Chris Evans First Show - Music Review

So, an expectant nation was tuned in to hear how Mr Evans did this morning. What will the reviews say? Well, the correspondents and bloggers have already been busy typing away, so we don’t have to wait until tomorrow mornings papers. But, as I always think it’s a bit unfair to judge a shows speech content and features on its first proper outing, I thought I’d look at the music content instead.

Here’s the running order from this morning's show:

7am
Beatles – All You Need Is Love
Beatles – Got To Get You Into My Life
Frank Sinatra – Fly Me To The Moon
Robbie Williams – You Know Me
Hockey – Song Away
The Seekers – Morningtown Ride
Paolo Nutini – 10/10
Madonna – Material Girl
Ocean Colour Scene – Magic Carpet Days
Fats Domino – Blueberry Hill

8am
Bruce Springsteen – Glory Days
Elbow – One Day Like This
Tom Jones – It’s Not Unusual
Dionne Bromfield feat Zalon – Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
The Monkees – Daydream Believer
Mika – Blame It On The Girls
Neil Diamond – Pretty Amazing Grace
Rolling Stones – Honkey Tonk Woman
Johnny Cash – Ring of Fire
Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind

9am
ELO – Rockaria!
Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman
Supertramp – The Logical Song
Bon Jovi – Superman Tonight

Despite what any other station may claim, I think Radio 2 wins the prize for “More Music Variety”!

There really was something for everybody, with the oldest song being from Fats Domino with his 1956 version of Blueberry Hill. Throw in some Sinatra and Beatles and you’ve got the older end pretty happy... and many of the younger end too come to think of it. You can’t really go wrong with them. And the currents were catered for as well with Robbie, Alicia Keys, the new one from Mika... and even a rather good new song from the ‘Evans favourites’ box, Ocean Colour Scene.

Chuck in a few 80’s songs for good measure, and hey... I think we’ve got a show!

With 10 songs an hour, there certainly wasn’t plenty of music, so they ‘quantity’ box gets a tick. I’m certain there was a great deal of attention paid by Head of Music, Jeff Smith, to ensure that the playlist was suitably skewed as not to turn off the older end, suitably modern to appeal to a new generation of Radio 2 listeners, and suitably eclectic to ensure Radio 2 does not get criticised for being too mainstream.

I think he achieved that.

It will interesting to see how the music content develops over the next 12 months, so we’ll repeat this exercise again in a year’s time if that’s ok with you!

As for the speech content, we’ll leave that for another day... although I daresay “man who holds ‘blowing up hot water bottles’ record will never make another appearance on UK radio.... ever!