music :vs: society :vs: a donkey show.?

($,$ bills y'all (just for fun))

I don't necessarily have a lot to add here. I can say that your moment with the auto-spinning lollipop reminds me of the first time I saw a 8 or 10 or so year old with a cel phone. I was about 21 or 22 and hung over. I walked to the corner gas station and got some much needed caffeine, in a sort of (a la Fight Club) xerox style haze and I see this little kid yammering on a cel phone and the only words I heard were "e-mail, e-mail, chat room, chat room" (which has since become a little joke with my friends). I practically fell into a panic attack. It's horrifying when you see the first domino you've actually noticed towards the world losing its mind. It hit me particularly hard because the symbol was so perfectly framed to freak me out.

The question you ask is a really good one, but I just deleted two paragraphs that barely scratched the surface of my feelings. In essence, it's all the consumer's faults because their demands drive the marketplace. I don't like the fact that the music business operates the way it does, offering less stuff on a wide scale, but I can't really blame them because it would be less profitable, and really that's what any corporation in any field does. It sucks, but that's how people do it. I don't know how much I can put on the consumer, as far as venom goes, because not all people care as much as we do and how can I get all upset about how people want to allocate their time when they're perfectly happy with what they have. When it comes to people who don't pursue it and then whine about it... different story. I don't want to know a ton of stuff about cars and yet I bet car people would probably laugh at my hopelessness when it comes to anything mechanical. I'm the total creed fan of auto maintenance.

I guess, I don't like it, but that's just how it is. It's why I don't listen to the radio as much as I would love to have it as a means of finding out about new, cool stuff. It's why I love this place because we can all come together and help each other out and in a way bond over the fact that we think it sucks. I can't get too high up on a soap box about it though because there are plenty of things that other people care a whole lot about that I don't care about at all.

MA: I'd like to think that I would make it eclectic and make it something that I would be happy to tune into, and like I said I don't listen to the radio.

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so much for brevity, but I think I didn't get too sidetracked. I know I kept to the music part, and I do think we as a society (and I've actually been thinking quite a bit about how that relates to me lately), but that's a whole other can of worms that I didn't really want to open. Way too many keystrokes come with that expansion.

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I will say though, I don't believe it's some big conspiracy. I think that it's because the consumers want stuff that isn't terribly challenging. It's because people want to escape into their fluff music and their fluff movies. If the consumer demanded meaning and depth they would get it once the marketing reports showed it, but they don't really care. Plus, to make meaning good takes a certain talent. It's just easier to write "party party party woo hoo gonna be a good time in my Volkswagon with my diet coke and my little little whopper Jr." (from Volkswhopper by prof anger and the righteous dropkicks copywrite pending) than "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall." Writing revolutionary and deep songs without sounding totally trite and stupid. It's much easier to be mediocre and write songs that don't really matter. Harder to be exposed that way.

$ Quickly produced "jingles" are hardly a new thing. Phil Spector would often proclaim a song to be a hit by saying "Yeah, that's 'dumb enough'." [Though I think he's actually a good producer the thought behind that applies.]

Perhaps no one making music today has interest in 30 second long guitar solos? As much as I love the Beatles, I also blame them in part for "bloating" rock music. It never used to be a crime to make a good snappy 3 minute song but post SGT. PEPPER it became expected that songs would be longer, more indulgent and had to "say something". So you had people who were only in bands to get chicks trying to make some grand "artistic statement". :P

Push-button lollipops...heh.

A better question is why do we pay farmers NOT to grow...instead of letting them grow it, have the Fed government buy it and then send it to starving folks? You still keep the price high artificially but don't waste the potential of the land while doing it. (Incidentally, I think the government should get out of the business of subsidizing products entirely and let the free market decide prices but that's a topic for a different forum.)

MA: I don't think radio will ever be like it once was because there are too many options. There is no "mass market" anymore because of Ipods/MP3 players, car CD players and relatively cheap satellite radio. People just bring what they want with them rather than deciding that radio is "good enough".

I'd go with an "Adult Top 40" format, avoiding rap and hard rock, since that's the best way to reach the "money demo" of 18-34 year old females in general. To avoid paying DJs, I'd run it off computer MP3 files and "robojocks". In other words, much as I think it's boring radio, probably like Clear Channel does it. If you're broadcasting countrywide, you can't aim it locally.

If your question was "How would I program a LOCAL radio station?" I'd give a different answer.

$ You should run for office, friend.

Television is the root cause for our loss of attention. It is the root cause of many problems in the world today, more than I can name. It is life, relationships, and storytelling in it's most self-indulgent, vapid, and uninteresting. It has created a generation of people unable to sit still for more than eight minutes at a time (until the next commercial), and left them completely uninterested in ventures of the mind. Anything, whether film, music, or art in any form, that causes us to think, or re-evaluate our thought process is immediately labeled elitist, incomprehensible (No Country for Old Men would be a good example here, a film that challenges views of the world, but was wrongly labeled because it's ending didn't wrap the story in a bow), pretentious, and (more often than not, because most don't know the meaning of the previous words) boring.

