So where does that leave all the excellent bands Peel never played (Pulp

Erm.....just one cotton-picking minute there. He played Pulp back in 1985!!! And, yes, I do like Pulp.

He's NOT first off the block with new bands (only last night he was going on about playing a record for the first time which he'd heard on Mary-Anne Hobbs about a month ago, and Radcliffe was way ahead with B&S (who as far as I know have never done a Peel session)).

As for the only measure of a good radio show being variety, I'd have said any show that plays

I didn't say first with EVERY band (although nearly always with the ones that count), but the fact that you remember him talking about hearing a record played first on MAH suggests that this ain't too frequent an occurrence. Radcliffe was there early on B&S, admittedly, (couldn't say who was first for sure - couldn't really care) but Peel also played stuff from Tigermilk. the Spice Girls and the Prodigy is pretty diverse, that doesn't make it good. No, I said GREAT and DIVERSE.

The problem with Peel is that because he's been around so long, and in that time he has admittedly played quite a few good groups

(he'd be doing pretty badly if he hadn't), he's been given God-like status by

Understatement of all time? people who now think whatever he plays must be good. For heaven's sake, the man still plays Fall records... I'm with you on this one. Although I felt obliged to jump to his defence (not that he needs anyone to defend him), I'm totally against deification, be it dj's, princesses, whatever. And the Fall haven't made a decent record since 1983. Nigel ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister@majordomo.net -----------------------------------------------------------------------