Bad news about BBC 6Music this week, though some of the slightly moist fanboy testimonies to a station that, ultimately, fills most of its airtime with what I’d call bog standard British indie haven’t been terribly edifying.

A lot of the campaigning makes me slightly uncomfortable in the way that the whole Rage Against The Machine vs Simon Cowell business did. That rather sanctimonious conceptualising of ‘proper’ music always raises my hackles: just because you don’t like Leona Lewis, or Lady Gaga or whatever, just because it wasn’t performed live by some guys who know and respect the towering artistic legacy of, say, The Wedding Present, doesn’t mean it isn’t ‘proper’ music. It’s OK to just ignore it, rather than get upset about it.

Of course the loss of 6Music will make it fractionally harder, I suppose, for these people to ignore that stuff, if they remain deadset on bothering with music radio, though God knows there are enough ways of constructing your own perfect playlist these days. And of course there are some things I do like on 6Music when I catch them; Freak Zone, Craig Charles’ soul show and so on.

But while I’m all for the BBC providing a diverse cultural service, standing up against the combined horrors of Rupert Murdoch and the Honourable Ed Vaizey, I can’t help thinking that the Asian Network will be a much more substantial loss; something that isn’t being articulated so forcefully in the face of all the well-connected and organised 6Music boosters.

Anyway, quite a lot of shall we say underwhelming records in this lot, I’m afraid. Pretty amazing CD that Allan’s putting together for the next issue, though…

1 Elliott Smith – Roman Candle (Domino)

21 Foals – Total Life Forever (Warner Bros)