.

I hate radio.  Same reasons.

I don't listen to the radio anymore simply because I don't like what has become mainstream. Some of the alternative rock is not too bad, but I will go to my grave missing the 80's rock scene.  I was in high school during the 80s and in my humble opinion, the greatest era of rock ever!

I get most my music variety from Spotify now.  I've found several new rock bands I really like by clicking on the "similar bands" functionality.  And new meaning, new as in the last couple years.  Not stuff I missed 30 years ago.

OTOH, my wife is always on the hunt for new stuff. She told me Pandora helped her discover a few nice things.

The other way around is to manually search for similar artists on iTunes - which can lead to much pain and deception. There's a phenomenal quantity of rubbish out there.

Me, I sort of gave up, unless someone who knows me well suggests something. The rest of the time, if I want new music, I write it myself. ;)

+1 for Spotify. Whatever track you're listening to you can "start a radio station" which plays an endless stream of tracks in the same genre. Or you can install addon apps like Pitchfork which introduce new music to you. 

I have to say though, I think I find most of my new music by surfing the "related" sidebar in YouTube, although this seems to have become less useful since Google "revamped" it recently (typical Google). 

We usually have one of the digital radio stations that come with Direct TV playing downstairs.  Good background noise, but every station has such a limited playlist it's a joke so upstairs I make my own shuffle play "station."

If corruption in the music industry was eradicated? then Independent artist would dominate the charts including, sales, streaming, (Radio). Usually Radio stations are reluctant to play new tracks however, they will play tracks that's become very popular (1) Sales, (2) Charts, (3) Streaming.  

Corruption? For example:

(1) YouTube had to wipe billions of video views after finding they were fake. Major labels lost more than one billion. Read Article
 
(2) Payola is still an issue. Workarounds labels use for example; 

The band/label offers free concert tickets, CD's and other merchandise which is organized by Radio stations. For example; DJ's they will offer listeners a chance to win free tickets to concerts. You give this to the Radio Station as a means of making it; readily available. Whatever is left, urrrm yeah! And this works for music journalist; include free access to you concert (VIP Pass)!! 

So instead of sending just a One-Sheet (Radio Press Release) to Radio Programmers (program managers / supervisors) include options such as; free giveaways. And always make it clear that you are also available for interview. Radio Stations and Journalist get VIP passes. 


These are some of the strategies used. 

Over the past 12 months I've been reading a lot of articles by some of the very best in the business such as; Jeff Rabhan . Believe it or not Independent Artists/Labels are actually doing well and will thrive moreso in future. Meanwhile Major Labels will most likely reduce their roster to cut down on costs. 

Awesome talent and great songs is not quite enough (though it's a great start) you have to accept the way things need to be done if you want a chance to achieve great success.... First off, if you are serious then treat the music as a business.... 

(1) You need to become a Brand (not a misspelling for Band) and you must have a target audience, genre. And you must plan ahead -- various strategies.... 

(2) For new artists you need to focus on one song, the best you have to offer. Over the years (especially the past 5 years) there's been a lot of cutbacks (staff reduction) particularly in the arts (music, music journalist) -- due to cutbacks time is limited thereby, music journalist want everything readily available and prefer to focus (review) a song, not a whole album unless that artist is already well known / established. 

(3) You must have a good website and EPK (or One-Sheet) along with all the essential information (one page) that makes it very quick and easy for journalists to get that information.... 

EPK - Essential Information?... 
(1) Artist Name
(2) Label 
(3) Genre
(4) Contact (address, phone, Email) 
(5) Short Biography. For crying out loud man, get to the point. Don't rant on about the struggles in life and other irrelevant details. (Search online for suggestions on how to write a short biography, there are many good examples) 
(6) Have 2 to 3 high quality professional images (photos, art)  
(7) At least one high quality professional Video and Audio. Put your best track first. 
(8) Include a few quotes from other professionals backed up by links. If you are starting out? Take quotes from fans (and include links) 
(9) Press Coverage (if any) again, back it up by providing links. 
(10) Any gig, tours information. 
(11) Giveaways? Such as; Concert Tickets, T-Shirts, CD's. 

