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You're right. However, pop music used to be a radically different beast and not commercialized to the extent that it is today... or rather created for the sake of commercialism like it is today.

Like The Monkees?

But if you think about it, the quality of pop music is greater when the biggest name in pop music is The Beatles and not Britney Spears.

I've listened to the early Beatles stuff, and it was mediocre pop for the time, no better than pop from any other period. They grew into a great band after that.

There has been a fundamental shift in the approach to pop music since the 1970's.

Like the payola schemes? http://www.history-of-rock.com/payola.htm

But for every one of them you have 5 Britneys, 5 'N Syncs, etc. Back in the 60's the alternative to the Beatles was The Byrds and Janis Joplin, etc. Fundamentally more mature pop music.

Seriously, I could name a lot of quality bands from any given era, and a lot of crap bands. Of course, this is subjective to a large extent, but there's so much music around that you can find stuff you like. Every generation thinks the music in their generation was better.

Sorry, but you're displaying a fundamental lack of understanding about how radio works (from a financial point of view), along with a lack of knowledge of radio history. Understandable, because no one knows this stuff anymore except for telecom geeks.

Playing music over the radio has, since it's inception, been about advertising to promote sales of music (records, sheet music), advertising to promote attendance at live events, and to provide programming to attract listeners for, of course, advertising other goods and services. In the last case, think of how flowers use nectar to attract bees. Giving away nectar is just a cost of doing business if you want to be polinated.

Of course, it isn't a perfect analogy, because unlike flowers, radio stations aren't producing what they're giving away.

What radio explicitely hasn't been is a revenue source for song performers. Song writers, absolutely. I'll leave it up to you to look up the ASCAP / BMI controversy of 1939/1940.

In fact, what is amazing about this is that, were the RIAA's proposal to be adopted, it would end up setting up a system exactly the opposite of the Payola scandal, where record producers paid / bribed radio station employees and execs to play records.

I also have to wondeder what ASCAP and BMI will think of this. If this proposal results in a drop in radio play, then payments to songwriters (as opposed to song performers) will fall.

Oh, and this could definitely blow up in the RIAA's face. Clear Channel, Infinity and the like are notorious for being very, very tough business people. If this proposal goes through, and if they aren't able to negotiate a miniscule enough rate per play, I wouldn't put it past them to start buying up the larger RIAA members, just to get their music catalogs. Would there be anti-trust implications? Sure. Would it be worth a few tens of millions here or there to try. Absolutely.

"The idea of getting filthy rich didn't really start until the 70's?" Huh? Ever hear of the Payola scandal of the 50's? Do you think that the recording labels paid disc jockeys to play their musician's stuff because they really, really thought that their music was important and that money had nothing to do with it? How about that payola had been well known in the Big Band era of the 30's and 40's?

Money has been part and parcel of music since long before recorded music, or do you think that it was just ars gratia artis (art for the sake of art)?

In the mid 1800's, before mechanical means to reproduce music existed, musicians made money by selling sheet music. They performed concerts not to get paid (or at least, not to get paid very much), but as a way of advertising. People could go into a music store and buy a sheet music copy that they could take home and play themselves. Unfortunately, copyright laws largely didn't exist then, so different publishers could sell competing versions of that same piece of music and never pay the artists anything. Stephen Foster, one of the premier composers of popular American music in the 1800's, died penniless. "Oh, Susanna", netted him less than $100. This is why ASCAP was created - not because they wanted to make piles of money, just because musicians and composers got tired of other people making piles of money and while they got none.

One could argue that their situation was little different than today, but today at least the artist knows that there are licensing body(s) taking in the royalties. Unfortunately ASCAP, BMI and RIAA don't agree on how musicians should be paid.

There was a famous radio DJ in the 1950's that went without sleep for several days on air - by about the 4th day, he reportedly was seeing spiders everywhere and was babbling pretty much incoherently. His family and friends reported that he was never the same again, and he lost his job and faded into obscurity shortly afterwards.

The DJ was one Peter Tripp from New York.

Ah, here ya go, possibly right, possibly wrong information on the 'net. Just like mama used to make.

http://www.history-of-rock.com/record_formats.htm/

yes, i know, its lame to reply to your own reply

Sung to the tune of "Surfin' Bird" by The Cramps ... "well everybody's agog, about the blog! blog blog blog, the blog is the fog", etc.

Nice parody, made me chuckle.

The Cramps are a great band, likewise The Ramones -- however, Surfin' Bird was written by The Trashmen --

Link

Link

Link

-kgj

The problem is that is illegal, per the federal "payola laws"

http://www.history-of-rock.com/payola.htm

The laws are there to give independent labels, that aren't flush with cash, a chance vs. the large labels

Referring to the payment by music labels for radio stations to play songs, that is referred to as Payola. It is an illegal practice, and has been that way for about 45 years in the United States. http://www.history-of-rock.com/payola.htm

Frankie Avalon and The Indigo Girls?

