Admittedly, he was pretty poorly treated when he was dumped from Radio One, but you'd think he'd be over that by now, surely?

He's now calling for Chris Moyles to be sacked. Not for the sexism or homophobia, or even for being a good two years past his peak. Oh, no. It was the Who Do You Think You Are gag:

"I find his continual presence on Radio 1 unacceptable. Chris Moyles should be gone," Gambaccini said in a lecture. "His recent comments about Auschwitz involved real people and their ancestors. That is no joking matter for them. To encourage this or sit by whilst it happens is unprofessional. He has done it so many times. He has no sense of responsibility."

But the Auschwitz joke wasn't about "people and their relatives", was it? Wasn't it more a dig at the way family tragedy gets repackaged for reality television? You know, if Chris Moyles was being offered up as a pinata, I'd be breaking out the hardwood sticks. But it seems a little unfair to suggest that he be sacked for pointing out how uncomfortable turning real life into light entertainment can be. It wasn't a holocaust joke.

Radio One More Time: A King In New York

Considering that much of its daily business is related to an artform born in the United States, the modern Radio One doesn't bother itself overmuch with what happens in America. Oh, sure, Newsbeat might keep a watching eye on the Kanye West - Fifty Cent battle, but these days the actual detail of the American charts are of no interest to the station.

It wasn't always so, of course: right through the 1980s, Paul Gambaccini would pop-up, week-in, week-out, filling Saturday afternoon with a run-down of what was doing well in America. Despite Gambaccini's enthusiasm for the music, and his natural skills as a broadcaster, he never shone, being forced to work with one of the most depressing source materials known to man. The Billboard Hot 100 was as dull then as it is today, and you'd find yourself sitting through an awful lot of music inappropriately filed as "radio-friendly rock" to get to anything even as appetising as a Bangles or a Go-Go or a Til Tuesday.

That the drabness wasn't Gambo's fault was shown when he got the chance to break free from the chart chains - sitting in for holidaying jocks, or hosting The Other Side of the Facts, the bizarre spin-off from his Rock God Hagiography series for Channel 4, The Other Side of the Tracks. This Sunday afternoon confection, co-presented by his Guiness Hit Singles colleague Tim Rice, was little more than an illustrated Did You Know...; the atomic trivia-powered brains of the pair lifting the programme way above the sort of well-worn factoid that you'd get on the Steve Wright in the Afternoon show.

There was another regular slot dedicated to Americana around the same time, too: A King In New York. Probably the shortest programme ever to get a regular slot on Radio One, this was the pop culture answer to Letter From America, with Jonathan King taking the role of the essayist. We'd love to know how many BBC producers it took to persuade him the first word of the title should be "a" and not "the".

It's worth recording that, with his knowledge and passion for all things American, King's weekly short could actually stand shoulder to shoulder with Alistair Cook's and was much more than a simple radio precursor of Entertainment USA. Indeed, the decision to end the programme came from King himself rather than any negative feedback from audiences - with a typically self-aggrandising flourish, in the last programme King explained that he was travelling around the world so much, either he'd have to give up the programme altogether or change its name weekly to reflect the fabulous locale in which he found himself at time of recording. To the audible relief of the typesetters at the Radio Times, he chose the former route.

[Part of Radio One More Time]