Video Didn't Kill the Radio Star...Radio Killed the Radio Star

About a month ago, my friend Xavier decided to instill a little bit of culture into us heathens, thats my brother and I; and proposed a French DVD evening at his place. In hopes of learning some French and impressing the ladies, it was a welcome proposal.

Since then we've watched a few French movies, yet the only phrase that I have really learnt, which aren't dirty and unrepeatable, is "apre vous" which means "after you". I guess if chivalry were still alive and kicking this would be a real gem of a phrase, but as every one knows "nice guys finish last".

Anyways I digress, last night we, well mostly I, decided instead of a French film, we would see a movie called Across the Universe, which was recommended to us by Katrina. My brother and Xav were weary at first, as the movie is a musical. But it quite literally rocked, from start to finish and they thoroughly enjoyed it - Bini who only joined us half way also enjoyed it .

The movie is very artistic and very cleverly put together, it arranges songs from The Beatles to unfold a love story, with themes of Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll resonating through.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney are arguably the most prolific song writers of all time, and the imagery and in particular the music (since I am a massive Beatles fan) had me captivated from beginning to end.

I was most particularly intrigued with a character named JoJo, who was a spin off of Jimi Hendrix and his guitar mastery inspired me so much that I was practicing scales late into the evening, a feat which I had not accomplished since high school.

The movie was a real throw back to the 60's and 70's and while I was watching, what plagued me most, I believe, is that the level of song writing and particularly guitar work that is churned out by the music industry these days is not nearly as good as what it used to be. I blame this on the format of radio.

I personally believe the song "Video Killed the Radio Star" (so it happens I've hung out with Dave Birch one of the original guys behind the genius of writing that song, a true demi-god amongst men and who helped to produce my mate, Bryan's albums) is not entirely true. I think that radio killed the radio star, with the all too short, 3 minute format restricting and killing the creativity of guitar geniuses and song-writers the world over. When was the last time you heard a guitar solo that lasted 10 minutes that melted your face off? Not since the 80's early 90's probably.

Anyways I could hop on this particular topic for ages, and while I still love listening to the radio, I believe something has definitely been lost. I really hope that at some point, in the near future, a radio star will emerge with the talent to bring me to awe like the Beatles and good ol' Jimi.