Expect Orin Hatch to soon introduce legislation to legalize payola...

That'd be funny, considering he fought against payola back in the 50s, according to this link (thanks to whoever posted it above).

I'm behind Spitzer on this 100%. He seems to be quite the rarity these days-- a politician who's interested in helping the people.

Governments meddle all the time. These laws are the result of some scandals that occured in the 1950's. One discussion is at http://www.history-of-rock.com/payola.htm/

- I'd also like to see the artists being paid more than 10%...
Yes, a good share to the artists is important. And possible in a system where distribution costs may be low.
Note also that "artists" are not only the visible (or "audiblde") performing artists, but also people like producers (what would the early Michael Jackson music have been without Quincy Jones? Ever heard of Phil Spector? to name a few of the most well-known), sound technicians, etc.

As for the rest of the poll, here it goes:

- Should it have OGG and FLAC tracks, as well as MP3?
Yes, and with high bitrates available.

- Would you rather pay per-song or per-month?
Per song.

- Would you want the option to purchase hard-copy as well (like the actual album, or even band merchandise)?
Yes

- Should the song samples be 30 second downloads or full-song streams fed on-demand?
Full-length streams (can be very low quality)

- Is a radio station important for an online music store?
Not for me.

And last but not least, the question which was not asked:

- Should the songs have DRM?
NO. If I buy a song, I do whatever I want with it, and can copy it to all my MP3 players and home computers, whatever OS they are running, and don't have to worry about some arbitrary restrictions.

Just listen to one of the hit radio stations. They play the same songs over, and over, and over again. How would that happen without payola? It certainly has less with what listeners say, and more with how much $$$ is paid for the songs to get air time.

The question I'm wondering is: how many 45 rpm singles were being sold at the height of their popularity, into what population?

We are guessing that 7.7M + 4M/month is way low compared to the peak, which I might guess was 10-15 million/month for a smaller population.

-dB

After watching "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones", I am disgusted at the amount of shameful homosexuality present in the film. Not since the 50s have Godly Christian viewers been subjected to such hedonistic filth. Consider, for example, Anakin (effeminately nicknamed 'Annie'), the precursor to Darth Vader. Played by "wanna-be" pretty-boy actress Natalie Portman, Anakin lusts after the slutty Queen Naboo, engaging in filthy acts of oral copulation next to a fireplace (obviously symbolising the fires of Hell in which they will surely roast to death after their final judgement). But wait, fellow Christians, there is more! A grizzly-green munchkin by the name of Yodo engages in an inter-species affair with the burly jedi Mace Windu, so vile and contemptible it would sure make the residents of Sodom and Gomorah blush! If that is not enough to upset your pure and innocent mind, harken that a flooded world is visited in which giant, walking tampons amass a huge army, an obvious insult to the original giant tampon, Noah, and his army of Beasts.

I hope these revelations allow you to make a just and informed decision in choosing movies Our Lord won't send you to Hell for watching.

Rosebud...

Payola is reason is this a non-issue. Oh, it still goes on. In the lofty world of Clearchannel, it's all about sponsoring contests and event promotion. Nothing quite so obvious as envelops of cash. What you hear on the radio is that which has been paid for by publishers. Nothing as trivial as obsolete CD players is going to interfere with this very long. A couple phone calls and there will be a shiny new player arriving promptly at a studio near you!

Definition of payola: The paying of cash or gifts in exchange for airplay. [...] the anti-payola statute was passed under which payola became a misdemeanor, penalty by up to $10,000 in fines and one year in prison.

Seems like the same thing to me, except we're talking about blog space instead of airplay. If I was a blogger who had this proposal come to me, I'd report them to the FBI. Or am I totally off base here?

>>Personally I'm of the mind that radio by defination is free promotion, the webcasters should be charging for it.

>That's a great idea! I'm going to take one of the new BMW 7-series cars without the dealers permission, drive it around town everyday promoting it and then send BMW a bill for the favor I'm doing them by promoting their cars.

Some unknown person driving one car around is completely different than broadcasting a song to hundreds, or thousands of people who likely have the means to buy the album. Also, you've taken and consumed physical capital (the wear and tear on the car) whereas the radio station do not expend any of the music company's physical capital.

Go ahead, try to make a convincing argument of a recent musician who was mainstream super-successful WITHOUT the help of radio or internet broadcasts (besides Phish or Grateful Dead, who aren't mainstream anyway). Music companies know the power of promoting songs on the radio, and would gladly pay off DJ's to give their songs more airtime, but it's illegal to do so in such a direct manner. Top level 'you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours' deals drive radio play these days.

How is the movie industry different than radio playing an album's songs before they are in stores? The radio stations have to pay every time they play a song, right?

Want to know the ugly truth?

