David Smyth has another listen to radio and meets the latest in the production line of MySpace led musicians, Colbie Caillat.

TURN ON, TUNE IN, NOD OFF

You may have thought we were all too busy "poking" each other on Facebook or watching shaky concert footage on YouTube to listen to something as ancient as the radio these days, but apparently not. Recent Rajar figures have showed that listeners are on the increase again.

Twelve million people are now listening to radio digitally (in 2003 it was less than a million) and Radio 1 has put on almost half a million listeners in the past year, reason enough to throw a big party when its 40th anniversary arrives this Sunday.

Indie station Xfm, which is targeted at a similar young audience, has also been marking an anniversary this month, its 10th. When it started out I used to prefer its airing of edgy rock bands to Radio 1's less daring approach but since the assimilation of indie rock into the mainstream, its playlist isn't so different from anyone else's. I confess that I don't listen to radio much at all any more.

Radio 3's Late Junction makes for a lovely mellow evening until the Mongolian throat singing comes on, and I've been known to use the internet to access Nic Harcourt's influential show on Californian station KCRW but this job demands that almost all my time is spent listening to new albums.

Earlier this week I thought I might take a few hours off work and give radio another chance. I tuned in for Chris Moyles's Radio 1 breakfast show, which is now up to an incredible 7.26 million listeners, deciding to switch back and forth between that and Xfm whenever I became bored or irritated.

This generally involved defecting to Xfm whenever bubbly lunchtime presenter Edith Bowman began to talk, then almost immediately back again because the younger station plays the same advert for Churchill Insurance approximately every seven seconds.

Some broad impressions: having spent my life avoiding Moyles as you would a man in an England football shirt clutching a broken bottle, I had no idea how little music he plays or how much he talks about sex at that time in the morning.

Mid-morning host Jo Whiley is crazy about novelty cover versions. And former Xfm man Zane Lowe's evening show on Radio 1 has an energy that the other DJs lack but he seems to think it's cool to sing over the songs. It's confusing when Bowman and Lowe's voices pop up on Xfm in adverts.

Musicwise, I'd been led to believe it is Razorlight who rule the airwaves but by the end of the day I was sick of Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys. The latter even had an hour to themselves on Radio 1, playing their favourite bands and talking over one another.

There's definitely a generic guitar group sound that dominates to a greater extent even than in the Britpop years.

Only Bowman and Radio 1's drivetime joker Scott Mills played much pop music.

The biggest change from the radio format that has existed for decades is Xfm's decision to give the hours from 10am-4pm to listeners' song choices played without a DJ, laughably billed as an groundbreaking new era rather than cost-cutting.

After half an hour of listening to someone called Andy introducing White Stripes songs down a crackly phone line and yet more Churchill ads, I was ready to get back to that pile of CDs.

A 21-MILLION HIT WONDER

In terms of useful fast-tracks to stardom, having a famous dad ought to be a major help, but it's only been a minor factor for Malibu's Colbie Caillat, the latest "MySpace phenom" (the internet moves so fast these days that there isn't even time to finish words).

Colbie's father, Ken Caillat (pronounced like "ballet"), is the respected music industry figure who produced the mega-selling Rumours and Tusk albums for Fleetwood Mac in the Seventies. But while he was full of early encouragement and advice for his youngest daughter, who decided that a singing career was for her at the age of 11, he didn't secure her a recording contract.

"I started putting unfinished songs up on my MySpace page about a year and a half ago," the 22-year-old tells me, "not to get a record deal but just because the songwriting process was new to me and I thought it would be fun to see people's reactions to my music."

One song, Bubbly, a simple acoustic pop number that recalls the easygoing mellowness of surfer dude Jack Johnson and is released as a UK single this week, proved particularly popular. Ridiculously popular, in fact.

Thanks to people seeking out the track, Caillat's songs have now been played more than 21.5 million times on MySpace. Compare that figure to other acts who apparently owe their careers to the internet: Lily Allen (15 million), Arctic Monkeys (almost seven million) and Kate Nash (five million).

Bubbly was a summer hit in the US, particularly among teenage girls. "I'm not much older than them, so they relate to what I'm singing about.

"They come up to me in the street, ask me if I'm that girl who sings that Bubbly song, and start screaming."

The rest of the population may not find themselves hyperventilating about her sunny froth but it looks like it will be unavoidable very soon.

AN EARLY LISTEN TO ...
Adele
19 (XL)

Tagged as a "mini Allen" in early publicity, and hailing from the same BRIT School of Performing Arts as Kate Nash and Amy Winehouse, Brixton teenager Adele Adkins could be the next feisty female with a glottal stop habit to take over the charts. However, preview tracks from her debut album, due in January, suggest she's more likely to be 2008's Corinne Bailey Rae.

Songs such as Daydreamer are quiet, pretty, potential background music lifted skywards by her rich, warm voice.

The piano ballad Hometown Glory has genuine soul, a simple sound on paper that feels vastly emotional in reality.

The tabloids will be more interested in her peers unless she develops a nasty crack habit between now and Christmas but that won't stop her music from racing up the charts. She plays the Soho Revue Bar on 20 October.

NEW ON THE NET

• Amazon's long-awaited store has just launched in the US, offering downloads for as little as 89 cents that, unlike iTunes purchases, will play on any brand of MP3 player. You can't buy anything from it here yet but if you want an early glimpse of what a genuine rival to iTunes looks like, you can play around with it here: www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/163856011.

• The BT Digital Music Awards take place on Tuesday, giving gongs to those who've had a particularly innovative web presence in the past year. There's still time to vote in categories including Best Podcast and Best Music Community at www.btdma.com.

• The 7digital store at www.7digital.com is the cheapest place I've found to get the new JosÈ Gonzalez album, In Our Nature, out this week. Fans of the Swede's gossamer balladry can pick it up for a mere fiver, probably less than you spent on your lunch.