So....
way back in the 90s, in my impressionable youth, there was an amazing show on Radio 1 called the Evening Session. It's where I learned about music and began to understand that manufactured pop is for people who can't be bothered to really follow bands, understand different genres, search out rare records in basement shops and get bruised and filthy at live gigs. This show was hosted by Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley. They were my heroes for some years and I listened to the show every night as a teenager while I did my homework.
Now when you hear people on the radio, you don't tend to have a well-formed idea of what they look like. You just sort of make a blurry picture in your head. This was of course in the days before everything was on the web. It was a bit of a surprise to me when Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley started to pop up on tv programmes. He has, let's say "
a good face for radio," whereas Jo turned out to be something of a glamorous blonde. These days she looks a bit like this:
And herein lies the rub. Once Whiley was not only considered a radio DJ, but something of a media personality, she began to be more aware of the power she possessed. I did not immediately dislike her. I remember watching her on one of those late night Channel 4 shows, sounding quite knowledgeable. She was pretty and blonde but wearing a really quite odd jumper and she never seemed able to look at the camera at quite the right angle... I thought she was pretty cool.
But the Radio 1 DJs of my youth are generally no longer still there. Steve Lamacq, Chris Evans, Colin Murray, Mark Radcliffe and many more have moved to 'older' audiences at Radio 2, 5, 6 and the like.. So why is blimmin Jo Whiley still there? The thing now is, she's trying to be both 'down with the kids' and a 'yummy mummy', but you can't have it both ways. The first I ever heard about facebook was from her talking about joining all the groups... you could tell she was trying to catch onto this Zeitgeist-y thing but she just sounded like my mum trying to talk to my friends... It put me off joining facebook for months because I didn't want to be a tragic wannabe like that. She has live bands on her show every week and it's becoming increasingly awkward to listen to. The thing that most bothers me is that she doesn't talk to celebrities and bands in the polite, slightly distant way that most journalists would; she just talks to everyone like they're a close friend. They can't all be her close friends surely! Then the next minute she's on about her children and I'm young and free (and Northern) enough not to be able to relate to her London upper-middle class lifestyle.
My advice to Jo? Follow your former colleagues to a radio station that is not aimed principally at 18-25 year olds. Either be a voice of authority on music, or a friend to celebs, or some sort of mumsnet chat hostess... but stop trying to be all of those at once. It's insincere, it's irritating and I've definitely had enough.
