For all its faults – and trust me it has many – BBC 6 Music remains the greatest radio station on the planet. And on Saturday mornings in particular the world is a whole lot better.
Shamefully, in order to shoe horn the abysmal Mary Ann Hobbs into the weekday schedule for box-ticking reasons, the station has relegated its best show, Radcliffe and Maconie, to the weekend breakfast slot. It’s still very funny and fiercely intelligent and the music is strikingly eclectic. I simply can’t wake up enough to listen from 7.00am so I do what was until recently impossible: I physically start the show from the beginning on my phone and play it through a bluetooth speaker.
Following RadMac, we then have Fun Lovin’ Criminal Huey Morgan for three hours of who knows what, ranging today from brand new hip hop and rap to XTC’s Mayor of Simpleton. As with RadMac, I absolutely love not knowing what’s coming up next and I love it even more if it’s a song I haven’t heard before.
The other day, before Dominic Cummings told Boris Johnson to shut us all down again, I was in the local barbershop and Smooth Radio was on. It was the second worst part of the haircut – looking at the mirror was always going to be the worst – because the music and the presenter (this was no DJ) was so grim. But it was only grim to me. Global Radio and Bauer own virtually all the commercial radio stations in the UK, all playing generic hits and/or oldies and guess what? Not everyone is as obsessed as me about listening to stuff that I haven’t heard before.
6 Music’s daytime schedule is better than anything else that’s out there, but it’s not perfect. Well, Lauren Laverne’s breakfast show is perfect, but the aforementioned Hobbs follows her and she’s terrible. The music isn’t terrible, but the giggly Hobbs sounds like a hospital radio reject. At best you could call her irritating. I’d call her much worse.
Then, there’s Shaun Keaveny. I’ve warmed to his deadpan style with its attendant dead air and he isn’t Hobbs. He has some amusing sections to his show, as well as good interviews. I’d rather he did the drive time slot – I’ve had it with Steve Lamacq’s ever deepening voice – but beggars can’t be choosers.
So, do yourselves a favour. Try something a bit different. Try RadMac and Huey and if you fancy a chilled out evening, then go to BBC Sounds and check out Cillian Murphy’s shows. You’ll like it.
