Beatles - 50th Anniversary

[Avid Listener]

Anyone who thinks that music fans don't have any problems with what's on the radio needs to spend a day or two at any store where car audio is sold. If anyone is arguing that paying for records proves what people want to hear, then what does spending an extra $100, $200, or $500 for a car audio system that provides multiple options other than just tuning in radio stations? Would people be demanding car audio systems that include CD players that also handle MP3s on data discs, and plug-in ports for iPods, MP3 players, thumb drives, and other alternate content sources, plus satellite and/or Pandora access if they didn't have a problem with whats played on the radio?

 

[TheBigA]

Anyone who thinks that music fans don't have any problems with what's on the radio needs to spend a day or two at any store where car audio is sold.

Take it from a music fan who also works in radio: There is no way to please a music fan. So music fans are not in the target demo of radio stations. They make up a very small minority of the potential audience, they don't like mass appeal music, and they are willing to pay to get what they want. These are the people who, even in the 60s, had very expensive audiophile stereo systems. Real music fans aren't satisfied with Sirius either. And they complain about Pandora. I'm not kidding. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the population isn't that particular about the music they hear, and they don't want to spend anything to get it. That's the target for radio. And from what I see from the radio usage numbers, it's a very large number of people.

 

[Avid Listener]

If people don't listen to music radio to hear music, then what's the point of music radio?

 

[TheBigA]

If people don't listen to music radio to hear music, then what's the point of music radio?

I didn't say they don't listen to hear music. I made a distinction between music fans and radio listeners. Music fans camp out all night for tickets. That's a very small portion of the people who actually attend shows. And they're a small portion of the people who listen to music. And they're a small portion of the people who listen to radio. Get it?

 

[Avid Listener]

I didn't say they don't listen to hear music. I made a distinction between music fans and radio listeners. Music fans camp out all night for tickets. That's a very small portion of the people who actually attend shows. And they're a small portion of the people who listen to music. And they're a small portion of the people who listen to radio. Get it?

I understand that you made up your own personal, unique-to-yourself definition of what a "music fan" is, and then issue pronouncements of how things are, based on your own, unique, personal definitions. When you make up your own definitions of what things mean, then it's almost impossible for you to be wrong about how you use those personal terms. Of course, to communicate with you, one would need a TheBigA-to-English dictionary.

 

[TheBigA]

I understand that you made up your own personal, unique-to-yourself definition of what a "music fan" is,

Not really. These are people you and I see in everyday life. Or do you really think everyone who listens to music is equally committed to it, and we all listen to it with the same level of passion?

 

[Avid Listener]

Not really. These are people you and I see in everyday life. Or do you really think everyone who listens to music is equally committed to it, and we all listen to it with the same level of passion?

I think anyone who gets into an automobile, turns on his car radio, and chooses music format stations instead of news/talk or sports is a "music fan". Anyone who likes to hear music in the background while driving around is a music fan. One need not be an over-the-top maniac about music to be a "fan". Anyone who likes having music as background noise ahead of silence or spoken word programming is a music fan. And, I think most music fans have some degree of preference for what music they want to hear at any given time. Maybe they're in a mood for calm, gentle music sometimes, and rousing, exciting music other times. Maybe they'll get into a mood where they want to actually listen and pay attention, and other times they just want soothing sounds in the background to drown out the sounds of traffic.

But aside from you, I don't think anyone defines only the tiny group of people who are the most absolutely intensely passionate listeners are rightly called "music fans". I am intensely passionate about one or two bands, and will go out of my way to attend one of their concerts. Otherwise, I just like hearing music that I like better than hearing music I dislike. I suspect that's a fairly common description of most people.

 

[TheBigA]

I think anyone who gets into an automobile, turns on his car radio, and chooses music format stations instead of news/talk or sports is a "music fan".

Then you've made up your own unique-to-yourself definition. "Merriam-Webster, the Oxford dictionary and other sources define fan as a shortened version of the word fanatic. Fanatic itself, introduced into English around 1550, means "marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion".

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_(person)

 

[firepoint525]

Anyone who thinks that music fans don't have any problems with what's on the radio needs to spend a day or two at any store where car audio is sold. If anyone is arguing that paying for records proves what people want to hear, then what does spending an extra $100, $200, or $500 for a car audio system that provides multiple options other than just tuning in radio stations? Would people be demanding car audio systems that include CD players that also handle MP3s on data discs, and plug-in ports for iPods, MP3 players, thumb drives, and other alternate content sources, plus satellite and/or Pandora access if they didn't have a problem with whats played on the radio?