As far as the corporate side of things is; you can certainly argue that pop music is an invention of de-regulation. Clear channel owns almost everything on radio, and Viacom, and Time-Warner own almost everything on T.V. So, it's very unlikely that anything that doesn't comply with their rules, and anyone who speaks out against them is going to get any air-time, or anyone, who just doesn't fit into their mold of what is popular. This is why the same five - six songs are contiuously shoved down our throats. No record label is going to sign a band that doesn't look, and sound like what is playing on the radio. And to think there used to be a time when you could release a twenty minute song as a single.

If I ran a radio station I would have no bands on any major label (like Sony), or any subsidiary of a major label (like American), and I wouldn't allow a single company to advertise (whether it's through commercials or sponorship (as on NPR)). Other than that it would be completely open, any music, at any time whether it's the darkest of "death-metal" or the poppiest of "indie-rock" to the freest of jazz. From Brain Drill to Antelope, Zevious to Behold... the Arctopus, etc... all underground music would have a shot at being played.

That's a fantasy, though, that radio station will never exist.

I came for the donkey show, I'm disappointed.

$hmmmm someone is in a debating mood today. But since I listen to mostly oldies, old punk, and classic country(I know I am in the wrong room) I would have to answer for that and not 80s and eqarly 90s rock ballad heavy rock type music.(Sorry)

MA: if you look back at early radio, talking very early it was lots of talk and most all songs were less than 3 min. I mean most of fats dominos songs are a min and a half. The entire doo wop era was short songs lots of radio talk. So are we lazy yes, did it just start no. If I had a station well it would be half of songs cause I get too excited about what I wanna play next to wait...damn adhd.

And push button lollipops...I used to get all the time. I am the apitamy of lazy I imagine. <3

$ I read it I really read it!

Anyway, I've never really thought about the connection between laziness and crappy music. You may be on to something there. I think it's that people in the music industry are focusing on being successful rather than making music that is different. The music industry is giving people what they want. People want songs with hooks that are short (maybe it's not laziness, it's fear of committment to listen to long song.) I don't even listen to radio any more (aside from the classic rock station. They don't edit anything to be shorter and you can find all the 30 second guitar solos you want.) If I owned a radio station, I would play the best of new and old rock. No editing. And I'm pretty sure this wouldn't be allowed but, I would opt for no censoring.

$ $(read it twice,I got confused once)

Radio= for the most part manipulated by money paid by record labels to play "the hit" and you get the same old same old forced on you.How many times have you changed the channel,only to hear the same exact tune on another staion at the same time....UGH !! Radio programming blows.

If I ran one I would dedicate a time slot to highlight local and national up and coming bands !! Signed or unsigned if the band sent a CD it would be played,not just thrown to the side.To pay for my staion,my advertisers would be "music" orientated,ie get a deal with the venues to promote the shows with commercials, music shops,maybe even try and get some with instument makers,I know I maybe limiting myself there,just imagine commercials that you may actually find usefull and actually listen to ,compared to say the new coffee of the month or some BS like that.

I'd hire actual music fans as my DJ's and not some clown who got the job because of who he/she knows or blows. I would also let the DJ's have an amount of time in their slot to play what they wanted to,being music fans themselves it should work out allright I would think. The whole place would have to be a musical atmosphere as best as it could be. I picture something like the office in " Grandma's Boy"..lol..by that I mean very relaxed and easy going....

LOL..at the monitors for cars to back up..the masses are asses my friend,the spinning lollipop,geez I can remember when they sold CANDY CIGARETTES!! God help ya if you even tried that now..oh and... Ummmm.... I was lead to believe there was a donkey show, what gives?

$

eventhough everything is shity right now, its still really good. america needs a wake up call so we can see how the other side lives. america is a ****** up, fat, lazy country were people act like safisticated animals. stop the tearony. we just suck. but all we do is talk the talk and walk in the oposite direction. there is no real effort going on. praise the homeless, the weak, the hungry, and the cold, for they are trying, but fail. i would rather try and fail then be an asss hole like the rest of us. but whatever.

oh and if i had a radio station, i would play what i want, when i want, and how i want. play the local bands, the new bands, the olod bands and the greats!

$

I am convinced that the whole world runs on marketing. From the social networking sphere to the mass production of the 3-min pop song you speak of (down to its timed guitar solo), everything is the product of a few research polls, and marketing surveys. No one takes a chance unless consumer stats can confirm that such and such number of people will like it. It's a sick way to mass produce even original ideas. I stay as far from the radio as possible, for that reason. .. But I agree that the spinning lolipop is a "sign of the times"

$

There is a constant barrage of "sugary sweet" things we have to have. Alot of propaganda to make us conditioned to be consumers. The inroads to our mind is the media. You can't control them, but you can turn off the sound by shutting off the media via the radio and TV. I seldom listen to commercial radio anymore. I also stop to see how much television I am watching. There are alot better ways to spend my time which almost always results in activity that makes my life better. Some of the best times I have had with friends involved free things people can do in life like going to the park or having potluck dinner at someones house.

$ Yep we could go on and on and on about how whacked some things are, the only good thing would be to run the station where you have to subscribe than you can do whatever ya want, somewhat. I know driving into San Fransico there was a station that had this non-stop industrial thing going on, I mean non-stop I was able to listen to it with out ever hearing anybody except staight music, the same beat or song if you wanna call it that constantly slowly changing it was awesome, anyways it slowly faded back out as I got closer to the city.