Record companies PAY THE RADIOSTATIONS to play their songs. Yes, to do this directly is illegal, and called (Payola, and it was banned in the mid 60s. So how do the record companies circumvent this and essentially bribe the radio stations to play their songs? They pay middlemen to "promote" the songs, and those middlemen pay the radio stations (often keeping millions for themselves). Want to know why new artists can't get on the radio? Payola. Want to know why our stations are so bland? Payola again.

I can tell you horror stories about the recording industry, but that first link is pretty accurate, with the exception that most bands work with a lot less and end up PAYING the record company because their royalties after the 75% the record company takes doesn't cover the advance (note the 75% is taken off the top, then the advance is subtracted from the artists earnings). Put simply, a band forwarded $20000 puts it all into studio recording expenses. The band has 5000 CDs cut, and sells 4500 (the other 500 are promotional). The $50000 on CD sales is chopped by 75% by the record company, and the recording company claims they also put in $15000 for promotional expenses (which amounts to a bunch of calls they took from clubs your agent found for you to play at). The band takes in $13500 from CD sales - $20000 for advance, - $15000 for promotion, meaning you still owe the record company $16500 (assuming the bands' touring and promotional expenses [posters and the like] and touring fees [agent, expenses such as food and liquor] are covered by gate costs). The record company expects this to be paid back, which is why some bands declare bankruptcy (when you only own a $4000 PA system as a band, it's the cheap way out). Many indies are just as big of leeches (or even worse than) major labels. Note the record company still took in $21000 after the $16500 "loss" and the band lost everything.

These days, you're better off doing it in your basement and burning your own CDs...

Good post...

First of all, for those of you who don't know about the REAL Payola Click... A little to the left... Now down... Right HERE!

Payola - The paying of cash or gifts in exchange for airplay.

It's illegal, and record companies do it EVERY DAY, EVERY SONG through a 3rd party otherwise known as "indies" (Independent Record Promoters)

While I'm at it, here's another link to a Salon article: The Salon Article (They have more)

Not only is it illegal and the record companies essentially pay the radio stations to play thier songs, now the record companies MUST pay the indies, or they will never hear thier songs. (As demonstrated with Pink Floyd when thier label decided to boycott the indies. The result: While Pink Floyd ranked in the sales charts, you couldn't hear them on the radio if you tried for a period of X months in the early 80's.)

Slashdot can be so sensational sometimes they deserve to be mocked, but it sucks when something as blatently corrupt as Payola is potentially minimized as a result.

Street Cents, a show on CBC (yeah, I know, 90% of you don't get CBC) had a show a while back about these high school kids in Halifax who set up a recording studio business in their basement. It was pretty impressive.

Unfortunately, as parent poster proficiently pointed out, marketing is the problem. Specifically, radio. Radio is what sells records, and payola is as much alive today as it was way back before "New Year's Rockin' Eve" was even a twinkle in Dick Clarks' eye. His eyes were too busy being used along with his fingers to count all his "investment income". The only difference between then and now is that it's not DJ's who see the big bucks, but the executives who run the gigantic media conglomerates. :(

"Vandettas" aside, (they sang back-up for Martha, right?), this project doesn't inspire a huge amount of confidence in me. It started out as a stunt by Al Gore, and while scientists may have come up with useful uses for it (which I'm not qualified to judge), I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about a project that was designed to do something useful in the first place.

My sense this is like the biology experiments they do on the space shuttle, something I am qualified to judge. They're worth doing, given that the shuttle is already going but they're hardly a justification for the shuttle program.

As an aside, which may make you feel better, I heard a talk recently by one of the leaders of the Chandra telescope project. Asked about the security of funding, he said that while legislators aren't going to give more money, they pretty much all appreciate astronomy and space and the stream of money isn't in jeopardy at all.

Unless things have changed since I was a Radio DJ 25 years ago, Radio stations do not pay for the recordings that they play. The record companies provide them for gratis. They were always marked with "Not for Sale" on labels and jackets to prevent the radio stations from selling records they no longer needed.

Air-time was so important to the record companies that they often paid DJs (usually in the major markets) to play particular records that they wanted to push. This was known as Payola and was outlawed in the early 60s.

Even though there are many more ways to advertise the existence of recordings today than there were when this relationship between record companies and radio stations began, I suspect that radio is still the largest advertising venue for pop music.

I find it very amusing that the RIAA members are now so greedy that they will openly antagonize their largest propaganda (advertising) providers.

There is no doubt in my mind that the real purpose of the DMCA is to inflict pay-per-play for all copyrighted material. I hope that this can be stopped.

It appears that many in congress have forgotten that copyright was intended to be a careful restriction of the first amendment. It is certain that the constitution did not intend to give such sweeping control of copyrighted material to the copyright holders. I doubt that the DMCA can stand up to a constitutional test in the Supreme Court. A comment above notes that no previous copyright law has ever distinguished between 'perfect' or 'imperfect' copies. This notion in the DMCA should be challenged as being irrelevant to copyright law.

-- hgc