I just had a look at Norman Jay's website and he has a bit to say about it
- mirrors what many of us are saying here in the US
I cut-n-pasted it so sorry if it breaks up funny. See the whole thing at
http://www.musiclinks.co.uk/normanjay/html/main.cfm?w=0
Here it is:
COMMENT: Just when I thought I'd had a
reasonable week, I'm disappointed (and
saddened) to hear that DANNY RAMPLING's long
running and absolutely fabulous LOVE GROOVE
DANCE PARTY show on BBC Radio One is to come
to and end. Quite why is anyone's guess and
is open to a fair amount of speculation. I
sincerely hope that it was HIS decision to
leave after nearly seven brilliant years and
not the other way round. I for one know more
than most just how vicious and political
things can get inside a radio station. It
would appear that he is being 'replaced' by
according to certain industry sources "the
hottest name in dance music right now". Well
now, is that right? - not from where I'm
standing he isn't.
I don't mean that in any kind of
disrespectful way to his 'successor' - a
very popular (it has to said) hard
house/trance deejay called FERGIE who I've
had the pleasure of meeting on a few
ocassions and is a genuinely nice enough and
talented bloke so I don't think anyone will
personally begrudge him his successful
appointment. Who can blame him?. To me it
all just smacks yet again of the continual
marginalisation of mobo (music of black
origin) by the powers that be over there.
It begs the question; what an earth are the
music programmers at BBC Radio One thinking
about?. Do they really believe that it's
huge multicultural national dance audience
wants even MORE of the same? - I doubt it. I
was under the impression that they had a
public obligation to give 'fair and
reasonable' exposure to ALL aspects of
popular mainstream dance music on their
dance output. To me and thousands of other
Radio One listeners, I suspect there will
now be even LESS mobo (ooh - must be
carefull what I say here) on Radio One now
that Rampling is going. They will try and
have us believe that their music policy
changes reflect the increasingly shifting
music tastes of their younger 'target'
audience (what with even MORE trance? - yeah
right).
It hasn't escaped the notice of astute (and
honest) observers of our vibrant and varied
house scene here in the UK that week in,
week out, there has been a steady and
noticeable DECLINE in attendances at some of
the country's leading hard/prog/tech/trance
type house clubs for some time now which
could possibly explain why some of that
scene's more 'high profile' main room
players are now trying desperately to
musically re-invent themselves (nothing
wrong in that) by trying to play 'funkier'
house sets in 'smaller' rooms in 'cooler'
clubs (and with loads more girls too) with
the very same style of music often
championed by Rampling on his radio show
whose services they are now dispensing with
(how ironic!). It's been very much my own
personal experience of observing and
listening to a lot of national radio over
the years that the more things change, the
more they remain the same.
I think Radio One will discover to their
ultimate cost that to replace Ramplings'
influential LGDP with yet another
tech/prog/trance/dark/tribal/hard house type
of show (aren't all their other deejays
playing that kind of stuff already? (yawn)
is a VERY retrograde step and will lose them
an awful lot of quality listeners in the
short...AND long term. A decision which
simply beggars belief if it emerges that it
was THEIR decision to 'offload' him.
Ramplings' impending departure from the
country's ONLY national dance music
broadcaster is a 'body blow' to everyone who
loves and apreciates the quality end of
funky house music. You can see the depth of
feeling amongst Danny's listeners against
Radio One's decision by visiting his message
board at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/h2/h2.cgi?
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