WHY DOES RADIO SUCK?
Correspondent:: hellpopehuey@subgenius.com (HellPopeHuey)
Date: 5 Oct 2004 21:57:11 -0700
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Jett@NocturnalMovements.net (Jett Black) wrote in message news:...
> Want to read an article that could possibly change your entire outlook
> on Music in America?
> The INDUCE ACT and the Cartel - or - Why does RADIO suck?
> http://www.sickamongthepure.com/files/2004/10/Radio/Radio.html
> This controversial issue warrants feedback!
> Would you like to read MORE 'music technology' articles like this one
> about the INDUCE ACT?
> Would you like to elaborate upon or debate the topic at hand?
In a sense, its horrifically simple. Its about Payola. America is all
about The Buck and we have a very poor cultural life that centers on
flash and The Latest Thing, which usually has little base in anything
but "Hey, Look at ME!" This is why so much of the really interesting
music HAS come from Europe: they have a broader sense of history and
diverse cultures to draw on. A little classical, folk & avant-garde
thrown into the mix makes for a better MIX and informs the Art. That's
why, for example, England gave us King Crimson and Kate Bush and we
gave it Madonna and RAP. Hell, even death metal like The Summoning has
a bleepin' choir in it at one point; try that here and you're dead.
We are hypocritical: we "love" a challenge, but let's keep it SIMPLE,
like disco, right? God forbid that a thing not be consumable within 3
chews and 30 seconds. So we encourage a culture of sheer crap and then
bitch about it while taking a big bite of the next piece.
Its not as if the U.S. hasn't generated some great artists, no
question, but remember, Jimi Hendrix had to go TO England to get
noticed. Its the same smug mindset that has us in hot water
internationally as of late. In addition, the steady march towards
having no Art or Music classes in public schools leaves kids with
nothing to go on but the radio, flashy websites and videos, which are
focused on selling a narrow range of mere Product. As a result, they
have little perspective or range and often get out of the HABIT of
listening to and buying music. Several of my older friends gave it up
over time, yet were enthusiastic when I played for them some
non-hit-list material I'd sought out. The audience has simply been
debased by bad marketing of crappy pop aimed at kids alone. It is
galling that the RIAA shows no ability to take a longer view of
retaining the interest and expenditure of people who are given more
options as they get older and their tastes change. They obsolesce
their own buyer base.
On the other hand, all of this damned p-to-p "freedom" does the same
thing to the ARTISTS that the big conglom record companies have done:
screws many of them to the wall, especially those who are only at the
small-to-median sales level. Oh, everybody sure wants that STUFF, but
relatively few really grasp the numerous hours of sweat, hope and
theoretical talent that go into it. So the companies bone their
clients and buyers alike, people hate the companies' faceless guts for
their shitty business practices and they steal the music as a bid to
Stick It To The Man, even if it was produced by those not affiliated
with a larger company at all. This draws and quarters the lynchpin,
namely the person/people who created the goods, without whom the
debate means squat.
Ironically, the amazing technology for producing even more sonically
crisp and varied sound appeared along with the means to steal it
casually. Some refuse to do so; others steal in a wholesale manner;
and more than anyone seems to recognize, a certain number download
SOME stuff, but are also the heaviest BUYERS because they're just
plain INTO it.
I loaned my girlfriend a Leo Kottke CD, as she had never heard of
him. She liked it so well, she bought 2 others online. There's one
path it takes.
A good pal gave a strapped friend of ours a burned copy of the new
Todd Rundgren CD "Liars". He and I liked it so well, I went out and
BOUGHT a commercial copy and the friend bought 2 OTHER Todd works.
Todd didn't lose a sale through theft; he GAINED THREE via shared
appreciation. There IS a grey area, if you are a sincere listener and
have just a bit of morality in ya. No one wants to reward crappy
business practices and greedy yuppie scum, but killing the golden
goose is no bargain either.
The "funny" part of it is, the advent of serious, cheap digital
recording means a person can circumvent the record-company system,
create their own CD at home, market it on the Net... and have it
ripped savagely, the same as any other CD, like, say, the ones they
snagged from the artists they are emulating. Ho ho!
If the goddamned companies had any sense, they'd meet the rise of
p-to-p by LOWERING their prices, selling more UNITS and coming out
better off. I buy 99% 2nd-hand CDs @ $5-8 per. In the last 5 years, I
have bought exactly THREE NEW CDs for $15 each. If they were no more
than $9 per, I'd have a budget for them. Instead, I comb the used
racks, from which neither the companies nor the artists make squat.
