Radio Is the Worst Place To Listen To Music, Says Jay Z (qz.com)

An anonymous reader shares a Quartz report: In a candid interview between Frank Ocean and Jay Z that aired on Apple Music's Beats 1 radio station last week, the latter spent a good portion mourning the golden days of radio, where he got his own start in the 1990s as a hip-hop artist. Said Jay, about modern radio: "It's pretty much an advertisement model. You take these pop stations, they're reaching 18-34 young, white females. So they're playing music based on those tastes. And then they're taking those numbers and they're going to advertising agencies and people are paying numbers based on the audience that they have. So these places are not even based on music. Their playlist isn't based on music... A person like Bob Marley right now probably wouldn't play on a pop station. Which is crazy. It's not even about the DJ discovering what music is best. You know, music is music. The line's just been separated so much that we're lost at this point in time."

Comments

Maybe Better Music Would Help?

[dryriver]

I don't listen to radio. I do watch MTV however. Almost all of the "hit songs" with "expensive music videos" rotating on MTV are simplistic compositions that are not the work of a "great artist". Music today is a far cry from the 20th Century - very manufactured, very simple, very made-for-money and very forgettable. Where are today's U2, Metallica, Pearl Jam and other great bands? Where are music albums with 10 tracks where 6 to 7 of those tracks are actually good? It seems to me that music has fallen victim to a "it has to make money from teens, it has to make money from teens, it has to make money from teens" mindset that produces only forgettable music tracks. Its the same thing that happened to movies - who in God's name needs to 30 same-feeling horror/comic book hero movies every year? The solution is simple - ALLOW GENUINE ARTISTS TO PRODUCE SOMETHING ACTUALLY GOOD. The rest is design-by-committee, made-for-quick-bucks trash that nobody will even remember in the 2020s. We had actually talented artists in the 20th Century. Now we have The Chainsmokers for music and film directors who can't pace a movie or frame a shot properly.