Randomiser #10: 10 January 2007
Today's song: V-Twin, "Delinquency"
This is another track from an old Select cover CD, and it falls into that vastly oversubscribed genre, "indie bands who want to be the Velvet Underground." For what it is, it's perfectly listenable, but... I mean, what you can say about it, other than that they've got no apparent ideas of their own, but they do an entirely acceptable pastiche of other people's? It has lyrics like "Rock and roll's from outer space." But it's too obviously in thrall to its influences to really be anything special. Next!
Also:
- Somebody's going to try the Jack radio format in the UK, which basically involves having no presenters and playing seemingly random songs (although frankly, the choice described in this BBC story still seems pretty conservative to me). This sort of thing offends against my curatorial sensibilities - it's fundamentally a way of massively cutting your wage bill by getting rid of the presenters - but local radio DJs already have virtually no control over what they play, so in many cases you might as well replace them with a randomiser. It never did the Chart Show any harm.
- UK government announces mass closing of government websites, after finally figuring out that 951 might be too many. They seem to have a point; there are websites listed for departments nobody's even heard of. That said, a close inspection reveals that many of the sites they're getting rid of (such as Floor Targets Interactive or the Interactive Whiteboards Catalogue) are actually subdomains. Since many of these closed sites are reportedly being folded into other ones (some of the others are for obsolete and completed projects), I have a suspicion that they've pumped up the number by simply getting rid of some subdomains and replacing them with more complicated URLs. Which would look good as a press release, but wouldn't actually be a meaningful improvement. If the government must sell interactive whiteboards - whatever the hell they are - then I'm not convinced burying them in the Becta website will make anyone's life easier.
This is another track from an old Select cover CD, and it falls into that vastly oversubscribed genre, "indie bands who want to be the Velvet Underground." For what it is, it's perfectly listenable, but... I mean, what you can say about it, other than that they've got no apparent ideas of their own, but they do an entirely acceptable pastiche of other people's? It has lyrics like "Rock and roll's from outer space." But it's too obviously in thrall to its influences to really be anything special. Next!
Also:
- Somebody's going to try the Jack radio format in the UK, which basically involves having no presenters and playing seemingly random songs (although frankly, the choice described in this BBC story still seems pretty conservative to me). This sort of thing offends against my curatorial sensibilities - it's fundamentally a way of massively cutting your wage bill by getting rid of the presenters - but local radio DJs already have virtually no control over what they play, so in many cases you might as well replace them with a randomiser. It never did the Chart Show any harm.
- UK government announces mass closing of government websites, after finally figuring out that 951 might be too many. They seem to have a point; there are websites listed for departments nobody's even heard of. That said, a close inspection reveals that many of the sites they're getting rid of (such as Floor Targets Interactive or the Interactive Whiteboards Catalogue) are actually subdomains. Since many of these closed sites are reportedly being folded into other ones (some of the others are for obsolete and completed projects), I have a suspicion that they've pumped up the number by simply getting rid of some subdomains and replacing them with more complicated URLs. Which would look good as a press release, but wouldn't actually be a meaningful improvement. If the government must sell interactive whiteboards - whatever the hell they are - then I'm not convinced burying them in the Becta website will make anyone's life easier.
posted by Paul O'Brien at 6:18 pm
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