Xfusion,

Just an idea, but you might want to try posting something at garageband.com since everything is completely anonymous there. Hundreds of people post songs, they listen to yours, you listen to theirs, and everyone votes on what they listen to, but no one knows who's tune they're listening to. The way they have the system set up it's almost impossible to cheat. It's the best way I know of to get an honest opinion of your work. And it's free.

i guess i'll be the one to say this: the songs forum isn't the place to find the hard facts about your music. about your mix, sure, about the technical aspects of your playing, most of the time, but not about that subjective musical quality that makes people stand up and listen. i love this place, but when it comes to critiques no one wants to step on anybody's toes.

online sites are a good idea, but my suggestion would be to find some local place where you can play for a crowd, preferably a place where you might find music you like similar to the kind you write. doesn't have to be a big crowd. just see if you get a positive reaction and take it from there. if you can't connect with people live, i doubt it'll work out too well over the internet.

ORIGINAL: fep
...It's silly that anyone encouraged him to drop his job and pursue a career in music before actually hearing his music...

It was my impression that he has not actually finished assembling any original music, and that he felt this was the fault of his job, and that quitting his job would allow him to see if he actually *could* create some worthwhile music.

Cheers.

ORIGINAL: Joe Bravo
MOST radio stations are playing pop music (everything from Britany Spears to Kelly Clarksen).

I think using radio airplay as a measuring stick is a little dubious these days... we live in a ClearChannel world... whatever ClearChannel wants us to hear, that's what we hear. Or SONY/BMG, or Entercom, or <insert entertainment mega corporation here>...

I think CD sales by genre (+ downloads by genre) would be a more accurate representation. As far as radio is concerned, XM radio probably has some more independence than terrestrial, but there you're only talking about those people that can afford XM.

One more thing about radio: the radio landscape in 2007 is vastly different than it was in the 1987...

ORIGINAL: keith

ORIGINAL: Joe Bravo
MOST radio stations are playing pop music (everything from Britany Spears to Kelly Clarksen).

I think using radio airplay as a measuring stick is a little dubious these days...

Yeah, that's what I said. Numbers are meaningless. So we agree I guess.

we live in a ClearChannel world...

Never heard it in my life, and don't really know anybody that has it. I'm not a radio guy; I'm a record guy. I guess if I were 20 or 30 years younger I'd feel different about things maybe. Dunno though, I've looked through station play-lists from Clear Channel before and it looked like the same ole stuff to me, just minus the commercials. I think radio is in worse shape than ever. At least when I was a kid DJ's had some independance and could largely play what they wanted to some degree. Of course payola played a big part of the industry's change there, but it's not been a change for the better. I think "station programmer" is the ugliest phrase in the English language. Well, that and "executive privilege". Oh, and "Paris Hilton". But you already knew that.

Clear Channel isn't an XM type thing, it's a mega-conglomeration of radio stations. Once the restrictions were lifted from any one company owning too many radio stations, companies like Clear Channel have snapped them up like toys. They own some obscene percentage of stations, something that shouldn't remotely be allowed.

Since radio station ownership rules were relaxed in 1996, Clear Channel Communications has become one of the largest owners of US radio stations. Currently, it owns over 1,200 radio stations and 30 TV stations around the US, with federal regulations currently limiting it to a maximum of eight radio stations per market.

The radio behemoth is asking the Federal Communications Commission to further relax its ownership rules and allow it to grab up to 12 stations in the largest US markets. Late last month, two Clear Channel representatives met with FCC commissioners Robert M. McDowell and Deborah Taylor Tate to lobby for increased local station ownership limits. In addition, the company has been furiously lobbying some members of Congress for support.

ORIGINAL: droddey
Clear Channel isn't an XM type thing, it's a mega-conglomeration of radio stations. Once the restrictions were lifted from any one company owning too many radio stations, companies like Clear Channel have snapped them up like toys. They own some obscene percentage of stations, something that shouldn't remotely be allowed.

Since radio station ownership rules were relaxed in 1996, Clear Channel Communications has become one of the largest owners of US radio stations. Currently, it owns over 1,200 radio stations and 30 TV stations around the US, with federal regulations currently limiting it to a maximum of eight radio stations per market.

CC is one of a few... it just happens to be the most well-known. Apparently, CC started selling off radio stations this year, wasn't aware of that (but I don't exactly "follow the industry" either).

This recent article points out that CC "only" ever owned about 10% of all US radio stations: http://www.techliberation.com/archives/042338.php

I think that's about right, based on this guy's totals: http://www.musicbizacademy.com/articles/radio/stations.htm

Here are the problems:

1.) The 12,000 or so total include ALL radio stations, not just FM -- what's CC's ownership of FM? (not sure)

2.) Even if CC only owns roughly 10% the problem is that there's a small handful of other conglomerates like CC that also own 10% -- so you end up with 4 or 5 companies owning like 50% of all radio stations!!!

Here's some more info on radio consolidation: http://www.futureofmusic.org/research/radiostudy06.cfm

Of particular note:

The top four radio station owners [e.g., CC] have almost half of the listeners and the top ten owners have almost two-thirds of listeners

So, what all that means is you're going to be hearing a lot of Britney and Kelly. As a matter of full disclosure, I actually like Kelly Clarkson, but that's a different thread altogether...

It's called "consolidation"... I think "homogeneization" is more appropriate...

Oh, I thought you were talking about that satellite radio stuff. Sorry for the mixup.

ORIGINAL: Joe Bravo
Oh, I thought you were talking about that satellite radio stuff. Sorry for the mixup.

I brought up XM as an alternative to what's happening here on earth... As in, everybody here is listening to ClearChannel and similar programming, so what are people with Sirius and XM tuning into? Maybe it's ultimately the same problem, but I'm just under the impressions that there's more "freedom" being provided with satellite radio options. Of course, none of it matters, because you're not going to get a cross-section of society listening to satellite.

I had hoped by now that Internet radio would have taken off bigger than it has, but unfortunately there's even more muck to wade through if you're going to find anything worthwhile. And even if you do, I don't think there's anyway to listen to it in the car and so forth. I don't know for sure though. I just don't keep up with radio trends. Maybe somebody has figured out a way to do it that I'm not aware of. I've never found anthing to write home about when it comes to Internet radio either though, but I seldom look.