Art vs. Commerce

My friend (and old boss) Seth Resler posted a meditation on art and commerce yesterday, and it inspired me to sit down and write for the first time since...gosh, February? Really? Anyway, here's a quote:

The trick, of course, is to play tons of Nickelback, but make people think you’re playing Radiohead a lot more than you really are. So you “image” yourself with Radiohead by finding excuses to say their name without playing their music. Contests and specialty features are a great way to do this. I was the king of this kind of smoke and mirrors. During my time at BRU, the playlist was all Green Day, Linkin Park and the Chili Peppers, but the contests were all about Deathcab for Cutie, Modest Mouse and the Dropkick Murphys. Few people fake indie cred as well as I do.

And this never bothered me, because I knew that the only reason people would ever be able to hear the cool indie bands was because I played mass-appeal bands like Nickelback. Nickelback records pay the bills. And while the true music lovers may hate the band, they fail to realize that without Nickelback, their favorite bands would never get any airplay at all.

[Read the whole thing here.]

So, I got all fired up and started to leave a comment. And it just kinda went for a while. So, I figured, since I haven't posted on my own bloviation centerg for a million years, why not take this opportunity to inch Marvin Gaye down the page a bit? So then I was all like:

Hey Seth,

In spite of myself, I agree with a lot of what you're saying here. Especially the bit about the Nickelbacks of the world indirectly making life easier for the indie band du jour. I don't think Radiohead a very good example because I'd argue they're propelled by a loyal mainstream fanbase that they accumulated long before Kid A, and that if Sr. Kroeger ever wrote a song as crunchy, gritty, or mainstream-sensible as "Creep," a lot of his detractors would just shut the fuck up and find something else to gripe about. But still, a rising tide lifts all boats and all that. I'm with you.

But I have to be picayune for a moment and take issue with what I know isn't your main point: I wouldn't be so quick to pat myself on the back for faking indie cred on the radio. That's only good enough when there's absolutely no alternative, and it breeds resentment more than loyalty. Anyone who cares about indie cred can see right through the smoke and mirrors, and will gladly "make the switch" (remember that shit?) if something more authentic comes along.

These days, I don't know a single person who really cares about indie cred that turns the radio on and listens to anything other than news, sports, or public radio. "Faking" it has chased all but the Luddites (and there aren't many indie-craving Luddites around) away from terrestrial music radio broadcast, to either their iPods, or the plethora of narrowcast options available to them via the Internet that cater more directly to their tastes.

Now, As you said, that's a pretty small fraction of the population, and I do know plenty of people who still listen to the radio. They like Nickelback. They like American Idol, too. But they don't like fake indie cred either, albeit for different reasons. To them, it's just an inconvenience. They reach for the dial when a band they don't know comes on and it doesn't sound like a hit in the first 5 seconds.

I guess what I'm surprised to find myself arguing is that faking indie cred has already cost radio one small subset of listeners, and is chafing at another, larger one. Maybe, from the radio station's perspective, it's time to cut the act, stop trying to be everything to everyone, and just play exactly what brings the ratings.

Did I really just write that?

With new wave hairdos I want girls

There's a new(-ish) radio station in town here, WRXP - New York's Rock Experience, that has single-handedly renewed my interest in the art of radio programming. In fact, I've resisted more than once the urge just to post a set of 5 or 6 songs in a row they've played just to comment on how nicely done it was.

They do most of the things I like, such as not relying on big artists' crutch hits (they play a bunch of Zeppelin but I've yet to hear "Stairway to Heaven," tonight they played The Beatles' "Old Brown Shoe"), playing two songs in a row without even a dry sweeper in between (love that), and playing a palatable mix of good old stuff and decently cool new stuff. Forget that this is what every station says it does. RXP has actually been doing it. For example, they've been playing new My Morning Jacket and Rogue Wave, and they nearly made me crash my car the other night when they played Steve Forbert (mp3), who I haven't heard on the radio since...well since I programmed a station myself.

