Stating the bleeding obvious

The National Audit Office has reported that the BBC does not always provide best value for money when covering large events. This should be little surprise to anyone.

Some of the big events justify a large staff and big costs. The Olympics instantly spring to mind. But more than sic months ago it was reported that the BBC sent almost as many staff to Glastonbury as they did to China to cover the Olympics.

As I wrote at the time, I am not fan of the BBC devoting itself so entirely to a niche event like Glastonbury, and I hope the report today make the BBC come to grips with the fact that events like the Olympics and World Cup are not the equivalent of an annual music festival.

For the benefit of the BBC "I DON'T CARE ABOUT GLASTONBURY !"

I just thought the BBC might want to know that despite their constant advertising on every radio station in the BBC network, between virtually every programme on BBC 1, 2, 3 & 4 (and probably News and Parliament also), I really don't care about Glastonbury. Even when I was younger, I didn't really care about it. A friend of mine lived in Pilton (where the festival is actually held), and I still didn't want to go to the festival.

It's much the same as Ibiza, which the BBC will soon start plugging on all channels in order to get us to listen to (and justify) Radio One sending dozens of its presenters and other staff to the island for a "jolly".

So if you didn't get that, I DON'T CARE ABOUT GLASTONBURY.

Coldplay have that effect on me too

I think if I was forced to go to a Coldpay concert I too would want to set myself alight, anything to drown out the monotonous drivel that emanates from the band.

Formulaic crap would be the nicest way of describing the lift music they release.

Read the full story HERE.

Now that's what I call a cover version

I really hate it when bands or groups do cover versions which end up sounding exactly like the song they are covering. A good example is Steps version of Better the Devil you know by Kylie, but there are dozens of others.

So despite the people on YouTube who seem to loathe this, for my money this cover version of Smells Like Teen Spirit, originally by Nirvana but covered by the great Paul Anka (who wrote "My Way"), is a truly brilliant cover version.

Chris Martin should remove his head from his own arse

So Chris martin was bored doing an interview for Radio 4. Well the BBC should apologise straight away for giving him free publicity the day after his band, Coldplay, released their new album. Of course the BBC should be apologising to us.

Coldplay are the very epitome of what is wrong with music at the moment. Turgid self indulgent crap served up time and time again is the most succinct way I could sum up their work, and for Chris Martin to believe he is so important that he shouldn't answer question shows why the BBC should not give him airtime.

So Chris Martin was bored ? Now he knows how I feel when i hear his music. Of course if he removed his head from his own arse he might realise this.

Rabid Dog

Why was it when I heard the ITV News headline earlier "Fears over Rabid Dog" that the first thought that popped in to my head was "Haven't we heard enough about Amy Winehouse ?"

What does this video say about American teen culture ?

Listening to the radio earlier playing this year's top 100 singles, one song brought back the memory of a particular music video which used to be on whenever I was down the gym, and which to me says much about teen culture, particularly in the US.

Avril Lavigne' song "Girlfriend" features a video about a slightly geeky girl, going out with a "hot" bloke, and another girl, much more "sassy" and part of the "in crowd" decides she wants to go out with the guy, so she enacts a series of just plain nasty tricks on the nice geeky girl and actually gets the guy.

I know it is supposed to be a bit of fun, but I can't be the only person who is slightly disturbed that people thought this would resonate with teenage kids (who are Avril Lavigne's key demographic).

The YouTube clip below is the version of the song that plays at double speed (if you have not heard the song, it's shit so it does not matter), but it gives you the idea of what the video is about.

Film Proms on BBC 2 tonight

I'm one of those people who likes a bit of middle of the road classical, you know, the sort of stuff used in adverts and for films, and not the arty sort of stuff that the BBC Proms seems to be doing a lot of.

So I am really looking forward to watching the BBC tonight and watching the Film Proms, with music from classic film scores, both old and modern, be it The Dambusters of Harry Potter.

I think there is a lot of snobbery around concerning classic musical that is "popular", and too often film scores are overlooked as great pieces of classical music, yet there are masterpieces in their own way. John Williams score for the Star Wars films are stunning, but the fact that the part of the score known as "The Imperial March", is used on millions of ringtones and is played at concerts by groups such as Rage Against The Machine and Green Day says much about this type of music.

So tonight's concert, which even includes a medley of music from the "Carry On" films, on what is a British Film proms night will, for me, be a must see. Just so long as the BBC actuall show it as their TV listings says something different from the BBC proms site. I guess I might have to dust off the radio.

