Lowe show settles into its own rhythm

Kiwi-born UK radio host Zane Lowe.

He sounded like a crazed meth addict threatening to stalk me for the rest of my life. "We're worldwide!" he thundered. "100 countries! Always on!"

If he'd borrowed Liam Neeson's classic quotable, "I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you," I wouldn't have been surprised at all.

Yes, Beats 1 is The Zane Lowe Show. He's overseeing the Apple Music channel, he's picked the celebrity guests roster of DJs that includes Dr Dre and Josh Homme, and he's on air twice a day: live at 4am, then repeated at 4pm (NZ time).

As his first show proved, the overly-caffeinated Kiwi DJ is a hyper-real hype man. It was an exhausting experience. He listed countries. He gave shout outs to his mother and brother. He spat out ridiculous statements like "Our only genre is 'great'!"

At one point, he played Pharrell's pretty average new song Freedom twice in a row, then bellowed: "THIS IS WHAT WE DO!"

My London-based mates had warned me about his shouty antics, but I still listened to Beats 1 a lot last week. I wanted to give it a fair shot.

After that first day, everyone seemed to be picking on the Kiwi kid with his finger in the Raro packet. Like, bro, just calm down a bit.

Thankfully, by the end of the week, he had. So had the music selection. On that first day, I heard the Beastie Boys, David Bowie, Pulp, AC/DC and some random Brit band called Spring King I never want to hear again.

But by Friday, Beats 1 had settled down to become its own thing. The music selection is fantastically current. I've discovered new songs by MIA, Hudson Mohawke, the Chemical Brothers, Shamir and Flume that I didn't know existed. With its bass-heavy mix of hip-hop, trap and grime, Julie Adenuga's 7am-7pm show has become appointment viewing. Accidentally, I found myself being led through a playlist of 80s classics by the deep, dreary tones of Elton John. It was bizarrely enjoyable. For hip-hop fans, it's unmissable: Dr Dre, Q-Tip and A-Trak have their own shows, as do Run the Jewels. They play on Fridays. They announced it by discussing unicorns. I'm there.

My major Beats 1 beef is with the constant censoring. It ruins songs. If Apple Music is that progressive, shouldn't it offer an uncensored channel? One that comes with a caffeine-free Zane Lowe? Perhaps Liam Neeson could get that sorted for us.

- TimeOut