They've also invested in some talent, which I guess is ok. Matt Pinfield, despite an impressive and enviable CV, still feels the need to tell me during every one of his breaks that he'll be with me for about 42 minutes. This is the kind of shit that jocks do when they're brand new to the field (he's not) or when they're completely phoning it in (ahem). And his cheese-grater voice sounds totally forced. But really, it's fine.

What drives me fucking crazy, and honestly what I wouldn't have expected from a station that's otherwise programmed so brilliantly, is that just like every other station in the universe, I seem to hear a track from Licensed to Ill EVERY SINGLE TIME I listen for more than a few minutes. Who still wants to hear that so often?

Early Beastie Boys material must test extremely well, but on a well programmed station, it does nothing slap me right out of whatever groove a station has me in. It's just not cool anymore. It's like a throbbing growth on the face of rock radio that everyone politely ignores. Stop the madness.

If you're going to play the Beastie Boys (and really, I'd rather you just let them be), at least play "Sabotage."

95.5 WBRU supports local music

A long time ago in a city 3 hours up I-95, I worked in a number of capacities for 95.5 WBRU. Of the roles I filled, my favorite and the one that remains the most meaningful to me in retrospect was the time I spent running the local music show.

I imagine most small-market cities have similar scenes bubbling just beneath the surface, but Providence's was mine, and I'll always look back fondly on the time I spent there working with bands like Zox, Monty Are I (Monty's Fan Club back then...), M-80, Mona, Turning Blue, The Complaints, Bridges Fell (who I wrote about recently) and so many more.

The hardest part of running that show was the frustrating reality that as good as so much of that music was, the chances of it being played on the air at any time other than Tuesday night from 12-1 am was (with very few exceptions) essentially nil.

Ever so slowly over the past few years, with the success of a few bands from the area on the national scene, and a programming staff that regularly pushes the envelope, the situation for local music has been improving.

The WBRU Summer Concert Series is a time-honored tradition in Providence; it draws some big names (their first show this year was Death Cab), and often includes local bands as openers. This year, with their second show, they're really stepping up their efforts and devoting their whole second show to Providence's own. This whole post is my long-winded way of saying I'm proud of them, I guess. Way to go, guys. Keep it up. Represent.

Interview: The Confusions

Many moons ago, when I was first figuring out what PulverRadio was going to sound like, I spent hours and hours in contact with great indie bands, finding places for them in playlists, trying to help them out any way I could. One of my favorites from that time was a Swedish band called The Confusions.

Lately I've been back in touch with Mikael Andersson-Knut, singer, songwriter, and guitarist for The Confusions. I asked him if he'd do an interview with me over email, and after a few letters back and forth, I think we've put together a decent introduction to the band, who have enjoyed a number of European successes over the years.

The interview follows after this video for "The Pilot."

Mike McClenathan: Easy stuff out of the way first: who's in the band, what do they play, and how long have The Confusions been making music together?

Mikael Andersson-Knut: Mikael Andersson-Knut, songwriter, singer and guitarist
Zarah Edström, keyboards and vocals
Mattias Löfström, drums and percussion
Henrik Svensson, guitars
Magnus Thorsell, bass

The Confusions started up in the early 90's and we released our first record (a split single) back in 1993. Our first ep "Forever" 1994 and our first album "Being Young" 1995. But the line-up of the band was a bit different back then, the new guys :-) in the band are Henrik who joined the band in 1998 (after being our guitar tech.) and Magnus who joined us during the summer 1999.

MM: And where are you from?

MAK: We're all from Sundsvall, Sweden. A town at the east coast, exactly in the middle of the country, about 400 km north of Stockholm.

MM: I spent a week in Stockholm a few years ago and couldn't find anything I liked on the radio. Every station seemed to be an amalgamation of American pop songs I was already sick of and Swedish pop songs that I didn't think were very good. The Confusions are one of many examples of great music being produced in Sweden. Can you comment on the state of music radio and television in Sweden, and on the ways Swedish artists that don't fit that mold are getting their music out there?

