On The Road by Jeroen van Inkel

ON THE ROAD

by Jeroen van Inkel, Disco Dance 1, 1987

Hello lovely ladies and speedy gents,

Phew, I’ve certainly felt it; the column from last time indeed had the effect I expected. Reactions everywhere, and still a few people nursing blue toes. Perhaps it’s wise to put things in perspective once again. In my column last month, I wanted to make it clear that there are things happening on Dutch radio that show signs of “bad taste.” It’s certainly not the case that “all” good ideas originate at Veronica (although many do!), and that Radio Veronica is the inventor of everything on the radio. To claim that would be nonsense. And perhaps I reacted a bit too strongly, but when you’re in the late-night broadcast (between 4 and 5), and you suddenly hear one of your regular singles, a girl saying “ooh and oeh and ohooh” at Ferry Maat (yes, logical, who listens at night between 4 and 5); and if, every once in a while, you get to do the tip parade and, for the overview, use a tune from George Duke that you suddenly hear on Thursday as the Europarade tune (completely understandable, the few times I’m on the radio); and suddenly, out of the blue, a “promotion team” is formed (hmm, how typical!); and June at TROS suddenly becomes the “film month” (Ahem!); and a well-known Veronica disc jockey is “taken over,” and Madonna is suddenly pronounced in a Curryan way; and soon the “parade of the best” talent show is starting (no, it can’t be true? Well, yes, that’s happening!); and then suddenly there’s ‘bel en win’ (brrr, simmer, fume, growl)…

In hindsight, it turns out that the so-called ‘bel en win’ game (in my opinion, this seems a lot like ‘sing it and win,’ a part of the ROEPIE ROEPIE BIRD) was played years ago by TROS. Due to the slow structure of TROS, the game died an early death and was never on the radio again. The basic idea comes from America. You have the listener call when something ‘special’ is on the station. This ensures that the listener listens longer and more attentively than usual. In the case of Radio Veronica, it’s the Roepie Roepie Bird, and in the case of TROS, it was a bell. In conclusion, we can say that this specific idea is NEITHER from Veronica NOR from TROS. Then, I think, different criteria apply. Personally, I would look to see if there is a broadcaster or radio station applying that particular ‘form’ at that moment. My neighbor also has a Polar Grey car, BUT OF A DIFFERENT BRAND!!!). Unfortunately, they didn’t do that. Some people sometimes say, “oh, come on, why bother; everything has already been done in radio anyway.” That makes me so angry. A few years ago, there was a radio game on Radio Decibel where you had to perform a CALCULATION with the position of a song from the top 40. For the first time, you had to calculate in a radio game! When Decibel introduced this just a few years ago, they showed that ‘new’ things are indeed possible on the radio. It’s probably just a bit more challenging than 25 years ago, that’s true. That’s no reason to say, as some people do, “let it be.” Absolute nonsense. Okay, it requires some thinking, but we can do that nicely during the remaining six days when we don’t have a broadcast. I’ll listen to the radio again because, didn’t they do that 10 years ago already? Prins.

Disco Dance 1, 1987