So much craziness in the industry, it's hard for the right hand to know what ol' lefty is up to. So many independent artists moving so stupidly fast with all their dreams in mind but no idea how close or how far away they may be.The urchin of the industry has to scrape and claw his/her way to the middle to get noticed by the top, and that guy/gal has all the friggin' talent. The people with individual and artistically beautiful sounds are shunned to the darkest corners of the sound booth while the most mediocre and virtually talent-less clowns are front and center.
But then there's you. The free thinker. The trend setter. Yes YOU. As an artist I wonder how the listener REALLY feels about radio and media. Do you feel like you're getting the latest and greatest or does it feel like you're constantly subject to an overplayed spoon feeding of the same production line of music and so called artists? It's like the industry wants to keep pissing on the listeners and calling it rain just to see how far they can take the world's biggest joke, but then there's YOU. I've noticed that you're not tuned in lately. Why is that? Don't you like the same mundane formula? I thought the radio played it BECAUSE you like it, but I've come to discover that YOU almost never like it. You can't stand it. You'd rather listen to your own personal playlist instead of the radio even though you know the playlist so well you can practically predict the shuffle sequence. So again, why do they play the same ten songs all day and night.
I was out at a club one night with some friends of mine when I first noticed the plot behind this masterminded scheme. I hate the radio. Haven't liked it since 2pac died and B.E.T. said that De La Soul was irrelevant, but there have been plenty of times that I have been without apparatus and stuck with the radio as my only source of entertainment since my announced boycott. That faithful night in the club, my friends were enjoying the music while I was enjoying the bar, when suddenly a song comes on that, whenever played on the radio, I'd taken that opportunity to listen to commercials on the next station, and as the crowd cheers for the world's most annoying bucket of words and noise so do I. I jumped out of my seat with the lightning speed of a wine-o and quickly found some girl to act explicitly with for the following three and a half minutes.
And then it dawned on me like being pelted with a watermelon at a chicken eating contest: I too have been programmed. All this time I'd been laughing at the many fools who'd proudly claim ownership of a 50 Cent album and here I was, cheering along with the... crowd. Hmmm... How many people like fitting in? How many people really enjoy being a part of something? When you go to a club, you do so with the intent of socializing, blowing off steam and even finding a mate to help you do so. It doesn't take a genius to figure that thousands of years ago, human beings would bunch together in tribes as a survival tactic to avoid getting killed by some monster or even other humans. Imagine that the strength in numbers thing started to dwindle as time went on and the earth and people became less volatile. Even with nicer living conditions, it would be hard to kick the habitual feeling of needing to be accepted for one's survival. The tribal mentality is what bands people together and also makes them like things they themselves would much rather lose a limb than be a part of.
The programming is simple. Play it till they know it and watch them enjoy it together. I consider myself a free thinker and even I have fallen victim to the social setting Oakey Doke. "Smoke and mirrors," says Brother Ali, critically acclaimed MC from Minnesota, and he would seem awfully correct when taking an outside glance at things. We look at the world with blinders set to the essentials in life. As long as those essentials are being met, even minimally, we won't even think to check the peripheral. So this is my peripheral check. How many songs on your playlist are or ever were radio hits? Do you even listen to the radio anymore? Do you more often like a new song on the radio right away, or do you have to hear it 500 times before you stop changing the channel?
The fact is that there is big, huge business for the major labels in pushing a song no matter how terrible it is. When they give it the heave ho on the radio constantly, and blow millions of dollars on the process, once listeners have had the opportunity to virtually live large portions of their lives to the song, then the song becomes a "hit". Now you can here that song on films and commercials for another 10 to 20 years. Now that's a lot of money, but then what happens to the Indies out there pushing their stuff the old fashioned way? As far as the U.S. is concerned, the independent artists are rarely ever heard from unless searched for and even then, they don't gain much national popularity. I've personally never heard the radio overseas but I'm pretty sure they play more than the same ten songs all day and may even have a much wider variety of genres and genre based stations.
I'd rather work twice as hard and make less than half the money, personally. You don't see a lot of independent artists on any "Where are They Now?" specials and that's usually because they're not spending the rest of their lives paying back some outlandish advance or paying back the money for the so-called perks of a major label. Either way the industry has shown quite a few signs of being undeniably industrialized, and the fans have been robbed of the true radio and media experience. What is the fan's response to all this? "Oh well". As a musician, I never thought I'd say it, but as a fan, I'm so glad I can choose what I listen to and don't have to listen to the radio. For those of us born before 1994; Remember the days of voting and choosing what we saw and heard with the splendor of a time that may never return. We are the last of a kind to bask in the rays of independence and choice. Don't believe me? Make a request to a major station.... and wait. Thanks for reading.
