Radio 1: as it is III

Edith Bowman, 1pm-4pm

For years Edith Bowman was MTV UK's bronze girl as opposed to its golden one, the only member of their ever evolving presenting team who never made it onto proper telly. Six years she spent gainfully doing just about every home grown show on the network while everyone from Air (Donna) to Zane Lowe graduated to the big leagues. Then in 2003 Colin Murray invited her to join him on a new Radio 1 show on Saturday mornings, so lightweight and stupid it was hard to believe it didn't have sponsorship from a company that made helium canisters but which led to them taking over from Mark and Lard (Murray said at the time that those complaining were "closer to their pensions than to their 18th birthday". That went down well.) Murray went back to night-times last year, and we'll get round to him, leaving Bowman with as much time to refer to everything as "genius!" as she wants. Has she settled in at all? Let's find out.

David Guetta feat. Chris Willis - Love Is Gone
The Twang - Two Lovers (bizarrely, Bowman recently stated Phil Etheridge's vocals were comparable to Jonsi Birgisson's for Sigur Ros)
At least she keeps the intro short.
Justin Timberlake - Sexyback
The Lunchtime Linkup gives over the first half to a kind of Workmates Request deal like you used to get on ILR, except this week it's a group of mates evidently making very slow progress towards the Reading Festival. Today it's "Steve Palmer AKA Roachy", with his brother, apparently nicknamed 'Weiner'. We think we're ahead of the implication. They're in a pub. The first use of 'quality' as a descriptive term happens here. Pete, the aforementioned brother who wants to see The Used and Brand New, has picked...
Funeral For A Friend - Streetcar
Joey Negro - Make A Move On Me
"How can you not like it?" Steve says of FFAF. We think we can try. Somehow it gets round to impulse buying and inviting both stories of and a song that suggests such from listeners. The latter will have to be very inspecific.
Remi Nicole - Go Mr Sunshine ("Download it now!" says Edith. They never used to suggest we bought CDs and vinyls now)
Pigeon Detectives - Take Her Back
News
Amy Winehouse - You Know I'm No Good
Editors - An End Has A Start (is this allowed under BBC guidelines?)
Ida Corr vs Fedde Le Grand - Let Me Think About It
Lily Allen - Smile
Plenty of stories coming in and some very mark-stretching song suggestions, most worthy of Bowman's noting Money For Nothing, Celine Dion's Think Twice and something Edith only refers to as "the eBay song".
Plain White Ts - Hey There Delilah
2 Unlimited - No Limit
Yeah, this is what they came up with. We've just stared at the monitor for a good minute trying to work out the criteria under which this came out top.
Beyonce - Green Light
Red Hot Chilli Peppers - By The Way
"We haven't had a reaction like that to a track for quite some time" says Edith of No Limit. Ironic nostalgia has to stop. Bizarrely, she then receives a text from someone who added 'Manson' to her son's middle names by deed poll. Edith clearly thinks very little of the idea, although she does mention that Colin gave himself a middle name by deed poll of 'J', after Homer J Simpson. Someone could build a fascinating psychological profile of that man.
Beatfreakz - Somebody's Watching Me
Now people are suggesting a new middle name for Edith. The madness never stops. "I know a bloke who changed his name to Creamy Goodness" says one text. Not. Enough. Murders.
KT Tunstall - The Prayer (as performed about two hours earlier)
Gym Class Heroes - Clothes Off
Brakes - Beatific Visions (Edith's record of the week, not that it's helped their profile much)
Someone suggests Bowman change her middle name to 'dot' after her email address, which is actually quite good for as long as Edith doesn't then explain and expand it. First 'genius' of the day.
Axwell - I Found U
News
Kaiser Chiefs - The Angry Mob
Lemar - If There's Any Justice
Previously Edith has been in hysterics at the idea that James King might have been in Ibiza, which seems to be an injoke too close to the edge of listener reason. Movie expert in residence King is taking trivia questions, although given the first question requires King to explain to Bowman that Brian Conley and Bradley Walsh are not the same person it's not entirely clear how readily this is being taken up.
Out Of Office - Hands Up
Robyn - With Every Heartbeat
So they've decided that nobody wants to spend time in film critic screenings with anyone but Mark Kermode - not a majority view, we're guessing - but frankly James gives the game away when talking about Coronation Street actors in major films following an enquiry about whether Fred Elliott is in Hudson Hawk (answer: no, he's fictional, although John Savident is) Isn't the tag that he's supposed to be receiving these blind?
Reverend & The Makers - He Said He Loved Me
Gnarls Barkley - Smiley Faces
Linkin Park - Bleed It Out
Basement Jaxx - Oh My Gosh
Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks
Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
Edith is saying stuff during much of this, it's just not very interesting business regarding Knocked Up and Dawkins-baiting clairvoyancy therapy, and after all this is as much about listing the records played as critiquing the DJs. Right?
Kano feat. Craig David - This Is The Girl
Freaks - The Creeps
News
Fratellis - Whistle For The Choir
Royksopp - Eple (perhaps as a giveaway as to how this got in, Edith starts talking over it a minute and a half in)
The Logical Song, excellently, appears to be the title of a guess the song competition which appears to have the add-on of listeners providing an overelaborate pretend description of what they're doing at the time. It could be more literate, in all honesty.
Foo Fighters - The Pretender
Kanye West - Stronger
Blur - Tender
That was as the answer to the competition. The clues we couldn't be arsed to transcribe, but it is notable that she plays all eight minutes of the album version. Thinking about this whole afternoon shift, when Mark & Lard had their two hours it was well known in the industry that it was getting a phenomenal amount of listeners at that time and indeed the independent sector would use it as a clarion call for more individual ideas among its local stations, yet the audience has only grown since this kind of two text-ins, basically breezy Fifian banter (Bowman is from Anstruther, the same village the Fence Collective is based in) and more music per half-hour has come in. Which, we feel, says something hugely profound about what the pop radio listeners of 2007 really want.