MAK: Most of the commercial radio stations have only made the situation worse when it regards playing "good" music on the air. What happened during the last couple of years is that you get this feeling that the public service stations are trying to beat the commercial stations playing the same crap music... which is horrible! The public service stations should be all about special programs and people trying to find out about new and interesting stuff. There are some shows that are good on P3 (public service) and on their Internet channels...but we need more.

There's so much great stuff around here in Sweden, we should be allowed to hear it!

MM: Can you name some other great Swedish artists being ignored by radio?

MAK: There's a lot of them, hard for me to pick out a special one. But I can tell you that there is some weird thing about discovering the "new" band and dropping the old ones. I get a feeling that is different in the US. Maybe because of your live situation is better, you can go on playing live gigs and creating more fans that way in the US.

I think a great older band like The Wannadies [link] are considered in Sweden as "has been" which is awful because they´re just a great band.

A young band like Eskju Divine [link] released their second album in the fall 2006 and got totally ignored in Sweden (it seemed to me anyway)... but they've got things going in Japan etc.

MM: Despite the difficulty of getting traditional airplay, you've had some success with MTV Europe. Is it easier to get on TV than radio?

MAK: We've been lucky with this in a way, being close friends with great young video directors that like to work with us.

We've done great videos with small budgets, it's often all about ideas and locations. So yes, in a way it's been easier for us to get on TV with videos than on the larger radio stations.

MM: Clearly you're promoting yourselves heavily on the Internet, or we wouldn't be having this conversation. What sites/communities have you found to be receptive to what The Confusions are all about?

MAK: Myspace, YouTube, PulverRadio [RIP -ed.], IndieMusic.com some smaller sites...there are a lot of great sites for sure, that's the thing now, the net.

MM: What does the future hold for The Confusions? Are there new releases in the near future? Can we have a sneak preview?

MAK: We released a new acoustic album in May (you'll find it on iTunes [link]) called "It Sure Looks Like The Confusions But It Sounds More Acoustic" in a limited edition of a 1000 copies. This record is only sold at shows and at Internet shops.

But at the same time we're working on a new studio album which will be released in the fall, maybe in October. We have been recording in our own studio Yellow and have been mixing 9 tracks so far in different studios. We're really excited about this new record because we're producing it ourselves... which means freedom and you´ll find different sides of the band on these songs.

A sneak preview could be the video clip Henrik put up on You Tube a few days ago, where we´re mixing a new song called "There Ain´t No Easy Way Out Of Here", check it out. [Video is below -ed.]

You can also download some acoustic (and other songs as well) songs for free at
www.theconfusions.com



Bonus mp3: The Confusions - Artificial

SoundExchange talks sense, world scratches head.

SoundExchange's John Simson appears to be softening up as Internet radio broadcasters nervously eye the gallows. Although the new rates are scheduled to go into effect this Sunday:

In an interview with RAIN last night, Simson explained, "For the people who want to comply with the law and are in bona fide negotiations with us, we don't want those people to be intimidated. And we don't want them to stop streaming." Simson qualified his statement by noting, "That's just so long as they're continuing to pay under the license they had."

So maybe your favorite station will still be on the air on Monday, but webcasters are nowhere near out of the woods yet.

DENIED: Another setback for the webcasters

Yesterday afternoon the Washington DC Circuit US Court of Appeals denied an emergency stay to delay the impending royalty hike for webcasters that will go into effect on July 15th. With only 3 days to go before the rate hike takes effect, barring some miracle it looks like Internet radio is going to have to keep fighting the rate hike while paying the new high rates.

And as you might guess, it's going to continue to be an uphill battle. From RAIN:

Apparently, the court's denial of the emergency stay is a very brief "form" order that just says that the parties didn't meet the high burden necessary to establish that a stay should be granted, which include a "likelihood of success on the merits." (In other words, you have to convince the court that you are going to win before you even file your brief or have an argument.)

Uninspired marketing from XM at Yankee Stadium

For as long as I've been subscribed to Bob Lefsetz's newsletter, he has lauded XM Satellite Radio's programming and decried pretty much everything else about their business -- especially their marketing. I've always just shrugged it off because I'm largely unaware of XM's marketing campaigns, which considering my age and interests, is probably exactly Bob's point. But I went to a Yankees game on July 3rd and saw something between innings that left me absolutely dumbfounded.

