The music doesn't matter anymore

“Shabba!” yells the man on the radio, in a groundbreaking moment of post-modern comedic clarity. There is a pause. “Shabba!” he shouts again. After a few background laughs, a voice yells “ting!”. More laughs. “Shabba!” yells the man once more, before a button is pressed in the studio, causing another voice to shout “Charlie Murphy!” By now, the laughter in the studio is quite pronounced. “Whappen!” chips in one gentleman, in a vaguely ridiculous cod-Jamaican accent. “Whassay” replies another, before the first man counters with a further “shabba!”

Twenty minutes later, after the man on the radio and his attendant gaggle of dribbling, semi-sentient idiots have shouted “shabba” several hundred more times and gibbered on about poor quality pictures of people’s faces apparently having been laminated, but which are actually the result of five minutes of play on Photoshop by two fat-thumbed, computer-illiterate listeners, a three minute piece of quite pleasurable music is played.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the George Lamb show on the once trailblazing BBC 6Music. Clearly and identifiably embracing the station’s brand strapline to be ‘closer to the music that matters’, I’m sure you’ll agree.

OK, cards on the table. I don’t like George Lamb’s programme. You may have picked up on that already. I think it’s utter, unadulterated, half-baked, ignorant, unfunny, juvenile, sexist horseshit.

But then it’s not meant to be for me, is it? It seems I’m a change-resistant dinosaur, unwilling to embrace new ideas and fresh formats; part of a “crusty old git” male demographic that 6Music Chief Lesley Douglas is clearly desperate to ditch, in favour of a new audience of braying, slack-jawed, lad-culture obsessed morons. And, bizarrely, women – since Douglas has claimed that Lamb’s not-very-ironic sexism and lack of knowledge about the music he plays (or his chimps play for him), are the very attributes that appeal to those simple, emotional female brains.

“If you don’t like it, switch over!” is the repeated cry from the small faction of Lamb’s new audience able to communicate with the rest of the planet. But switch over to where? I had switched over, thank you very much. I had switched over from flatulent, self-important tossers like Chris Moyles to the one station that seemed to actively want to appeal to my ears and brain, with exciting and alternative new music combined with classics from a huge range of genres spanning the last 50-odd years. It was as if the essence of John Peel had been woven into the very fabric of an entire radio station – magic.

Sure, there can be room on a ‘serious’ and ‘intelligent’ music radio station for chat, banter and comedy, as the excellent Adam & Joe prove in their Saturday morning slot. But crucially, it is delivered without insulting the audience’s intelligence by presenters who (shock, horror) clearly care a bit about the job they do.

Sadly though, it seems the George Lambs of this world are winning. People who care about the music they listen to are becoming far too niche a market for the BBC these days and radio has to conform to a one-size-fits-all ethic that is pervading all parts of society. It all has to be one big glutinous, homogenised vat of consumer slop. Individualism and innovation will not be tolerated. It’s like, inclusiveness, yeah?

Doubtless George Lamb will eventually slope off to where he belongs – a shouty two-hour slot on Radio One for people who don’t actually like music, where he is not required to do anything as crass as play any actual records. In the meantime, thousands of disgruntled 6Music listeners like me are left twiddling their thumbs and wondering where the hell to go next.