Showing posts with label vernon kaye. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vernon kaye. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

What do they know of Brit-pop, who only Britpop know?

Radio X - the radio station that used to be known as XFM - has polled its listeners to find the best song ever.

We wish they hadn't:

"Wonderwall" is the best British song of all time; at least, so say the listeners of Radio X.

More than 50,000 votes were cast for the music station's inaugural Best of British poll (via RadioToday); which saw Oasis utterly dominate the results, occupying all four of the top positions. "Don't Look Back in Anger" came in at number two, "Champagne Supernova" at three, and "Live Forever" at four.
Normally, this sort of thing pukes up a list of Beatles titles so I suppose there's some sort of progress that we've moved on to people pretending to be the Beatles.

Here's the full chart:
1. "Wonderwall", Oasis
2. "Don’t Look Back In Anger", Oasis
3. "Champagne Supernova", Oasis
4. "Live Forever", Oasis
5. "I Am The Resurrection", The Stone Roses
6. "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor", Arctic Monkeys
7. "Heroes", David Bowie
8. "Life On Mars?", David Bowie
9. "Bittersweet Symphony", The Verve
10. "Gimme Shelter", The Rolling Stones
11. "One Day Like This", Elbow
12. "Bohemian Rhapsody", Queen
13. "Hey Jude", The Beatles
14. "Common People", Pulp
15. "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out", The Smiths
16. "Slide Away", Oasis
17. "Fool’s Gold", The Stone Roses
18. "How Soon Is Now", The Smiths
19. "A Day In The Life", The Beatles
20. "Love Will Tear Us Apart", Joy Division
Hang on; don't sob yet. There's worse to come:
The poll also revealed how its presenters voted; DJ Chris Moyles plumping for Coldplay's "Viva La Vida", while Vernon Kay backed The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the UK"
Vernon Kay. Anarchy In The UK. Obviously, this does make sense - The Sex Pistols and Vernon Kay are both about as threatening to the status quo as each other. But you know that Vernon and his agent probably had a ten minute conversation before deciding to go with such an edgy option.


Friday, November 09, 2012

A new weekend dawns for Radio 1

Yesterday, we were cutting through BHS to get to the other side of the mall, and out the corner of my eye I spotted a display using Reggie Yates to sell trousers.

I'm a little ashamed to say I laughed out loud.

One of the assistants looked a little crestfallen.

Clearly, this piece of negative reaction has set off a chain reaction, as less than 24 hours later the BBC has announced that Reggie Yates is leaving Radio One.

Yates is giving up his watch on The Chart Show, with Jameela Jamil being given the slot. For younger readers, "the chart show" is a programme where the records that manage to sell more than one or two copies in a week are celebrated.

Along with Yates, Vernon Kay is also leaving the network - it's astonishing to think that he was still there. I'm not entirely keen on the idea of Radio One adopting a quietus for any presenter who hits puberty, but the idea that you can simultaneously have your face on a board game box for sale in John Lewis and front a programme aimed at cutting edge younger listeners seemed the sort of idea that Bannister had wiped from the network.

Dan and Phil - who are "YouTube sensations" are being brought in for the request show. They might be good, but I'm struggling with the idea that 'good on YouTube' is synonymous with 'good at two hours of live radio'.
Taking over the mantle of the Sunday night Radio 1 Request show are YouTube sensations Dan and Phil who will have a brand new fully visualised show between 7-9pm, interacting with listeners and playing the music they want. This brand new show along with the last hour of the charts will make Sunday evenings a fully visual experience on Radio 1 from 6-9pm.
If it's a "fully visual" experience, isn't that a problem for people who choose to listen to radio on the radio?

One interesting point: Sara Cox is moving back to daytime to provide maternity cover for Fearne Cotton. She's been on Radio One for 13 years now, and is only a year younger than Chris Moyles. I think we should all toast her survival skills.


Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Gordon in the morning: My baby got the yips


Yes, since you ask, that would be Gordon Smart, stood clutching a golf club, stood alongside Vernon Kaye (TV's Les Dennis), Harry Judd (from mother and daughter country duo The Judds) and Danny Jones (one quarter of The Monkees).

Or, if the caption is to be believed, it's a:

Tee-mendous line-up ... Vernon Kay, Biz Ed Gordon Smart, Harry Judd and Danny Jones

And, you'll have noticed, they're holding golf clubs. That's why the caption says that tee thing.

This, it seems, was a golf event promoting something or other, and Gordon seems to think that we'll be interested in every moment of his corporate jolly with the sort of celebrity that even he would bump from the lead story if something about Beyonce Knowles came in.

