Bloody "Imagine". Not quite the same though - I hated it when I first heard it and have done ever since.

worse things happen at sea...
Anyway here's David Ford's spin on it. Tell me it doesn't put a smile on your face.

Bohemian Bloody Rhapsody
River Of Dreams-Billy Joel
Anything by Bloody Ben's Brother!

Bloody DLT. talk about over exposure

Brown Eyed Girl

The Whole Of The Moon

Those 2 are over played to the Nth degree...

Beautiful Day

Uuuurrggh.

The Clapping Song - Belle Stars. I detest every inch of its tune and lyrics.

Vienna - Ultravox. So very, very pleased with its own sense of importance.

Much as I love New Order, every time I hear any one of the innumerable remixes of Blue Monday I want to hurt someone.

I also detest Move Closer by Phyllis Nelson. No idea why, apart from the fact that it's sh*t.

or whatever it's called. It came on in the post office the other day and I was just praying to get out of there before she does that silly high note.

I don't mind David Bowie, but I wish Ross would stop going on about him. Why doesn't he go on about Bob Dylan instead? That I wouldn't mind so much.

And by the way, here's Ray Charles doing Imagine:

'You're Beautiful'.

and ordinarily I'm a huge fan, but Love Shack grates.

Have you been to a wedding/work do/etc in the past 18 years that hasn't played this?

For some reason radio 2 before midday still seem utterly obsessed with Robbie.

I think they're the only ones.

Now, Another Girl, Another Planet by The Only Ones. Why isn't this played more?

...where no one played Dancing Queen? Beyond cliché.

but I could live happily never hearing 'Sex Machine' or 'I Feel Good' ever again.

Beyond dull

...why anyone would buy the soundtrack of The Commitments. Fab film, and the music in that context is all well and good. But why would anyone pay for In The Midnight Hour unless it's by Wilson Pickett, or I Never Loved A Man by someone other than Aretha Franklin? It's not as if they bring anything new to the songs: they just try to sound as good, and fail.

...please shut up.
Another shout for Whole Of The Moon....great anthem but every song has a sell by date.
Another Girl Another Planet is played to death in my world, when did you last hear another Only Ones song aired.

- pretty woman
- walking on sunshine
- wake up boo
- i'll be there for you (the Friends theme song)
- whole of the moon
- sit down (James)
- anything Commitments related
- anything Blues Brothers related
- girls just wanna have fun
- anything and everything by Coldplay
- let me entertain you (Robbie Williams)
- anything by David Gray
- anything by James Blunt
- everything by Dido
- unchained melody
- the rose
- RESPECT (Aretha)

I never want to hear it again, ever..and aren't we talking Virgin Radio programming here? Playing just the 'big' tracks by big, well-establihed rock bands. If the DJ says 'we've got some Sabbath coming up for you after the break..', you are pretty sure its gonna be Paranoid. If he says Guns N' Roses, it'll be Sweet Child of Mine...John Lennon? - Imagine...The Clash? - Rock the Casbah...and so on..

I've had so many people tell me what a wonderful song this is but I've been so overexposed to it that for ages I wouldn't even buy the parent album - thus missing out on many wonderful Dexys songs (sigh)

And on the subject of appalling Virgin Radio programming ... I was channel hopping one Sunday and heard some unknown female DJ suggesting I "kick back and relax to the soothing sound of The Verve" ... and then play The Drugs Don't Work. Ah yes - a chilled weekend on the suicide ward. Ludicrous.

... was tuned into a local commercial station all day long? I had one of those a while back and the constant plays of Edwyn Collins "A Girl Like You" and Sheryl Crowe's "All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun" killed those songs stone dead for me. The line from that last tune; "Billy likes to peel the labels off his bottles of Bud" still provokes me into a frenzy of fury every single time I hear it.

I also never want to hear Deacon Blue's "Raintown" again. I worked in the restaurant in a popular holiday camp one summer and that album was played over the tannoy throughout every single shift day in day out for three months. It drove me mental, wondering why the hell someone would buy a bloody dingy and name it. Or if it was actually a ship called Dignity how could a council worker ever get the money together and pay moorage fees in a port? Now a boat, which doesn't have a deck, that was fine, but it ain't a boat in that bloody song now is it?

This is just a small example of how mad I went listening to that all day long...

...I worked in the Smash Hits office which was on London's swinging Carnaby Street. The shop across the way, which was the venue of choice if you wanted to buy yourself a rubber policeman's helmet or a Sid Vicious bum flap, had one record in the summer of 1981 and that was the long version of Stars On 45's massive hit in which the finest flower of Dutch rockers sang discofied versions of Beatles classics. They played it literally all day every day for four months.

