This post is the extended version of Gareth & Nick's sweary rant in episode 9 of The Nick & Gareth Podcast.
Recently, I was reading a listings mag when I happened across a review of a recent New Kids On The Block concert. The reviewer, female and 34 years old, admitted to having had "a massive wide-on for Jordan Knight when I was fourteen". Wow. A 'wide-on'. What a turn of phrase. I've never heard it before. It conjures an image that is all at once both very feminine and very unlady-like.
Less recently, but more pertinently, I submitted our podcast details to the iTunes directory. The application to be listed was rejected. I was notified of this via an email from ABUSE-REPORT@itunes.com. ABUSE REPORT! I felt bad. Like my name was now on some kind of offender's register and that if that register ever got out into public my neighbours would be round, glassing my windows, brandishing placards and baying for blood. The email gave no reasons for the rejection but it did offer some possibilities. I strongly suspect that copyright infringement is the reason, but I preferred to imagine that reason #2 "unsuitably erotic material" was the reason. Nick is the Jordan Knight of the podcast world and I am Mark Wahlberg's less talented brother. Turn on, Tune In, Wide On.
We kinda knew that the podcast would be rejected anyway, we were hoping it might slip thru the net due to a lack of diligence on the part of an Apple employee. We are aware that we're trampling on copyright laws and there is a certain amount of guilt attached to that, but we console ourselves with the argument that, generally speaking, the music that we're making available isn't actually available online anywhere else. It was my intention that after each podcast I'd link to the tracks so that anybody listening could easily buy any tracks that they liked. But that didn't prove possible such is the limited nature of iTunes catalogue.
I had a mini-rant in episode 9 about Last.FM and iTunes and Spotify and Myspace Music claiming to have extensive catalogues. There's a claim that "MySpace Music allows users to stream virtually any song ever published for free". Which is so transparently bullshit that it makes me wanna vomit I p'raps shouldn't get so annoyed by marketing bullshit like this, but I do.
Anyway... what we're doing is bringing some dead tunes back to life. (We're keeping the dream alive, man.) It feels like a proud and noble quest.
Even when we've been playing tunes that are available to legally download anecdotal evidence has shown that folks who have liked a tune we've played in the pod have gone and purchased the song after hearing it. Which is nice. It would be lovely if that was always possible.
John Peel - 5th September 1992
2 months ago
