MORE OF A TINKLE.... (Kerrang TV)

Member Name: Emma1973

Product:	Kerrang TV
Date:	29/09/02 (366 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some good music, No presenters!!

Disadvantages: Quite a lot of crap music, If I see more Amrican stuff...I'll gag

Yeah, all right I'll come clean, I like alternative music, thought that doesn't really mean anything anymore does it? I was going to say different to the mainstream but don't bands get counted as mainstream when they start playing on Top of the Pops, what with the likes of Limp Bizkit, Sum 41 and even Marilyn Manson getting into the Top 20 and even 10, who can say what is alternative anymore?

So may genres these days, Nu-Metal, Old Metal, grunge, goth, Pop-punk, indie, are any of these 'alternatives'? Of course we are surrounded by people giving it the old 'I'm more alternative than you na na na' rubbish, but can it be true? Is alternative becoming the new mainstream? Are Britney J-Lo and Westlife condemned to being the new alternative?
Frightening? I think.
Anyway, for Gods sake I'm digressing again, cant someone stop me doing this? If I'm going way off can someone give me a shout?

We all know Kerrang as the biggest alternative music mag around, there have been others discarded along the wayside, but Kerrang and to a lesser extent, Metal Hammer are always hanging around the newsagents shelves. Due to crapness reasons and too much jumping on the bandwagon nonsense I've given up on Kerrang an occasional look when I'm in the supermarket to see what bands are touring but that's it.
Doing it again Dammit!!
Could this be the reason for the Kerrang music programme on Sky (its number 454 by the way), a contender to the crown that MTV2 was previously holding, but who cuts the mustard, who wins the banana, who gets the last fondant fancy in the box?

Kerrang TV is on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and purports to bring us the best in new and old alternative music, though it must be said its mostly metal music, but hey nowt wrong with that, certainly harder music than that other station, the new Oasis song, pardon me if I don't believe that should be any where a alternative music
station.
It claims to tell us that all the music is picked by us the viewer, you see its a kind of pay to watch, they give you the telephone number, each song is then listed on a rolling list at the bottom of the screen with a code number next to it that you then put into the telephone.
But beware it costs 50p a go, so you've done all that and then you sit back and wait for the song of your choice, and wait and wait, and then wait a bit longer. You could be waiting hours to see your song when eventually it would have come up anyway!

But what about the music they play, well its quite a mix, it does play quite a lot of the nu-metal and that awful American 'skunk' music,(ska/punk for all you oldies), but occasionally a few gems come along, the classic Guns and Roses, Metallica and even Slayer have been known to pay a visit. You can see the full lists of songs that are available to select on Ceefax 666, clever, no?
It also has some interesting little things to it as well, every now and then they will hold competitions, Trash Idol is a cringe making idea whereupon they get members of the public to ring up and sing along to some songs and then there's the after 10pm slot.Quite a good idea this one, you get to see all the videos that cant be seen before the watershed, Slipknot end up in there quite a bit as does Metallicas wonderful 'Whisky in the Jar, with its lesbian scenes!
Certainly useful if you're a bit of an oldie like me who likes this stuff but don't particularly want to your kids to see it
But mostly its just pure music all the way, which is just the way I like it, adverts certainly aren't as prolific on this channel as some of the others, in fact Kerrangs own adverts are quite funny, the guy in the paper bag with the huge exclamation mark usually makes me chuckle!

And the best bit? No presenter!!! Just a chap who tells you about the competitions and stuff, no awful Juliette Vallet (old dog who
used to present SuperRock), or that Zane chappy off of MTV2, no one dribbling on about the 'band of the moment' or trying to make jokes and failing badly. No interviews with bands who usually end up making themselves sound really stupid or adopting crap attitudes..I like it!!

The worse bit? I think the producers of Kerrang are telling us a bit of a porky, the programme is so obviously on a loop its untrue, if it was really chosen by 'us' I can guarantee all we would be seeing is back to back Sum 41, Slipknot and Limp Bizkit when the kids get home from school. Of course the record companies have an influence on who and how many times a video gets played, do they really think we are that daft?

So is it any good? Well yes it is, especially for all you Nu-Metal fans, it doesn't go on constantly in our house, Except when my daughter is watching it, but I will flick over in between shows to see if there is anything cool on.
I think Kerrang are a bit stuck though, as I mentioned earlier, there are so many genres around someone is not going to like it, the punks are going to want to see more punk, the Nu-Metallers just want that, the old metallers the same, and lets not mention the goths, cos they don't get a look in, and playing the Sisters of Mercy for one week does not count!
If you want to see the indie stuff as well then I think you are definitely better off watching MTV2, which I can see us coming under the old corporate influence at the moment, way too much mainstream stuff, even VH1 Classic plays more rock than MTV2!.

So there you have it, it totally depends on what you like, personally for me, they don't play enough heavy stuff, but if you've got a 12yr old with a hankering for flares and a Papa Roach T-shirt, that's who you will find stuck in front of the TV!!

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