Faced with a longish drive home yesterday afternoon, I got to wondering if Radio 1 still broadcast a Top 40 countdown on Sundays.
With that particular station not being among my presets, it took some finding. But one mockney accent and crashing R&B blandness later, there it was.
I came in at No.23. I'm afraid I can't remember what that was, because it quite simply melded into all the other songs. I'm sure it cannot be an age thing, but they all sounded more or less identical. Unremarkable voices, very loud and crashy and lots of reedy female vocals interspersed with big bass black voices and vice versa. When Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas came on, there was such an odd noise on the record I thought there was something wrong with the car. I had to turn it down to make sure a wheel was about to spin off.
The host, I think it was Reggie Yates, who's from the Fearne Cotton school of cluelessness, did his best make things exciting, but really, who gets worked up about the Top 40 these days? And all that texting nonsense. Does everything have to be interactive. Can we not cope unless we're asked to be involved? OMG, LOL, etc. When all songs sounds the same, how can you? But at things actually go up the chart now, though there's not a lot to recommend. I did pick out Sean Kingston's Fire Burning as being quite good, but I heard all the way from 23 to 10 and I couldn't tell them apart.
Even things that are meant to be the next big thing like Little Boots and La Roux all sounded like the others. Completely anonymous and really rather dull. Where was the musicianship or the songwriting? That's not music, it's like a madperson shrieking to be heard above a tumble drier full of stones. I was shocked.
Looking at a chart from say this time in 1982, and there was lots of variety. Perhaps my father might have thought they all sounded the same, but they really didn't. There were lots of musical styles. Oh look at that chart - so many memories.
Now that's a chart. Do you agree?