You can't deny financial reality in the marketplace as the RIAA does
and then bitch about the wreckage. This is why p-to-p and home CD
production will kick their natural asses in the long run, no matter
what they do. Meanwhile, here I sit, one elbow on my synthesizer and
the other on the business end o' rollin' high stakes. HELLUVA WAY TO
RUN AN ASYLUM, ain't it?
Decadence is specifically defined by Webster as a process of decay or
decline, especially as evidenced by a loss of quality in the character
of the arts. Hey, you're soaking in it now!
--
HellPope Huey
That's what you get when
your mama smokes during gestation
and then weans you on limes.
I loathe people who keep dogs.
They are cowards who haven't got the guts
to bite people themselves.
- August Strindberg
"And god said
You are not serving me, you're serving something else
Cause I don't need to be pleased, just get over yourself
You can't suck up to me, I know you all too well
But I don't dwell upon you, so get over yourself
Cause you're not praying to me, you're praying to yourself
And you're not worshipping me you're worshipping yourself
And you will kill in my name and heaven knows what else
When you can't prove I exist so get over yourself."
- Todd Rundgren, "God Said"
Correspondent:: "Bob Mc"
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 10:45:38 +0200
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"HellPopeHuey" wrote in message
news:8cc8cffc.0410052057.490a8827@posting.google.com...
>
>
Very well written![1]
Over here in Europe there are a couple of Radio stations that play minority
music at least _some_ of the time!
Even if it's not all my taste, it _is_ refreshing to hear something not on
the official playlist!!
[1] Just out of curiosity: what is your real name?[2]
[2] Undelete my email address if you want to write.
--
Bob Mc
Correspondent:: Leonard the Committed
Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 15:58:16 -0400
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Nice take on the music industry HellPope!
Radio itself sucks for alot of the same reasons, money being the driving
factor. In the 70's, the idea of a structured playlist came to be popular
amongst radio station Program Directors in pretty much every market. Up to
that point the DJ was the person calling the shots as to what was played
on his/her show. For those who were alive during those times, we can
remember tuning in different stations during different times of the day to
hear our favorite DJ's, all of them having thier own unique sound. Anyone
who remembers the old WABX in Detroit can attest to this.
In an effort to gain more market share, Program Directors sought to keep
listeners tuned to thier stations. Early on, DJ's were required to play a
certain amount of material from the "Top 10" along with whatever else it
was they decided to play. This kept a certain amount of consistency to the
programming, coaxing the listener to stay tuned to that particular station.
This idea eventually evolved as it were to the point where the Program
Director held full responsibility as to what was being played. A list of
"core" songs was devised (i.e. Stairway to Heaven) that was mixed in with
"new rotation" (popular stuff in the stations key genre) and "filler" (one
hit wonders, etc)
These playlists are VERY scientifically derived from different ratings
sources and psychological profiles of the audience. If you notice, you
wont have a "sad song" end just before a commercial break. It's tough to
get a listener in the right mood to buy a cheeseburger or used car if they
are bummed out! Using this same data, a Program Director can also find out
how long the average listener is tuned in to thier station. If your
audience typically listens for say 25 minutes, the Program Director can
easily slip the most popular songs into the lineup every 40 minutes.
The biggest broadcast companies have this down to a science. In many
markets (especially in sparsely populated areas) a single studio with only
one DJ as it were, can service tens or even hundreds of stations. In the
case of one "modern rock" station in my area, the same studio well over
1000 miles away services 22 markets. The only people locally that are
connected to that station are a part time engineer and a salesman, both of
whom may work for more than one station at a time. Often times one or both
of them may be enlisted to do the voice work on the local commercials.
These are held on recording equipment at the transmitter site and are cued
by tones from the main studio.
The main studio goes to "local" for 60 seconds and the commercials are
played in the local markets. After that 60 seconds they go back to the
studio and you never know the difference. Listen to to your favorite
station, how often do you hear "101.7" or the stations call signs? In the
case of the station mentioned, other than the required station ID at the
top of the hour, all you hear the local station referred to is "The Zone"
During my BREIF time in commercial radio, we ran Country and
Western, two seperate Classic Rock and an Easy Listening station from the
same studio. All announcing was recorded to a hard drive rig and the
announcers had to change thier names and voices to whichever station they
were recording for, although the main Classic Rock station did have a
live morning show for 4 hours being as it was the number one station in
our market.