The promo goes as follows. XM wants to play a song by the popular rock and roll band U2. But what song? It's so hard to choose! Wait, let's get the Yankees to help us! Here's the deal, sluggers: You can choose from either "I Will Follow," "Where the Streets Have No Name," or "Beautiful Day." Got that?

A-Rod wants to hear "I Will Follow." Oh, but Jeter wants to hear "Where the Streets Have No Name!" Will those two ever agree on anything!?!? And now Johnny Damon wants to hear "Beautiful Day." Man, this one's going to be too close to call!

So they go through about 10 players each voting for the U2 song they want to hear the most. And the winner is "Beautiful Day" (REALLY!?! -Ed.). The audience, all surely as enraptured as I, is treated to about 60 seconds of muffled, loudspeaker-distorted mediocrity.

I probably don't need to waste the pixels telling you all the reasons this sucks as a promo, but I will anyway.

1. It's utterly forgettable. They put members of the team up on the JumboTron between every inning to tell you to watch out for foul balls, or to teach you how to say "stadium" in Japanese.
   
   I once worked for a radio station that hired XM guru Lee Abrams as a consultant, and he stood up in front of all of us and told us this story about a marketing stunt he once did with a "Hit This Plane and WIN" flyover of the MLB All-Star game in San Francisco. Clearly Lee wasn't in the room when they cooked this turkey up.


2. Everyone plays U2. Everyone from the tiniest basement webcaster (may he rest in peace) to the lamest terrestrial conglomerate. And they all play those same overplayed tracks! If you want to convince me to pay good money every month for the privilege of listening to your radio service, it's not going to be because you play the most overexposed tracks by perhaps the planet's most ubiquitous band. I can hear that anywhere for free.
   
   I can't stress enough how impossible it is as a radio station to brand yourself "The U2 Station," and how misguided attempts to do so are. Hell, why don't you promise to play me "Stairway to Heaven" every 3 hours, too?


3. Everyone in that stadium shares a common interest, but it's not U2. You don't need to spend much time in The Bronx to know that it's a mixed crowd. Shit, you get the impression half the players in the promo aren't even familiar with the songs they're voting for. How else do you explain them choosing "Beautiful Day" over "Where the Streets Have No Name?"
   
   Sure, a lot of people like U2. But do you know what EVERYONE in that stadium likes? BASEBALL!!! And XM HAS BASEBALL! You can listen to every major league game on XM! That's something that XM has that nobody else has! Don't you think anyone in Yankee Stadium would be interested in knowing that? I can guarantee to you that not all of them do.

So shame on you, XM Marketing team. You have accomplished nothing other than to insult real music fans with banal crap, leave baseball fans ignorant of a service XM offers that they might be interested in, and waste a lot of money on an uninspired, positively FM promotion. Shame on you.

Day of Silence: final list of participants

Kurt Hanson's RAIN (Radio and Internet Newsletter) today has a final listing of all the webcasters that participated in Monday's Day of Silence. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find it, but it's worth a look, simply because there are so many participants, and many of those will start dropping, pitiful and fly-like, on July 15th if the CRB's decision is allowed to stand.

[RAIN]
[SaveNetRadio.org]

Why Last.fm played music today

Really interesting debate on today's Internet radio Day of Silence happening over at the Last.fm blog. Last.fm, as one of the biggest and most widely known web streamers, has long been conspicuously absent from the gaggle of protesters. Blogger Felix Miller goes a long way in his post to explain the London company's position, and is surprisingly patient and polite in the comments to those who (at times aggressively) disagree.

Lengthy quote below, but I really recommend you check out the entire post.

We do not want to punish our listeners for our problems, period.

If a commercial challenge comes up, we have to deal with it. We have always done that, as many people who have been using Last.fm for a while can attest to. And we’ve had our fair share of challenges. (Like the server growth problems we’ve been battling recently. Mischa was overheard grumbling that “we’ve probably put in two days of silence!” over the last couple weeks; a heartfelt thanks our users for their patience.)

