You guys who’re complaining about the music need to understand one thing - the Public is not really interested in music. They like it, will hum along a good tune and fork up money for a nice compilation.
But those who complain are generally people like me - who check who produced an album and will buy a new unheard artist based solely on that, who read the trades, search for interesting stuff asf.
The Public don’t. And the public is the majority. And since radio stations, be they part of a huge chain or stand alone, are in it to make money by maximizing the audience. So they play music for people who are not interested in music.
Very few songs get put on the air before being tested on focus groups, so the Public does get a say about what’s being played. It’s just that the Public’s taste doesn’t mesh with yours.
Pretty good article, Robin, but it would have been enhanced by referencing two essential sources:
Rock of Ages, by Rolling Stone
Hit Men, by Fred Dannen
Both these books, while showing their age, they give great background on the payola scandal, the latter in particular showing payola’s modern descendants.
Payola, while certainly influenced by advertiser’s concerns, also dealt with an old 50s favorite, the moral decay of society.
Ya see, the Percy Faith - lovin’s adults of the time could not for the life of them why the stations were playing all this negro music that was warping their kids. They figured that someone must be paying to get the songs put on, and sure enough, someone was, although the fact that the kids were buying the music by the truckload apparently did not enter into their minds as a remotely possible additional cause.