With this sort of system widely implimented throughout the industry, it is
easy to see how you can drive from one corner of the country to the other
with your radio on and not know the difference from your hometown station.
Personally, I keep my dial to the left side, since this is where most of
the community and college stations reside. Truly the last place your going
to hear anything remotely resembling something innovative musically.
Correspondent:: larboard34@hotmail.com (Ted Azito)
Date: 6 Oct 2004 20:37:08 -0700
--------
Leonard the Committed wrote in message news:...
> Nice take on the music industry HellPope!
>
> Radio itself sucks for alot of the same reasons, money being the driving
> factor. In the 70's, the idea of a structured playlist came to be popular
> amongst radio station Program Directors in pretty much every market. Up to
> that point the DJ was the person calling the shots as to what was played
> on his/her show. For those who were alive during those times, we can
> remember tuning in different stations during different times of the day to
> hear our favorite DJ's, all of them having thier own unique sound. Anyone
> who remembers the old WABX in Detroit can attest to this.
>
> In an effort to gain more market share, Program Directors sought to keep
> listeners tuned to thier stations. Early on, DJ's were required to play a
> certain amount of material from the "Top 10" along with whatever else it
> was they decided to play. This kept a certain amount of consistency to the
> programming, coaxing the listener to stay tuned to that particular station.
>
> This idea eventually evolved as it were to the point where the Program
> Director held full responsibility as to what was being played. A list of
> "core" songs was devised (i.e. Stairway to Heaven) that was mixed in with
> "new rotation" (popular stuff in the stations key genre) and "filler" (one
> hit wonders, etc)
>
> These playlists are VERY scientifically derived from different ratings
> sources and psychological profiles of the audience. If you notice, you
> wont have a "sad song" end just before a commercial break. It's tough to
> get a listener in the right mood to buy a cheeseburger or used car if they
> are bummed out! Using this same data, a Program Director can also find out
> how long the average listener is tuned in to thier station. If your
> audience typically listens for say 25 minutes, the Program Director can
> easily slip the most popular songs into the lineup every 40 minutes.
>
> The biggest broadcast companies have this down to a science. In many
> markets (especially in sparsely populated areas) a single studio with only
> one DJ as it were, can service tens or even hundreds of stations. In the
> case of one "modern rock" station in my area, the same studio well over
> 1000 miles away services 22 markets. The only people locally that are
> connected to that station are a part time engineer and a salesman, both of
> whom may work for more than one station at a time. Often times one or both
> of them may be enlisted to do the voice work on the local commercials.
> These are held on recording equipment at the transmitter site and are cued
> by tones from the main studio.
>
This is old news. They were doing this in the eighties. As long as
audiences will listen to this kind of shitty broadcasting, it will
continue.
Correspondent:: hellpopehuey@subgenius.com (HellPopeHuey)
Date: 7 Oct 2004 09:06:44 -0700
--------
larboard34@hotmail.com (Ted Azito) wrote in message news:...
> This is old news. They were doing this in the eighties. As long as
> audiences will listen to this kind of shitty broadcasting, it will
> continue.
But that's exactly what's at the heart of it: its been so manipulated
that people don't KNOW there's anything else and being denied a
choice, simply go with the flow, even though a lot of it resembles a
trail of snail slime.
Sometimes I play new things for people, including my niece of 15 and
they're knocked out by the difference and depth to which they had
never been exposed. Others screw their faces up and somehow shrink
back from the challenge of processing anything new or different. The
"battle" doesn't lie in marketing; it lies in the willingness or
unwillingness of people to GROW. If someone refuses to be open to it,
okay, up theirs, but when they are denied any CHANCE to MAKE such a
choice, welcome to SatanCo.! Would you care for one of these nice
carob-coated turds?
You not only have to fight for your right to party; you have to fight
for your right to recognize one when it arises. Now THERE'S a
challenge for yer ass!
"Suckin' Satan's pecker... go on, suck it! Its only your dignity!"
- Bill Hicks
--
HellPope Huey
Welcome to Tourette's practice.
Today we begin with the letter "F."
"Who are these Swine ? These flag-sucking half-wits
who get fleeced and fooled
by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?
..... They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious
in the American character....
I piss down the throats of these Nazis.
And I am too old to worry about
whether they like it or not. Fuck Them."
- Hunter S. Thompson, "Kingdom of Fear"