Next time you go in for a haircut, ask the person who cuts your hair about the radio station that they happen to have playing (assuming that they have one). It will be a definite conversation starter, and they will definitely have no shortage of opinions for you. They are subjected to the radio all day, whether music fans or not, so they will have STRONG opinions for you. They can not only tell you WHAT will play, but WHEN it will play. They will pick up ALL the patterns of whatever station that they happen to be listening to. And they will say that the station plays the same songs at the same time every day. And that if they (the station) plays "this," then they will play "that." (Just don't tell them that you are in radio, or they may hold back on you!) I remember going into a Fantastic Sam's a couple of days before Christmas one year, and they had a Garth Brooks CD playing because they were tired of all the Christmas music on the radio.

I had my own experience with "radioverkill" (my name for radio overkill, as I call it). Back in the late '80s, I was part of a cemetery mowing crew. So most of the day I was outside, far away from any radio. However, for a total of about two hours every day (breaks, lunch, beginning and end of each workday), we were in the garage where all of the equipment was kept. There was a radio in there, and they kept it tuned to the local country station. Bad enough for me, but even with that relatively limited exposure to the radio, my co-workers noticed that that station was burning certain songs (usually the then-current hits) to death! And I am assuming that at least some of them actually LIKED country music!

 

[firepoint525]

Take it from a music fan who also works in radio: There is no way to please a music fan. So music fans are not in the target demo of radio stations. They make up a very small minority of the potential audience, they don't like mass appeal music, and they are willing to pay to get what they want. These are the people who, even in the 60s, had very expensive audiophile stereo systems. Real music fans aren't satisfied with Sirius either. And they complain about Pandora. I'm not kidding. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the population isn't that particular about the music they hear, and they don't want to spend anything to get it. That's the target for radio. And from what I see from the radio usage numbers, it's a very large number of people.

About all that radio has going for it is convenience. Just flip it on, and music is there. (Aside from when they are devoting an entire Saturday afternoon in the fall to college football, that is!) But I would take it one step further than that. Most of us want to hear the music that we want, WHEN we want to hear it. Radio might play a song that I like, but not necessarily when I am in the mood to hear it. That is why we have our own music collections. And why I am growing mine, because I am 50 years old now, and radio is becoming increasingly irrelevant to me. But even when I was in my teens, I was frustrated at the VERY limited playlist of the station in the town where I grew up. I have a feeling that it was the same for most of the kids that I went to school with. And that station, at least in afternoon and evening hours, was supposedly dayparted for us!

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Radio pleased plenty of people in the 60's and 70's. Then in came focus groups, lawyers, corporations, and culminating with the telecomm act of '96. That was the end of radio being fun to listen to. The reason why people aren't particular to the music played today is that it was focused grouped. You end up playing exactly what the focus group likes, which probably has little or no relationship to the vast majority of listeners. You want to justify a hip-hop polka oldies format? Just hire the right bozos as your test subjects for the focus group and guess what? The pre-determined outcome will tell you that hip-hop polka oldies is the "next big thing". Go nuclear high pressure sales on advertisers, and they might even buy into your screwball format. As long as you cover your a__ and have the results of the focus group in a slicky bound powerpoint presentation printout, you are golden. The reason all the other media are popular has nothing to do with audio quality, or how easy it is to use. You think satellite, Pandora, or iPods are easy to use in a car? Lots of time spent futzing around - and it probably creates safety issues. But the listener gets the music they like. They will shatter your careful research. They don't give a rodent's posterior what the legal department thinks is appropriate. They don't give a darn about your station's profit margin. They just want to click on a radio and hear the music they want, and if you don't provide it they will go elsewhere. The sheer number of DX'ers in the 70's buying tuners with more and and more gangs, bigger antennas should have been a warning that listeners weren't liking the changes. The very existance - and continued popularity - of something like a "Supertuner" in car radios should have been a warning. People were going to extreme measures to get the stations that were still "getting it". As the 70's progressed, and the last stations became "professional" and "focused", the popularity of music radio crashed completely and you still didn't heed the warning as talk radio began to take over. The nail in the coffin was the internet with streaming audio, portable music players, satellite. Radio abandoned listners decades ago, but they still had a captive audience. Now that captive audience has escaped, and you won't get them back no matter how hard you push polished poop like HD radio.

