Remember that great indie record you made?

[@?,*???&?]

It ain't gonna get played. The trend continues:

http://www.futureofmusic.org/research/p ... gstudy.cfm

Shocking to think corporate radio can't see the future with 37,000+ albums being released annually.

[holidayhell]

I cant think of too many records I've really enjoyed in the past 30 years that radio has played.

[Gentleman Jim]

The news in this report is that there's nothing new. Independent labels as a rule haven't been played on commercial radio since what, 1965? When the majors started getting involved heavily with the indies, either through extensive P&D deals or outright acquisition, no new indies ever got any real play on radio. The exceptions being the odd hip hop, novelty, or niche song.

Commercial radio is broadcast, most successful independent labels are narrowcast. Would I love to hear more varied music on my local 50,000 watt stations? Of course. But only to a degree. To me, music radio isn't there to challenge me, it's there to provide a soundtrack to my day. A bunch of songs I've never heard before by artists I'll never hear again doesn't work for me.

The real problem is media consolidation of all kinds, but good luck reversing that trend. When this all happened in the 1990's, I remember a few short-sighted major label people saying this would be great; only 2 or 3 Program Directors to convince and then whatever song they were working was almost guaranteed huge nationwide airplay. I wonder what they think now, realizing that they don't have any options BUT those 2 or 3 Program Directors.

Oh, never mind. Their position was eliminated back in 2000 when the label merged with 3 others and reorganized. Media consolidation strikes again.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

The real problem is media consolidation of all kinds.

[newholland]

i dunno.. has cool music really ever been on the radio since the 1970's?

i'm sure occasionally one or two good ones slip by...

[leigh]

It ain't gonna get played. The trend continues:

http://www.futureofmusic.org/research/p ... gstudy.cfm

Shocking to think corporate radio can't see the future with 37,000+ albums being released annually.

Fine with me. Fuck 'em. As they fall farther and farther out of touch, their isolation will eventually be their downfall, leading to irrelevance to the culture at large. Much like the Republican party over the last 8 years.

THE "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal...

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys...The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death."

Good luck assholes! Don't expect me at your funeral.

Leigh

[@?,*???&?]

Good luck assholes! Don't expect me at your funeral.

Leigh

This kind of comment makes you as much part of the problem as the corporate radio folks. Hyper-stratification does not help.

Doesn't make sense really.

[darjama]

One week a few months ago, Andrew Bird, Bon Iver, and Animal Collective all debuted in Billboard's top 20 albums, none of whom have presumably had any significant radio play. Radio becomes less and less relevant each passing year. Maybe when you were young kids rushed home from school to listen to "the wireless," but that just doesn't happen anymore. Radio is what people listen to now when there aren't any alternatives, and the number of alternatives are growing pretty quickly.

[leigh]

Good luck assholes! Don't expect me at your funeral.

Leigh

This kind of comment makes you as much part of the problem as the corporate radio folks. Hyper-stratification does not help.

Doesn't make sense really.

Really, @?,*???&??? Really?!?

"The problem": indie records are still not getting played on corporate radio, after xyz legislation. According to you, this is as much my fault for calling them assholes, as it is their fault for only playing what they get paid to play. ???

My perspective as a musician: The corporate radio folks are the gatekeepers, not me. I'm not choosing to be excluded, they are choosing to exclude me. So what's left but to nuture the alternatives, and wish them well on their merry way? Should I lose sleep over not getting a suck off the greying teat of corporate radio?

[jmiller]

The news in this report is that there's nothing new. Independent labels as a rule haven't been played on commercial radio since what, 1965?

A&M Records?

[minorkeylee]

I dunno. This all seems pretty pointless. The industry is changing. The big dogs are desperate, and the little guys are finding it easier and easier to attain some level of success without major promotions, radio play and bloated budgets.

That being said...I have three songs off my bands latest release on heavy rotation on the only rock station in Roswell, NM....playing 4-6 times a day each....and I've sold THREE albums as a result in 5 months of play. Thank God for radio play.

[Gentleman Jim]

jmiller wrote:

A&M Records?

You know what? You're right. 1965 was a bit early, and I originally picked the year as 1972 but changed it. After posting that I thought of Elektra and planned to edit the post based on that. A&M was independent until 1979, much later than most other large independent labels that were brought into the major label fold. I would've guessed earlier if Wikipedia wasn't available.

However 1979 was 30 years ago. When talking about a medium that's really only been active for the last 85 years or so, that's a large chunk of history dominated by major labels and their affiliates.

[leigh]

That being said...I have three songs off my bands latest release on heavy rotation on the only rock station in Roswell, NM....playing 4-6 times a day each....and I've sold THREE albums as a result in 5 months of play. Thank God for radio play.

Wow, that's saying something!

I was confused for a second there as to your identity... do you know about this Chris Lee?

http://www.myspace.com/chrisleeplaysandsings

[@?,*???&?]

I dunno. This all seems pretty pointless. The industry is changing. The big dogs are desperate, and the little guys are finding it easier and easier to attain some level of success without major promotions, radio play and bloated budgets.

That being said...I have three songs off my bands latest release on heavy rotation on the only rock station in Roswell, NM....playing 4-6 times a day each....and I've sold THREE albums as a result in 5 months of play. Thank God for radio play.

Your record must not be in-stores. I mean, can you buy it at Best Buy? Can you get it at FYE? If it's indie with sketchy distribution, then I'd guess not.

Of course you won't sell any records. 80% of America doesn't spend any significant amount of time online. Broadband has only reached 57% of the United States. That's alot of people with either slow or no internet.

You're shooting for minority appeal and that's a model for failure.

Here's the Akamai report from 3rd quarter last year:

http://www.akamai.com/dl/whitepapers/ak ... ck=1&ver=1&

This is a company like Cisco that deals with massive global networking. Their numbers are eye-opening. For internet penetration and quality, the U.S. blows.

[cgarges]

There's a guy who posts on here occasionally. He has an independent label with a few albums on it. The bands on the label been doing what most regional bands who have it together have been doing: playing, recording, releasing CDs, making them available on-line through several distributors, and probably getting a bit of shelf life at a few stores in his area, at least. Seems like a pretty average scenario to me.

About two years ago, just by pure coincidence, one of the bands on this guy's label was a part of a HUGE entertainment news story. This guy's website went from having a few hundred hits a week to something like 80,000 hits in the first day of this story breaking. This dude was supposed to be leaving for Europe around that time and was about to cancel the trip, just to be able to take care of the business he expected to generate. He busted ass to make sure that all his on-line stuff was in order and tried to rush a new release through the i-Tunes application process because of the interest generated. For a solid week, this band was mentioned on shows like Entertainment Tonight every day. This wasn't promotion the label or the band looked for, it just fell into their laps.

How many CD sales do you think this type of media generated for this band?

Not one.

The band's perfectly good at what they do and they're smart guys. Make whatever snide comments you want, but these guys were given a giant handful of free promotion and no one gave a shit about buying that disc. Not even out of curiosity.

So, had they paid for that kind of promotion, where would that leave them?

I don't think there's a damn thing wrong with shooting for minority appeal and it certainly doesn't count for failure. What's failure, anyway?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC