“I was out with my old mate Puff Daddy one night, clubbing,” announces Tony Blackburn, rather improbably. “And I said to him: ‘Why don’t you do a version of that? You know, just sample it?’ And he said, ‘Hey mate, that’s a good idea.’”
That’s Blackburn’s apocryphal tale of how The Police’s Every Breath You Take became the hook for Puffy’s I’ll Be Missing You, as recounted in Look What They’ve Done To My Song Ma! Despite being the incarnation of Smashy and Nicey-style broadcasting, the Radio 2 stalwart remains an affable chap who certainly knows his stuff, even though he’s happy to sacrifice facts for japes.
Chortling through three hours of cover versions produces a lot of fun, even if you can’t help but yearn for the originals. If Radio 1 is happy to haemorrhage listeners who are over 30, shows like this could be their alternative, but what about music fans who are – shock horror – even older?
Trash and treasure lay side by side here. Kylie Minogue’s pointless cover of Chairmen of the Board’s 1970 hit tongue-roller Give Me Just A Little More Time is a tough one for even the most diehard fan to defend. But Blackburn demonstrates his expertise as a pop-picker with Barry White’s soulful take on Billy Joel’s Just The Way You Are and George Michael’s big career-reviver, Fast Love.
Blackburn is also terribly forgiving, complimenting songs where credit is due and tactfully ignoring disasters. He appears to cock a deaf ’un as Tom Jones murders Prince’s Kiss and thrusts his leather-clad loins all over its rotting corpse. And as much as the DJ likes a chat, he knows when to let a song take centre stage, leaving the Pet Shop Boys’ majestic Go West untouched by unnecessary blether. Some songs gift him with the power of inappropriate dad jokes. “Ooh, how do you like my love?” purrs Rachel Stevens on More, More, More. “I like it very much,” chuckles Blackburn. And with Atomic Kitten nestling next to Guns N’ Roses in this playlist-flouting romp, what’s not to like? Just one thing: this is crying out for a sequel where he dusts off the originals.
