Waves

Radio has failed music fans utterly. It should be the most important medium for exposing listeners to new music. Unlike listening to records or mp3 players, radio is not a closed medium. It is free, and accessible to virtually anyone. As a transmitter of culture, it is irreplaceable.

Unfortunately radio has spent the last half century dissolving into a vile steaming puddle of toxic afterbith. Radio stations do not sell music, but air time. The more time they can sell to advertisers (which they make money off of) and the less time they spend playing music (which they must pay for) the more successful they will become. Radio stations want to attract the largest possible share of the marketplace, and therefore will attempt to play things that will attract the largest amount of listeners. In many cases this means getting a hold of a few well-liked radio personalities who then make prank calls, donate prizes and shoot the shit into a microphone during rush hour to basically eat up airtime and do anything they can to avoid playing any music at all.

Many people who love and care about music get into radio stations with the best of intentions. The problem is that the machine is so big, these people don't have the power to change anything. They get jobs handling stations in backwater outposts with limited listenership until they land a gig with a major station and get to sit at a console and listen to music that is played automatically by a robotic playlist that is compiled by a pre-determined radio format that has been market researched to appeal to a core demographic in the local market. Very few musical decisions are made at all. The real decisions are made by the bean-counters who have an eye on the bottom line, and no one that I know has ever asked an accountant about good music. Gone are the days of a pioneering DJ like a John Peel who had the freedom to play whatever he wished and still be guaranteed an audience.

Radio has become more homogenized than ever before. In the 60's there were regional hits from obscure groups that could get picked up and go national with the support of local stations. Virtually unknown and stridently uncommercial groups like Blue Cheer, the Barbarians, The Sonics, the 13th Floor Elevators and The Monks had hits very early in their careers. Now there is almost no chance of a local group of unknowns getting airtime without getting the backing of known management and distribution. At one time, radio stations were independently owned, and thus only needed to respond to the needs of their local listenership. Today, there is no law against a private entity buying up as many radio stations as it wants. In the U.S., Clear Channel now owns the majority of commerical radio stations and also holds a staggering 99.9% if the stations in the top 250 markets. This means that we are hearing the same songs over and over again. There is no diversity, no outside voices, no alternatives. Oh wait, yes there are... you just have to turn away from radio to find them.

Moreover, payola still exists. All the major labels do it, but they are more clever about it than in the days of Alan Freed. Major label artists get the most airtime not because they are the best, but because they have the largest promotional budgets behind them. In fact, all the major labels have at one time or another been forced to pay significant fines due to violations of the current broadcasting laws. Of course, they can (or could) afford it, and it boosted their sales enough to cover their expenditures. Major labels also spend exorbitant amounts of cash and influence to convince lawmakers to altar government policy in order to make such activity legal. That was before then internet allowed musicians and fans to circumvent not only the major labels, but also the technological barricade that radio had artificially created in the past several decades.

It should come as no surprise that a generation of kids are turning off the radio. When I was young I listened to the radio constantly, beginning with the local top 40 station (and I still have an enormous database of 1994-1997 dance pop hits stored away in my memory banks) and then moving on to rock stations and later college stations as I grew older and my music tastes changed. But once it became possible to download music, I turned away from the dull, formulaic pablum of the radio industry. I got tired of hearing the same songs by the same bands at all times. I also got tired of the digitally frosted, ultra-compressed sound of modern radio rock, wherein musicianship is made secondary to the auto-tuned chorus and vocal effects that are pushed way up in the mix. I suspect I'm not the only one.

Lately I've been considering a career in Radio. Maybe its naive of me to think I can affect change. I'm not really that idealistic anyways though, I think I could make a living while having a good time. Maybe I can be a sports broadcaster or something. I mean, I might love music, but I doubt very much a job at a radio station will allow me to convey what I like to listeners.