Since Last.fm started we’ve engaged in negotiations with the music industry, leading to our recently reaching an agreement with several major record labels for the use of music on our service. As a legal and responsible provider of music, we’re continuing discussions with record labels and music publishers. At the same time, we’re negotiating with royalty collection societies to make sure we can get rates that make sense to us.

The only solution to this dilemma is commercial; make a commercial argument and see it through. What benefit does music have if no one is playing it anymore? There are various opinions about the promotional benefits of playing music on the radio, but having your music heard by more people instead of less can’t be wrong, no?

What I am saying is: it’s in no one’s interest to let online radio die. But people want to make money from their music. And we want to pay artists for the music we play. It’s only fair.

We think – and this is the opinion of the whole Last.fm office, who you can meet on our lovely team page – that turning off the radio is just plain wrong. This has been a no-brainer from day one for us: the users rule, and we serve them. If only one person wants to listen tomorrow, we should serve them. I for one want to listen every day.

Online radio won’t die in a hurry, but it will be hard work. And we don’t deal in silence.

It's hard to argue with the logic here, if logic is the way you like to argue. Last.fm is a big company, now owned by a much bigger company, and as such they have no choice but to abide by the rules. Royalties in every other country they stream to have been a reality for some time, and they have the clout to be able to negotiate more favorable rates than the CRB-imposed ones with most of the major copyright holders. And it's an admirable thing these days to grind though a tough situation with nothing but elbow grease, rather than cry about it as the Last.fm'ers seem to suggest everyone else is doing.

Still, it would have been nice to see the big guy stand alongside the little guys today.

Because unfair rules are not good rules, and none of SoundExchange's press releases have convinced me that these rules are anything but a moneygrab.

Because it shouldn't be incumbent on a fledgling industry that hasn't even figured out its business model yet to prop up a matured industry that's lost its way.

Because the judges that comprise the CRB have made it abundantly clear that they don't understand the technology they're ruling about.

Because if the day of silence works Last.fm will benefit handsomely from the reprieve.

Because because because...

Internet radio goes silent tomorrow...for the day.

Save Net Radio's National Day of Silence, after having been postponed from its original date because of some perceived legislative progress, will happen tomorrow. Your favorite web radio station (if it's participating*) will either shut off access to its stream completely, broadcast ocean sounds or static, or broadcast silence interspersed with PSA's.

"The arbitrary and drastic rate increases set by the Copyright Royalty Board on March 2nd threaten the very livelihood of thousands of webcasters and their millions of listeners throughout the country," said Jake Ward, a spokesperson for the SaveNetRadio Coalition. "The campaign to save Internet radio - a genuine grassroots movement comprised of hundreds of thousands of webcasters, artists and independent labels, and Net radio listeners - has quickly brought this issue to the national forefront and the halls of Congress, but there is still more to be done before the approaching deadline of July 15th. On Tuesday, thousands of webcasters will call on their millions of listeners to join the fight to save Internet radio and contact their Congressional representatives to ask for their support of the Internet Radio Equality Act." (Day of Silence (pdf))

5 years ago on May 1, 2002, Internet Broadcasters staged another Day of Silence when faced with an eerily similar ruling from the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel. That protest led (either directly or indirectly) to a last-minute reprieve from the Librarian of Congress and the passage of the Small Webcaster Settlement Act for 1998-2005.


[RAIN: Radio and Internet Newsletter]
[SaveNetRadio]

* Notable non-participants include Last.fm, and a whole bunch of terrestrial stations that simulcast to the web, including Clear Channel owned stations. Cox owned terrestrial stations are participating. For a more complete (but still not complete) list of participating stations, click here.

The RIAA prepares to do battle with terrestrial radio

Anyone in the radio business claiming to be surprised at this latest development is simply lying for incredulous effect, but the RIAA is now officially setting its sights on terrestrial radio, emboldened by the still-reverberating CRB decision to hike rates for Internet radio stations earlier this year.

