The employees of the SABC receive their salaries from our taxes. Basically, we pay their salaries. It is therefore a mystery as to why 5FM can be so obstructionist when it comes to South African music.
These pretenders to the throne of everything that is supposed to be cutting edge and South African have refused to playlist Locnville (pictured).
The reason? Apparently it is not strong enough.
Explained 5FM’s station manager, Vukile Zondi: “The single Stars Above You by Locnville was submitted and evaluated by the 5FM playlist committee last week Wednesday, June 29. The song was heard by the committee, along with other tracks, and evaluated according to 5FM’s music policy criteria, and rejected based on this criteria.”
The subsequent rejection has led to Locnville’s record company appealing to their fans on Facebook to call the radio station if they like the song. Then yesterday, DJ Fresh and his team retorted to this appeal.
Hmm, let’s listen to the track again. Called Stars Above You, it is one of the catchiest songs on Locnville’s highly commercial and sophisticated second album, Running to Midnight.
For those not in the know (and that includes the management of 5FM), Locnville are the biggest teen sensation in the country. Their debut single, Sun in My Pocket, caused teenage girls to fall in love with the gorgeous identical twins. It was a case of “Justin Bieber, eat your heart out”.
Locnville then went on to win the MTN SA Music Award for Best Newcomer as well as Best Selling Album of 2010. To reiterate, they are the biggest selling local act of 2010 and this excludes their downloads and international success.
So when they released their latest album, radio stations such as KFM, OFM, Highveld and East Coast Radio were eager to playlist their music.
Yet the supposedly all-powerful 5FM turned them down. Now, I know that they have ways and means of deciding what is playlisted blah, blah, the usual explanations of the last 30 years, but in this case, it is simply not good enough.
Having enjoyed two listening sessions with the Locnville twins, it is safe to say that almost every track on the album is a hit single.
Yet 5FM’s refusal to playlist Locnville is not surprising.
Since the apartheid days, it has meticulously tried to avoid playing South African music. It even refused to play Arno Carstens’s Another Universe. Like, duh!
Its anti-South African standpoint is astonishing considering that the 5FM brand is supposed to be so cutting edge.
Umm, has any 5FM listener heard of Professor?
Shame. This silly little national radio station has, unfortunately, never been able to beat its apartheid legacy of preferring American and British music over its own.
Seventeen years after many of us became proud of our South African heritage, 5FM would rather celebrate Lady Gaga and her meat dresses.
However, said Zondi: “The song will be heard and evaluated again this week by the 5FM playlist committee, as it has been resubmitted, and all the feedback will be taken into consideration in making a decision on whether or not to playlist it.”
5FM – Only what you want to hear.