CD sales are down whilst Streaming has become way more popular. IF you want to earn money from views/click? Get your video distributed professionally. For example; MondoTunes Music Video Distribution. And whilst your at it; get their kickstart marketing plan. 

Get out there and play. Send your One-Sheet and CD to booking agents. Or at least be prepared to get out there and tour should (IF you get lucky) your music goes viral. (More than 50 thousand streams, sales-downloads) for which at that point you want to take it further (more sales-downloads, streams) by getting out there and perform LIVE!! 

Another thing about CD's to consider, all those big stores will reduce the costs of CD's to as low as $4.99.  Not just CD's but DVD's also. IF you plan on selling CD's?, be prepared to reduce the price from $15.99 or $9.99 to just $4.99. 

Can't tell how it is here in the US, but back home, there is essentially 2 or 3 big networks who own the vast majority of radio stations. The same people also own TV stations and newspapers. 

At least one of them also own one of the biggest record store chains.
If you make it w/ one of them, the other 2 will simply shut you out. 

And once you're their artists, they pretty much own you.

I've heard stories of people being given very detailed and rigid guidelines if they want their next single to get any airplay.

Glyn Barnes


http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.ashx?m=2791208

In the article Linear Phase linked about the cost of making a hit song there is this.

Song Rollout  $1,000,000, the article indicates that roughly a third of this will be spent on "courting radio program directors"

Contrast this to.

In March 1978, the Undertones recorded a demo tape at Magee University in Derry and sent copies of the tape to various record companies in the hope of securing a record deal, but only received official letters of rejection. The band had also sent a copy of their recordings to influential BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, requesting he play the songs on his radio programme. Peel replied to the band, offering to pay for a recording session in Belfast. On 16 June 1978, the band recorded their debut four-song EP "Teenage Kicks" on a budget of only £200.[7] The EP was engineered by Davy Shannon at Wizard Sound Studios, Belfast – and was released on Belfast's Good Vibrations record label. The title song became a hit with support from John Peel, who considered Teenage Kicks his all-time favourite song, an opinion he held until his death in 2004.[8]

Cool! It's stories like this that gives independent artists hope, and as I said; Independent labels are actually doing well and they will become more dominate whilst major labels will cutback further to reduce costs. So not only cutbacks with staff but also major labels will narrow their roster to what they feel is 'radio ready' 

There's been an exodus; artist leaving major labels --- to form their own independent labels and since they know all the tricks major labels use to get their music on the playlist (radio) and get paid for streams (YouTube, Vevo and many others) and of course get a larger slice of the pie. 

For example; Metallica recently left to form their own label, and it's rumored that Katey plans to do the same once her contract ends.  I have had a brief stint with a major label and didn't like it, for crying out loud it was like being a slave to the grind of 9 to 5 what a freaking joke, if anything it hinders creativity, you become a puppet. Besides, I'm a night owl  to heck with day shifts!!! I knew of a friend who was involved with the same label for 5 years mostly doing film scores and he was so VERY glad when the contract ended.  

Hi,
 
Radio had its place, time and life.
 
And it is now gone. Long live the drunk ... wait ... king!
 
When I got into music, it was already about the "revolution", in the late 60's and the stuff I had, was the stuff that some folks, in Madison, WI were making fun off ... like playing the small version of "Light My Fire" and then make sure they played some pop'y nothing right behind it so people would not think that the station supported the hippies.
 
But it was Madison, and its 50k plus students ruled, and radio in there, if it followed just the top ten from Variety, would not be on the air very long ... there are more students in the university than there are teeny-weeny girls being picked up by the radio station DJ's for some fun after hours of impression about the new CD, LP, or ... heaven forbid ... the Kiss Leather Belt ... that had over 200 girls offering anything that you could think of and then some!
 
Music has changed since then, and I think that its massive changes started around 1973 or 1974 when a couple of bands were given many millions of dollars for distribution rights, and those music companies immediately dumped hundreds of groups and acts from their arsenal, including the Coffee House Band! (... sorry ... time-warped but it sounded good!)
 
