The UK Music Charts need a S.P.A.M. filter. Fast.

I started banging on in the end of January blog, but its not just me with a hankering for something more real. Of course there is less rock in the chart. The Radio 1 etc playlist is as unimaginative and dumbed down as all the other weapons of mass distraction as the world goes through a frightening era on the news. Recently I spent an afternoon with family members. We are all music fans with different tastes but I came to realise that we need S P A M filters on our charts.

Soul Free? Passionless Auto-tuned? Manufactured?

Perhaps the X Factory charts could contain karaoke and conveyor belt pop that gives parody videos on YouTube the number of views that some new major label artists even can only dream of.

34,000 views and counting for the above.

A teenager with a profound knowledge of Katy Perry (whose "I Kissed A Girl" is actually a fantastic pop classic), Justin Bieber, Lily Allen, Sisqo,Rihanna etc and her grandmother were watching 4Music TV UK chart show run down. Much of it had taken the sick danger of hip hop, fused with the slick marketability of pop to create a safe, bank clerk's car soundtrack, of what I suppose is hip pop. The beats were great, don't get me wrong, but the sampling and "featuring" of the majority grew tired for me. Great original music is still possible.

Even Oldplay, Unkeane, Snore Patrol and the rest of the Snoozepop bands have actually got SONGS. This was brought home by the teenager remarking on how good the adverts tunes were. This, dear heart, is because they were a nifty  lyrical prose fest married to hooks you could fish whales with. So even after a pensioner's lifetime they still sound immediate and fresh with a singalong factor.

Grandma noted that one video seem to be quite long. "This is a different song now", explained Teenager. Myself, Young-ISH adult, kept quiet. I'd not noticed either, that the bland tune had been followed by a weak one.

Grandma remembered Top Of The Pops starting with the break from Whole Lotta Love by Led Zepellin. Teenager was wowed by the classic rock and pop on the BBC 4 documentaries.

A 21st Century Take on this from new and wonderful rock band Hedoniacs;

Possibly scare the pants off most day time radio play lists, but why? Riffs don't kill people, weapons do.

It is still possible for real people, using nothing more than their song writing skills, vocal abilities, musicianship and charisma to make a crowd fall in love with them. LIVESTARS.

Beyonce, Duran Duran, Adele, Cee Lo Green, Amy Winehouse, Dizzee Rascal, Lady Gaga et al are great pop stars, but without the dynamics of The Pixies, Nirvana or Mona, there wouldn't be enough light and shade. A high percentage of the great 20th century classics are too dangerous for day time play. Radio 1 has burned the bridges that connected it to Radio Caroline excitement. The main thing about Tamla Motown wasn't just how fantastic everybody looked (still cool) but the sounds that are now woven into the fabric of our Western lives.

Crazy - being a song case in point.

I feel that "Pass Out" by Tinie Tempah will last like this, but he was on that very chart show that Grandma and Teenager were watching and I cant remember the song (tho Ellie Goulding was in the video for some reason).

Dubstep, pubstep, whatever. I don't want a new music only station, I like to hum along often. There are 37 artists so far on the Star Soaked Music 2011 Tips List - just three more and I'll have my own Top 40. Not only that, but, sweet vindication!, its February and they actually are all moving and shaking.

The #nmeawards didnt trend last night I noticed. It was a bit too London for me, and thats the capital of Rock N Roll as far as I'm concerned. Besides with Libya, New Zealand and a crumbling UK (its actually the Disunited Queendom, surely?) its not exactly the Brits/Grammys and would have probably fared better coming before them. Or even celebrating its own scene before its proved itself.

I assure myself that if I mixed those onto a playlist culled from a hand picked selection of Brit Award winners, national BBC Radio stations / Xfm playlist stars and some of the Great Escape, City Showcase, God Is In The TV and Artrocker tips that StarSoaked Radio would be listenable for many Grandmas and Teenagers alike.

Give Me Gin And Tonic because I'm feelin'...

This is just the way to start the weekend.

But I miss Radio sounding this vital.

I miss music TV shows having this much energy and attitude.

I miss the Gallaghers having this much hunger.

Luckily then that there's a load of new excitements round the corner.

Have to agree with the NME band interview about more guitar stuff in the charts again.

The journalism may have been nauseatingly fawning but the first paragraph of the Brother (obviously they miss  Oasis too) interview was, at least, funny.

Hopefully the Tips For 2011, Best Of 2010 etc thing stops as soon as the last tax return is filed on line.

It just all goes on for too long. Nobody wants to break away.

What you people need is a band like Hedoniacs on kids TV and the future will be very bright.

This weekend, walking in hills with good music on earphones beckons. i.e. Rock and Rocks.

The Rock n Roll Revolution Is Not Being Televised

"God gave rock n roll to you."

Argent

Saint Jude, Marner Brown, Popskull, Mona, Hedoniacs and more in the vanguard of the rock n roll hard blues revolution.

Whats exciting me isn't on TV. There is no Snub, Old Grey Whistle Test today. Let alone Ready Steady Go or Top Of The Pops. Don't live in the past, but some cutting edge music for the future wouldn't go amiss. On everything broadcastable at the moment, Pixie Lott is very pretty and has a nice voice. Tinie Tempah is really cool. Beyonce, Kanye West and Lady Gaga etc  are genuine 21st century mega stars and the Warpaint, O Children, Everything Everything wave of music press tips are more than worth checking out. Must be having a female editor for NME that's making it readable again. N Dubz, well they are just nasty in every way but hey they're famous so tongue those butt holes. So yes, admittedly, modern music TV is sparkly, weakly witty, young and stylish. In the mean time, there's a stark side to the bleak future of real life. Raving and rocking are the down to earth escapism that doesn't come into, so therefore ever go out of, fashion.


This Autumn some of the most geniune audience and artist exchanges have been courtesy of Rock n Roll. That is the soul infused, sweat drenched, sex faced ROCK you can only see on BBC 4 in some documentary celebrating legends.


The thing is, at the time they were just the kind of excited exchanges that you can experience for yourself right now off the beaten trail of national music press radar. Having said that, Mona, a band recommended some time ago by one of the Rock Chick Institute, are getting noticed, so who knows? 2011 may actually ROCK!


They've been likened to Janis Joplin fronting The Faces but that just touches on the adoration for Lynne Jackaman's vocals and the might of Saint Jude live. Now very much in demand on the European circuit and more at home in venues like Bush Hall these days, these organically growing stars played an intimate set at The Bull & Gate recently with up and coming Swiss (garage rock n) rollers, The Dandies. Both bands raised the roof and kicked it in the crotch with a total rock show. Ronnie Wood of Rolling Stones is really on the ball and has not only given Saint Jude the thumbs up, but also Marner Brown. Five musicians made for young girls to throw their knickers at. They rock HARD and TIGHT live.


Jon Spencer Blues Explosion are back, and in timely fashion, the uber-groovy Hedoniacs and Popskull are ones to watch getting shows in Camden and The West End. London may be bleeding venues like a slashed wrist but what a soundtrack for Westminster to allow the capital's world live music scene to die to. Or www.savethe100club.co.uk 

Love for Saint Jude (October 2010) Kentish Town, London.

Like raving, rock n roll is for everybody. No limits. Get away from it all. You gotta roll with it.