Live Earth's Carbon Footprint

There are a number of blogs and newspapers taking the rather predictable line of asking how having nine pop concerts around the world is a good way of reducing our carbon foot
print.

it is a shame that these bloggers and journalists hadn't bothered reading the Live Earth organisers plan to use the profits to but millions of energy saving light bulbs which would very quickly repay the amount of carbon used by yesterday's concerts and more.

So well done to the Live Earth organisers, although it might have been kinder if Al Gore could make his speeches on time in future and not leave poor old Thandie Newton to fill for five minutes !

Diana Concert - Great event, terrible BBC production

What a shame that the BBC seems to have given the job or putting together the Diana Concert at Wembley today over to some work experience students.

For some bizarre reason, the sound kept going dead between acts (with no voice over to explain), highlights of previous acts kept being cut short, video sequences of good deeds and memories of Diana seemed to be edited in to the gaps rather poorly whilst the sound levels of the artists performing was all wrong. And that's not even mentioning the awful Fearne Cotton (don't get me started there !)

Am I the only person who thought that the instruments kept drowning out all the singers voices ? The George Michael concert two weeks ago from Wembley seemed to get the sound levels right, so why couldn't they do that tonight ?

What a shame as the performers were a really good mix of new and old, varying styles and all of them did a good job. It's a shame the BBC were not up to it today.

Someone needs to tell the BBC and other media organisations - "We don't care about Glastonbury"

Let's put things in to perspective. 170,000 people have paid £150 a ticket to go to a pop concert that last for three days. Is that news ?

I wonder how many people go to pop concerts every week. With festivals happening every couple of weeks (Tea in the park, Reading, Isle of Wight, V Festival's), something like Glastonbury really isn't that unique or special.

So why does the BBC and so many other news organisations believe that Glastonbury is the major news item ?

Okay, so it's raining. I gather it is raining over large parts of the country, but that really isn't news is it ?

Why does BBC radio, not just Radio One, but Radio Two, even the BBC Asian Network have to base itself in Somerset ? Why does Glastonbury have to be a feature on BBC News, why does The Independent have it on its front page ?

To my mind, there is some sort of obsession within the media that days we all have to be interested in certain things. It is somehow that British people are lacking in a shared experience, a national identity, so the media has to create this idea that everyone is interested or concerned about Glastonbury/

For the record, I don't care one iota about a bunch of music fans getting wet in a field. Yes, i like some of the music from some of the bands at Glastonbury, so if the BBC wants to play the music, fine. But to pretend that I should be interested in jugglers and health food stalls, the toilet facilities or even what the bands are eating is like asking me what my favourite typing of knitting is. I don't care. Al I want is for the wall to wall coverage to end and for the news media to start reporting on all news, not just a concert in Somerset.

Morrissey in Eurovision talks - Now that would make Eurovision worth watching !

Brilliant ! Can you just imagine Morrissey representing the UK at the next Eurovision song contest ?

According to the BBC, it might just happen. Read about it HERE.

I haven't watched Eurovision in years as I get tired of the Baltic nations swapping votes, Greece voting for Cyprus, and all the other laughable voting patterns repeated year after year, but this might just get me watching again.

Can anyone hum a Pete Doherty song ? Does anyone care ?

When I listen to Radio One (yes, I am still just about young enough to do so), I occasionally here about the "brilliant" or "genius" Pete Doherty, yet, apart from him being well know for various convictions, mainly drugs but also plenty of others, I cannot tell you anything about his music.

The other day, the subject of Pete Doherty came up, and apart from one song he did when he was in "The Libertines", which people sort of remembered the tune, but didn't know who it was, nobody could hum a Pete Doherty tune. All we knew was he took drugs and goes out with Kate Moss. In many ways, he is known fdor his celebrity and it is incidental that he plays some music because his music is just incidental, not stand out, not that good.

I saw him on Jonathan Ross, obviously when he was "clean", and he seemed shy, not offensive, and obviously could play a guitar well. I hoped this would be the start of something good for him, great music and properly being "famous" as opposed to "infamous".

So his recent decline again really begs the question, is Pete Doherty this great talent that people talk about or is it that in the modern musical world, there are not really any of the old "throw a tv out of a window" rock stars around. So is everyone is blessing Pete Doherty with some sort of musical talent just because he also shows the riotous outrageousness that some truly great musicians have shown in the past ?

The Independent reports today on his latest drugs bust but it leads me to say again, so what ? "Famous druggy arrested for possessing drugs" is much like "famous footballer kicks a football". When he writes some music that people can actually talk about and remember (like Kurt Cobain did with Nirvana), then I'll be more interested.