It was at that time, that I heard something that was ear/eye opening. A friend of the Firesign Theater, according to my roommate, was trying to convince them NOT to sign again with their record company -- Columbia I think it was -- but to create their own company and control all of their work. It did not take me long to realize that if the bands that showed up every where in the very early 70's that colored the early days of FM radio, which in itself was an ANTI-RADIO thing in those days (against the small cut and fast voiced bs!), all of a sudden got dismantled and pretty much disappeared.
 
Those that were already strong, and solid "within", made it ... the rest, is just obscure stuff that I play now and then, that Bapu, Beagle, Spacey, Craig, Jon, Strummy and a few others, have also heard over the last 30 years, and are now able to comment on it. In one way or another they also heard it.
 
In those days, we had to drive to Moby Disk in Van Nuys, or the Tower on the Strip, or the Warehouse in Westwood, to get a lot of these things, and it was by around 1981, just before I moved away to the Pacific NW that we dropped Tower from our list ... their list of imports were now all the Beatles and Rolling Stones albums -- because they were all superior recordings to the American copy versions that were not full sounding like the others were -- which became the "re-mastered" versions that showed up in the 90's!
 
Since then, many of the "progressive", "experimental" and other bands, have become their own identity, and they did not need radio to make it ... and you can even look at something like Dream Theater, which had no radio play, and sold really well, to know that radio was dead.
 
I've wanted to go back to a radio styled thing. But I would not use playlists, and would spend more time on each artist and his/her work, something that American culture does not do, and is not capable of doing ... things here in America are rarely about the art itself, but always about the numbers ... and it all goes back to my days in the Philosophy class and Plato ... about might makes right ... and the American society is so hardcore-ly tied to that, that many folks simply have to idea, concept or understanding, of something that might not come from that place, time, or space! And it is always wrong!  Sound familiar?
 
I remember telling Gong in 1995 on their first tour ... you gotta have your own ... I can not tell you how efficient, or helpful, the GAS website has been since then, but I can tell you that you know what is going on, and it is recognized, and all of their work keeps on coming, and everyone knows where to get things. I also remember a year or two later a story about another band, that had started a website, and they were broke, and said that they could not afford to go into the studio for their next album. You got it ... their fans started sending in donations, and the band got to the studio (is that honorable or what?) and the band named the album after those folks and treated them to a concert and more!
 
If you pay attention to news and the economy, you will have heard one thing ... "world economy", or "global economy" ... and if so, you will know that you can't take your play there, or radio there, but you can sell a couple of disks easily enough, and this is what it means ... you might not sell as many here in this town, but you sold how many all over elsewhere? ... 20k sales? ... you will have many folks knocking at your door the next morning ... get ready for them, and some of them will not only clean your carpet, they will do your dishes, kiss your bum, and promise you any ... whatever ... sorry to let the thought run amuck! ... but sometimes it is like that.
 
Radio was important in the 20th century, until the day that TV went live and we saw a kid getting his head blown in full color, and got to see some far out concert ... and oh my gawd ... bombs? and the next Apocalypse was NOW and HERE!
 
At the end of the century, it was TV, and the 21st century will be Internet for its first 50 years, until something else comes along. Phone I guess.
 
A lot of the "Nielsen" and other BS, are old styled things that do not measure things right anymore ... you and I, or anyone here, have never heard, or seen anyone, associated with it, or that they were getting paid to do a survey ... though we know that in Santa Barbara the ratings and the feds had a nice junket going to ensure that old ladies that never heard 4 letter words, had their ears tuned at the right time to hear Frank Zappa and Pink Floyd and immediately report "money" to the FCC ... and that was not, then, or now, the folks that "represented" you and I! PERIOD
 
If you have to "believe", or "fall" for that kind of stuff, you are looking at the past and thinking that it will repeat itself, and that you have to get to radio. Well, let me tell you that ALL radio is owned and operated by the same companies that give you American BS and American Idle, and BS has talent! ... and they make a serious point of making sure their favorites and "stars" are there for you to kiss and like, and sukkiaki their ... music!
 