The above exemplifies the frightful playlist mentality of practically every radio station in the UK.

A few years ago I worked for BBC local radio. In 1997 a core playlist was assembled for the entire network by testing an assortment of records over the telephone to a selection of the target demographic (read: - a bunch of coffin dodgers).

Unsurprisingly, the 250 or so records that made the cut were the most innoffensive and over-played tosh available. Nothing dangerous or challenging was allowed. Interestingly, of two practically identical records (Joanna and Cherish, both by Kool & The Gang) only one gained audience approval. Otherwise, this moronic method of programming radio (still in use today) effectively reduces the back catalogue of quality artists down to a few (maybe only one) over-familiar oldies but goldies.

So, if it's Robert Palmer, you're guaranteed She Makes My Day. Don't expect Sneaking Sally, unless some clod mis-programmes it from one of the greatest hits albums.

Likewise, Minnie Riperton = Lovin' You. No-one gets the chance to hear anything at all from her simply fabulous back catalogue.

Billy Joel = Uptown Girl. Don't expect to hear anything from, say, Turnstiles or Streetlife Serenade (both excellent records).

Joe Walsh = Life's Been Good
Roxy Music = Jealous Guy
Rod Stewart = Baby Jane
Bee Gees = You Win Again
Eric Clapton = Wonderful Tonight (surely the worst record ever made)
Art Garfunkel = Bright Eyes
Robbi Williams = Angel

You get the idea. All thanks to the pony-tailed zeros who discovered that reducing everyone to the level of one-hit-wonders effectively improves listener ratings. Or in the case of independent local radio, sells more advertising.

I acknowledge that BBC Radio London, 6Music and bits of Radio 2 (add your own examples here) are free of this rigid and frankly stupid method of airtime programming. However, in my experience, the country where radio stations make the best use of their record libraries is...Sweden. Check out any Stockholm-based rock station. Example: - Rory Gallagher's Daughter of The Everglades. Ronan O'Reilly couldn't do it better.

(I should add that this topic has been examined in depth previously on some superb Word Podcasts. Just thought that I'd add my two penn'orth).

As a footnote, here's a track that gets occasional plays on European radio. It's from the huge back catalogue of a band that the UK somewhat unfairly treats as one-hit-wonders. I'll give my old BBC Senheiser headphones to the Smart Alec who can put a name and artist to it...

Anything I like to play in the office is considered "obscure", "it's not sung in English", "never heard of them..." or "what's that crap SHE'S (i.e. yours truly) got on now..." from a person who take a very dim view of what's good, what's bad and what's truly awful. Yes you know who you are and believe me you could do with your ears syringing.

Yes I agree with local radio (both independent and the BBC) to play the blandest music ever. I call it "Dead FM" or "Bland AM" because it comatose me to sheer boredom. Arrrh "hit after hit" and "the best music by the best artists in the world". Do me a favour how about playing something different by them instead of their "biggest" hit?

At least when I was working in hospital radio a decade ago there was still variety when I did the requests for patients. Deliberately the DJ and I could segway some easy listening track with something quite the opposite.

When was the last time I heard anything decent, when my ex-friend had a radio show and tore up the play list and got excited by playing a full version of a long forgotten classic.

The reason for my eclectic tastes; my Saturday job at a local independent record shop where I heard everything from the 1920's to present.

They reduce an artist's entire back catalogue from several albums to one or two tracks - usually the first and last big hits.

No Doubt (Don't Speak/It's My Life)
Supergrass (Alright)
Peter Gabriel (Sledgehammer/Solsbury Hill)
Kate Bush (Wuthering Heights/ Cloudbusting [actually, I kinda like that one])

The list goes on and always will.

Oh yes... I never liked Don't You Want Me, and I never will. Please play Sound Of The Crowd for a damn change!

No disrespect here but the "musical" hearing impaired is king.

Am dying a slow painful death here from the diluted and distilled music that am forced to listen to day in, day out. If I have to hear the same track again for the tenth time, I will scream out loud!

I try to avoid playing the same artist or CD twice (if I ever get the chance to) at work, variety is the spice but not the Greatest Hits CD but with a full album's worth and not their best seller either.

I have now been forced (much protesting from myself) to stop bringing in my own CDs because of the number of complaints from colleagues, even if they are "freebies" from WORD magazine and other magazines.

I'm so tired of always hearing Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl and Moondance. Van has one song I do really like from him and I never hear it on the radio or when someone has some music playing and that's Caravan.

My pet hate...

The Cure released one song "Friday I'm in Love"

REM's greatest work is "Shiny Happy People"

James Blunt is "edgy"

Oh lordy....