The image I have in my head right now is one boney, mangy hyena turning on his boney, mangy companion. A to-the-death battle that neither party wants, but one can see no alternative to.

Record labels these days are trying desperately to dip into a number of remotely music-related revenue streams that have historically been beyond their reach, as physical music retail continues to dry up and shows no sign of ever returning. Live revenue, Internet radio revenue, endorsement and merchandising revenue, don't forget Zune revenue, and now...terrestrial radio revenue.

Terrestrial radio has always forked over some change to the performance rights groups (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC) so that the copyright holder of the song gets paid, but the radio lobby has always successfully argued that the promotional value they provide to the label by broadcasting their records outweighs their dept to the copyright holder of the recording (yes, songs have more than one copyright attached to them). The RIAA, obviously, would like that to change, and they're recruiting some big (greedy) stars to help them sell the point.

It's honestly hard to root for either side here. Neither has had the music consumer's interests in mind for a very long time. I guess if I have to choose I'll root for radio, simply because they're not the agressor and there are still a few good radio stations left.

If Skeletor and Cobra Commander got in a fight, you would definitely want to watch, but you'd know that when it was over, the winner would just become a thorn in your side again.

Responsibility, free speech, and Bill & Ted

I'm tired of hearing Imus sympathizers invoke the First Ammendment in his defense. It's not an issue of whether or not Mr. Imus had the right to say what he did. Nobody hauled him off to jail. He's been pilloried metaphorically, but physically nobody's laid a hand on him and he'll be licking his wounds (back to metaphors again) very comfortably in the privacy of one of his own lavishly furnished dwellings until such time as he sees fit to announce his triumphant comeback. He had and he has and he will have the right to say what he did.

I think the debate should be about whether he should have said it and I think the reason that's not what most people are talking about is that for the most part, reasonable human beings can agree that he shouldn't have.

I think what we should be focusing on is RESPONSIBILITY. As this media storm continues to gain strength and the frying pans cast eyes on larger and larger fish, I sincerely hope the organizations that truly profit from those who would do hurtful things in the name of ratings continue to feel the heat. And I hope Imus isn't the only casualty.

Imus, Limbaugh, Coulter, the KKK, etc. all have the right to say what they want to say. But none of them have the right to a nationally syndicated radio program. None of them have the right to step on whomever else they please (verbally) as they claw their way ever upwards to the top of the dung pile. They have every right to stand on the street corner and rant and rave. They are not entitled to a paycheck in return, and they are not entitled to a nation-wide public address system. Always remember that the airwaves are licensed to the employers of these blustery windbags by the federal government and by extension, the American people.

"But that's censorship!" you cry. Well, no. But even if it were the FCC already applies archaic censorship rules to the public airwaves. Hefty fines await those who would dare utter a fuckword or two during afternoon drive (children might be listening!) but Jerry Del Colliano compiled today a pretty stomach-turning sampler of what passes for decent broadcasting these days.

No, I advocate not censorship but responsibility. I ask why advertisers have to pull spots before companies hurry out press releases about doing the right thing and excising a tumor. I wonder when decency will be more than a euphemism for PR expediency. I wonder when the major purveyors of this bile will heed the advice of Bill & Ted, who told us to "Be excellent to each other." And really, I don't think it's ever going to happen on the airwaves at all.

Which is why, as I commented on Mr. Del Colliano's blog and as you might have already guessed if you read this blog often, I've turned my back on broadcast radio almost entirely. With a few notable exceptions, radio has become a vile, wretched tar pit, and I could care less that these dinosaurs are sinking into it. Let them shriek and howl all they want on their way down.

I'll be on the Web, where the voices that resonate with me can be heard (and read) loud and clear.

Clear Channel has a price

Surprised?

Looks like Clear Channel accepted an offer today to be bought out for $18.7 billion. EIGHTEEN POINT SEVEN BILLION DOLLARZ.

The important part of this story, though, is that they're selling 40% of their radio holdings. That's a pretty big shake-up, and I'll be interested to see where all the chips fall when it's over. Maybe some terrestrial radio stations that serve the public interest?

What'll they think of next?