 

[TheBigA]

Radio pleased plenty of people in the 60's and 70's. Then in came focus groups, lawyers, corporations, and culminating with the telecomm act of '96. That was the end of radio being fun to listen to.

You realize that there was radio research in the 60s and 70s? You realize you were being marketed to? That radio stations in the 60s were owned by corporations and overseen by lawyers? I know it felt so innocent back then, but it wasn't. The whole concept of Top 40 radio was about controlling the music so you only heard enough to fit into a short attention span? There were lots of records getting made in the 50s and 60s that never got airplay, and you never heard about. DJ talk was being controlled by program directors like Paul Drew and Rick Sklar, who required DJs to speak in :10 blocks. Radio owned by corporations like RKO General, RCA, and Westinghouse. Programmed by corporations like Bonneville and Schulke. The music business was also being overrun by lawyers and corporations in the 60s. Why do you think Beatle albums on Capitol had fewer songs than the original albums in England? To make more money! Why do you think stores were filled with all kinds of Beatle toys and games? To make more money! That was the lesson of the 60s, that the counter-culture and the revolution was ultimately co-opted by lawyers and corporations for profit. My prediction is that the internet ultimately will go the same route, probably before the end of this decade. You see the battle over TV right now with Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. Someday very soon, the corporations will control the internet, just as they control radio.

 

[Avid Listener]

Next time you go in for a haircut, ask the person who cuts your hair about the radio station that they happen to have playing (assuming that they have one). It will be a definite conversation starter, and they will definitely have no shortage of opinions for you. They are subjected to the radio all day, whether music fans or not, so they will have STRONG opinions for you. They can not only tell you WHAT will play, but WHEN it will play. They will pick up ALL the patterns of whatever station that they happen to be listening to. And they will say that the station plays the same songs at the same time every day. And that if they (the station) plays "this," then they will play "that." (Just don't tell them that you are in radio, or they may hold back on you!) I remember going into a Fantastic Sam's a couple of days before Christmas one year, and they had a Garth Brooks CD playing because they were tired of all the Christmas music on the radio.

I had my own experience with "radioverkill" (my name for radio overkill, as I call it). Back in the late '80s, I was part of a cemetery mowing crew. So most of the day I was outside, far away from any radio. However, for a total of about two hours every day (breaks, lunch, beginning and end of each workday), we were in the garage where all of the equipment was kept. There was a radio in there, and they kept it tuned to the local country station. Bad enough for me, but even with that relatively limited exposure to the radio, my co-workers noticed that that station was burning certain songs (usually the then-current hits) to death! And I am assuming that at least some of them actually LIKED country music!

I hear you, even though I have a shaved head and never visit barber shops. I worked for a while as a technician on repairing and refurbishing electronic equipment. We had the local classic rock station on in the background, and noticed the exact same thing you mentioned. One song in particular, LaGrange by ZZ Top, was so overplayed that we would run a pool on when they'd play it, at which point we'd change the station to the local "Bob" station. This enabled me to hear about a recipe contest on the Bob station that I wouldn't have learned about otherwise, and I won $1,100 in gift cards to the local grocery store chain!

When the radio in the shop eventually died, we all chipped in and bought a new one that included a CD player.

 

[Avid Listener]

Radio pleased plenty of people in the 60's and 70's. Then in came focus groups, lawyers, corporations, and culminating with the telecomm act of '96. That was the end of radio being fun to listen to.

Good point, and quite accurate. The research of the 60's and early 70's was far more rudimentary than it became later. And, as bad as the poorly done research was, throw in lawyers, corporations, and the telecomm act of '96, and you had the recipe for disaster that created the mess the industry is in today.

 

[TheBigA]

Good point, and quite accurate. The research of the 60's and early 70's was far more rudimentary than it became later. And, as bad as the poorly done research was, throw in lawyers, corporations, and the telecomm act of '96, and you had the recipe for disaster that created the mess the industry is in today.

The fact is there is nothing in the Telecom Act of 96 that ruined radio. I've studied it in depth, and spoken with a lot of Congressmen who voted on it. The real mess was what happened to telecom and cable as a result of the act, not radio. How many phone companies did we have before 1996, and how many do we have now? The changes in radio would have happened anyway. Programming has become more centralized by the 80s. Research in the 60s was extremely good. It built MusicRadio at ABC and Boss Radio at RKO. These were the most powerful and popular radio stations in their day, and achieved ratings that would never be duplicated, especially today.