It also tells me, that you are looking at the old world ... no one today, except a very serious minority, will EVER get that kind of attention, and in many cases, with folks that were a part of that circus, many tell you that they would not want to go through that again ... and neither would I.
 
Sirius, and XM, had the chance 20 years ago, to do what FM radio did in the late 60's and early 70's ... with one problem ... Sirius was owned by folks that had owned radio stations before and they were already another FM station, that simply tried to be hipper than your local BS station on the radio dial. While better in many aspects when you consider the no commercial thing, in the end, Sirius and its sister, have failed ... they still do not know "art" from a star, and having Tom Petty there for an hour, is not as important to them as having Edgar Froese there for an hour or two, or Vangelis, or Mike Oldfield ... or the Coffee House Band ... and until the day they do, they do not represent me, and are not worthy of the mention.
 
I, unlike those idiots, will, at least ... play the CHB. Those MF'rs never will! And to me ... that is much more the spirit of what "radio" was ever designed to be, or TV for that matter, than the ugly, sick and tired behemoth that can't even get a manicure any more, and its stink, is worse than you and I at 90 in a bed and we can't move! How pretty it can be for a Genet fan, but how ugly it is for another generation ... to know that you are better off dead! Instead of making money ... supposedly ... which most stations, tv or radio ... these days are NOT making because of the corporatization of that world. It was the first to go corporate, and it was also the first to start to manipulate the public into knowing nothing, caring about nothing, except making money for someone else!
 
 
 

I love radio, always have.

It's one of the things the BBC still excels at. R4's content is unsurpassed IMO, and if you listen to R2 beyond 7pm there are some real gems, excellent documentary shows and features.

From 2002 - 2004 I spent every Friday evening until the small hours driving from South West England to Scotland (8-10 hours depending on traffic), and R4 got me through the journey..comedy, Any Questions, The Friday Play..right through to the Shipping Forecast sometimes..great stuff.

SteveStrummerUK

Mystic38


John Peel R.I.P
 
Him and Alan Freeman were the only source of real music in the UK in the 70's when you lived in nowhere...  

Big +1 for John Peel - his show was essential listening.
 
Plus Tommy Vance on a Friday night, and even Anne Nightingale played some decent stuff on a Sunday afternoon.

You're talking my language Steve. Even Alan 'Fluff' Freeman played some decent stuff during his time at the Beeb

craigb


I still remember lying in bed with a small, transistor radio under my pillow listening to the top-40 countdown usually trying to stay awake until my favorites (like Fame by David Bowie) were played...

I also recall bugging the living crap out of the DJ's (who would actually answer the phones back then!) requesting Elton John's Funeral For A Friend / Love Lies Bleeding.  A melody that was WAY longer than they really wanted to play back then, yet they had too due to all the requests it was getting - LOL.

Man, that just reminded me... I didn't always hate radio. 


When I was 9-12 years old, there was this one guy who used to babysit my brother and I and who worked at the local radio. I remember calling him to request songs - usually stuff that was a bit too rock and roll, so I'd end up saying - well, just play Mama by Genesis then... 


He'd sometimes take me there and make me do my own fake show when the secondary studio was unused - pick up records and publicity tapes, work out a playlist and show structure, all timed and all. Pretty incredible...


That guy went to to become a celebrity in his own right managing a young local singer who made it big time.


Another funny coincidence - I had refused to kiss that singer when we were kids because I thought she wasn't pretty enough. She went on to become a star. 


The irony is that people often mistake my wife for her.

craigb


I still remember lying in bed with a small, transistor radio under my pillow listening to the top-40 countdown usually trying to stay awake until my favorites (like Fame by David Bowie) were played...

Radio Luxembourg, and the Doors "Riders on the Storm", listening in bed late at night on an ear piece - An enduring memory.

John Peel was the greatest DJ the BBC ever had and I was devastated when he died. I have fond memories of listening to all of his shows in the 90's. Where else could you hear twisted drum & bass next to country & western next to lover's rock next to swirly indie, with a little Frank Sinatra thrown in as a treat? It was absolute heaven for those of us who just loved good music whatever the genre. The man was thoroughly unpretentious, extremely pleasant and unwittingly hilarious. RIP.