Actually, given that Vernon Kaye was there, it's the sort of celebrity who would be bumped if a story about Solange Knowles came in.

Actually, one of the "celebrity" players was Chris Riley, who is a mate of The Enemy. This bunch would be bumped if a story about Nick Knowles came in.

Even Gordon knows that the event lacks a little glamour, but does his best to try and suggest that this isn't like a team bonding day for the Office Of Fading Stardom:
The competition was fierce at The Grove hotel in Hertfordshire - where the England footie team stay before home international matches.

When you're relying on the idea of Peter Crouch carrying an overnight bag to add glamour to your piece, you're in trouble.

But Gordon's smart, and knows that pro-celebrity (or rather no-celebrity) golf has an air clinging to it:
Forget JIMMY TARBUCK, BRUCE FORSYTH and RUSS ABBOTT - I'm joyriding their celeb golf buggy now.

Yeah, forget the time when celebs playing golf was all about the sort of people who spent their days presenting ITV game shows. Now, it's all about Vernon Kaye.

Oh, hang on.

Perhaps we could inject a little sex into the proceedings, Gordon?
The longest drive of the day belonged to Jamie. Or as he said: "I am a few inches bigger than you, Smarty."

That's not actually a double entendre, is it? In fact, Redkanpp might very well have been actually comparing his cock with Gordon's, as describing a distance as "bigger" makes no sense. Or maybe Jamie said "longer", and Gordon just can't read his notes because he was shaking with so much mirth.

Still, while nobody who wasn't there would be in any way interested in these events - good lucking pricing up the paywall for this, Messrs Murdoch - at least it's important to Gordon, right? I mean, there's no way he'd just leave the article hanging on a meaningless odd line, is there?
But his bandmate DANNY JONES landed Bizarre's Beginner gong and a swine flu boiler suit.


Thursday, September 06, 2007

One gets shaken

Radio One is about to embark on a fairly large schedule shake-up, most notable for granting Chris Moyles an extra two and a half hours a week - or, in other words, time enough for him to play two extra records. They're now starting the show at 6.30 in the morning, and while we'd have imagined three hours of Moyles a day was enough for any man, the audience seems to eat it up, so this is presumably a ratings-driven initiative.

The extra half-hour for Moyles is being shaved off the 'early breakfast' show - although now that programme finishes so far before a winter's dawn, it's presumably going to have to change its name. This reduced fiefdom has been granted to Greg James, who's been doing little bits and pieces around the station for a while now. He has, you'll note, perhaps the most local-radio-dj name to have graced Radio One since Mark Page.

That strange arrangement where Zane Lowe's show is opted out of on a Thursday evening in the other nations is ending - now, all of England will be shouted at between session tracks from Albert Hammond Junior four nights a week; the national regions opt-out fandango gets shunted to midnights on Wednesday from where, we imagine, it will quietly disappear sometime after Christmas.

The In New Music We Trust strand is still there, unfortunately. But not part of the brave new world is JK and Joel, whose unloved double-actery is banished not just from early breakfast, but also from the Chart Show.

Before you get too thrilled by the idea of the Top 40 returning to a safe pair of hands, though - or two safe pairs of hands - it's now going to be presented by Fearne and Reggie. We're not sure when Cotton and Yates actually became a double act, but it seems to be fixed now. We're at a lost to the logic of giving the Top 40 slot to a pair who were part of the destruction of Top Of The Pops, mind.

The gap in weekend breakfasts opened by this promotion (they're also going to do a 'requests' show on Saturday afternoons - charts and requests; it's like someone doesn't trust them to pick their own records, isn't it?) is filled by Nihal, which is probably the only good idea in the whole spreadsheet.

Also getting demoted is Vernon Kaye - or, perhaps, "having his Radio One workload reduced in order to free up more time to remake Bullseye". His Sunday morning slot is now going to be taken over by... well, it says Dick and Dom here, but surely that can't be right, can it? Maybe three years ago... but in 2007?

The most horrific detail, though, is left for Sunday nights. Sunday Surgery - the long-running 'don't get the clap, and don't pickle your kidneys' slot is now going to be presented by Kelly Osbourne.

How did that happen? Did Radio One see her pisspoor performance on Project Catwalk and think "we should see if she's as bad presenting live radio as she is at recorded television, where - presumably - they must have reshot some of the pieces, surely?" and then looked around for something she could do? Or did they have a shortlist of likely presenters for the programme, and - after they'd all said 'no' - were reduced to thumbing through the phone directory?

Kelly Osbourne.

[Thanks to James P for the tip]