Radcliffe and Maconie Radio 2
Stuart Maconie Radio 2
Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone 6 Music
Music radio has a surfeit of DJs who are, at best, uninterested in music. You wouldn't get very far in speech broadcasting if you weren't keen on - or, at least, benignly accepting of - the sound of your own voice, and yet acres of radio space is taken up with people who see their job as nothing more than creating "good links" between their station's 12-song playlist, which invariably contains music that sounds like Helen Shapiro being force-fed Chewits. (This, apparently, is more commonly known as "Amy Winehouse".)
Commercial DJs are the worst culprits, though things brighten up considerably on National Express journeys when the driver puts on Heart FM and you hear the Scissor Sisters three times in two hours. None can compare with the music-devouring enthusiasm of Stuart Maconie, surely the BBC's hardest-working man, who, with Mark Radcliffe, has transformed Radio 2's 8pm-10pm slot on Mondays to Thursdays into a showcase for tunes of quality and distinction.
Maconie is a man of many voices. Four nights a week, he's the softly spoken foil to Radcliffe, who at times becomes so shouty you have to turn the sound down. They bat Nick Hornby-level music trivia at each other without ever sounding as though they are flicking through laminated copies of Record Collector beneath the desk. Maconie is more of a pop and soul man, while Radcliffe is brainy art-rock all the way.
Their year-old partnership seemed wrong and superfluous to begin with, though the idea was theirs and not, as I feared, that of someone high up at Radio 2 thinking how "earthy" it would be to put two men from the north-west in a radio booth at the same time. Easily good enough as solo broadcasters, they can still make the show feel a little too much, as though one of them is vying - unconsciously or otherwise - with the other for the soul of the programme.
This may be Radcliffe's overbearing voice (which I never used to notice during his long Radio 1 partnership with Marc "Lard" Riley), or Maconie's comparative gentleness, but it matters little when they manage to get so much good new music heard by so many people. Maconie manages the same on his Saturday-afternoon show, also on Radio 2 (2pm-4.30pm), where he slips in at least one ear-prickingly unusual track for each overplayed chestnut.
Last Saturday's programme showcased, in his words, his coldy "all-new post-Christmas voice, arrived at by a strict diet of Bombay Sapphire and cheese footballs and two hours' sleep a night". He interviewed two ebullient Russian men about a forthcoming live event that will showcase their country's top pop acts, and which includes a singer called Bianca who mixes traditional Russian music with American R'n'B. It was a tease too far that he didn't then play any, but instead went straight to Radio 2 default with a combination of Genesis, Matt Monro ("the tiny former bus driver with the enormous voice") and Joss Stone.
Oh well. I would imagine that this is Maconie's most musically hamstrung show by far, though it could be that he's far less of a music snob than I am. The one show where he gets to delve deepest into his musical knowledge is his extraordinary Sunday-evening programme on 6 Music, the Freak Zone (5pm-8pm), which tests even its regular listeners - many of whom, it seems, email Maconie to complain that he went "too far" the previous week by playing 17-minute-long dub reggae epics at teatime - with its eclecticism.
Last Sunday's was a walk through HMV by comparison to previous shows. We got the German-language version of Kraftwerk's "Home Computer" - yay! He followed a long, elegiac piece of contemporary music by Morton Feldman with an irrepressible: "I love 'im! He's terrific!" You'd never hear anyone saying that on Radio 3.
In recent weeks, he has also played an instrumental track by Arcade called "Chelmsley Wood", one of only two songs ever to mention my east Birmingham homestead (the other being "Michael a Grammar" by the feted West Midlands electronic band Broadcast). No wonder I love him so.
Pick of the week
The Smith Lectures
Starts 12 January, 1pm, Radio 2
“Smith” as in Arthur, “lectures” as in grumpy rants.
Heart and Soul
13 January, 7.30am, BBC World ServiceJohn Humphrys, the happiest man in the world, shares some love.
Night Waves
16 January, 9.45pm, Radio 3A S Byatt on writing and memory.
