Cruel and Unusual Punishment...

In the U.S. constitution, there is a line somewhere forbidding 'cruel and unusual' punishment. Now after living here in Europe for a while and listening to their FM stations, I am wondering whether it is possible for Europe to borrow this phrase or put it in their own constitutions. Maybe even lease the rights to it for a monthly fee?

You see, whenever the tourist board talks about Europe, they talk about lovely castles, sparkling lakes, majestic mountains etc, etc. All valid stuff. But there's one thing that is conspicuous in its absence - the music. How can I sum it up on one word... Uhhhm it's just plain bad!

There's a few stations here and one is called Radio Nostalgia and is syndicated around a couple of countries (France/Switzerland) and I swear to God they must have a sum total of only 30 CD's - tops! Listen more than an hour or two and chances are you'll be hearing numbers 1-30 again real soon! It is spiced up with great tracks from the 80's and 90's by Anglo-Saxon artists, but just when you're getting down to Ray Charles with 'Unchain my Heart', or top-tapping to Rod Stewart and the Faces with 'Maggie-Mae', on comes Betrand 'Can't sing for sh*t' and strangles his way through a song with his (ripped off) guitar riffs. As U.K. expat Stephen Clarke said in one of his books, 'there's not much that would make me leap out of a nice warm bed in the middle of winter on a freezing Saturday morning, but local content blaring out from the radio-alarm does it!'

You see, some of these countries governments subsidise domestic artists to keep a percentage of local content on the airwaves of TV and radio. The taent pool is either pretty small or it is run by a pimply bureaucrat with a pencil protector in his pocket. Straining reedy voices. Dated guitar riffs that are a decade behind. Some of these folks last had a hit in the 70's and they're still dining out on that one song! I'm telling ya', even some of the contestants on Pop-Idol are better...

Any record exec from London to Sydney to L.A. worth his salt would gently put his arm around the shoulder of some of these wanna-be's and quietly say ' Buddy, how can I put this to you nicely?' 'Erm, you suck. Now not just a little mind you. No, you really suck'. Come back when you can play or sing - preferably both...' (Mind you, we won't mention anything about the Spice Girls or Vanilla Ice etc...).

Head off into the country regions of Switzerland and they're still playing Oom-pah music and Yodelling from the '50's. (No wonder the young folks all wear headphones?!)

I'm off to Oz for Xmas. Looks like I'll be getting an I-Pod and downloading lots of my albums...