My favorite story about 60s radio revolves around Big Tom Donohue. He was the west coast version of Alan Freed, except he didn't get caught. Big Tom was a DJ on KYA in San Francisco, and he also managed a lot of local bands, like the Beau Brummels. He was so powerful that he promoted The Beatles last concert at Candlestick Park in 1967, the one made famous in the Ken Kesey book. In 1966, AVCO bought KYA. This is the same AVCO corporation that bought up a lot of things, including Crosley Broadcasting that owned WLW in Cincinnati, and AVCO Embassy films. Remember I'm talking 1966 here, not 1996. AVCO tried to reign in Big Tom Donohue. So he quit. He wrote a now famous article about how AM Radio was dead, and took his show to an FM station. But this mythology about radio in the 60s is just that: mythology. It's perpetuated by people who were really too young to understand how they were being manipulated at the time. Broadcasting has always been about money since it was invented, and anyone who thinks it wasn't is living in a dream world.

 

[firepoint525]

Why do you think Beatle albums on Capitol had fewer songs than the original albums in England? To make more money!

This doesn't quite tell the whole story. Capitol really shot themselves in the foot with regard to the Beatles. Their A&R guy (whose name escapes me now) pretty much single-handedly kept the Beatles from breaking through stateside in '63. It wasn't until the buzz over the Beatles got so big that the then-label head (whose name also escapes me) asked to hear something by them. This is all in Bruce Spizer's books about Beatlemania from the American point of view. Since Capitol sat on the Beatles' material all through '63, Brian Epstein licensed their music to VeeJay and all those other small labels. Capitol apparently had right of first refusal. Once the Beatles broke through stateside, Capitol had nearly a two-year backlog of music that they could have fallen back on, EXCEPT that they had licensed most of it out to all those other labels.

The other factor is that American audiences apparently tended to like albums that actually contained the songs that were released as singles, and apparently, their b-sides as well. So Capitol would put those two songs on an album, but would bounce about four or five other songs to a future album, and the process would repeat itself over and over again, culminating in the Yesterday and Today album in 1966. It's laughable now that it backfired on them when that original "butcher cover" album became a collector's item!

 

[vchimpanzee]

I have said this for years. I grew up in the '70s, but the station that I grew up listening to typically played '50s, '60s, and '70s at the time, particularly on weekends. So I grew up listening to all of it. Nowadays, programmers claim that they can't play that older music for "my" generation because we supposedly don't "remember" it! That is pure b.s.! Of course, we remember it, we grew up listening to it! Did it ever occur to them to ASK us what we were listening to? Following their "logic," I would not be a Beatles fan.

A lot of the songs I like were recorded before I was even born. They were new to me in the 1990s, when I first discovered "adult standards" radio, even though the songs were 40 years old at the time.

I also like the music that was popular when I was a teenager. Barry Manilow, The Carpenters, John Denver, Neil Diamond, and Barbra Streisand.

And when I listen to classic country radio, I am hearing songs 40 and 50 years old that I never heard before but have found out I like.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I don't know how realistic this is, but there is a new TV series on The CW called "Star Crossed" set in 2024. A new student at a high school is told about the various groups around school. There's one group of Lenin supporters. That means Communist, not Beatles fans.

It surprised me that anyone in high school in 2024 would hear the name "Lenin" and think of John.

Now that I think of it, Lenin fans would be even more unlikely. The man had been dead for 100 years.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Agree with you about Annie Lennox. Totally unnecessary.

I feel that way about her in general.

 

[Avid Listener]

I don't know how realistic this is, but there is a new TV series on The CW called "Star Crossed" set in 2024. A new student at a high school is told about the various groups around school. There's one group of Lenin supporters. That means Communist, not Beatles fans.

It surprised me that anyone in high school in 2024 would hear the name "Lenin" and think of John.

Now that I think of it, Lenin fans would be even more unlikely. The man had been dead for 100 years.

How many high school kids today would hear "Marx" and think of Groucho or Harpo instead of Karl? How many people would hear "Ludwig", and think of Beethoven? The age of how long someone has been dead doesn't have a direct correlation to how well they are remembered as cultural figures. "Lenin" is a name from history, like Napoleon, or Washington, or even Caesar that current and future generations should be aware of. And "Lennon" is as much of an historical figure from music who will be remembered as long as people like Gershwin, Sousa, or Foster.