The Steel Guitar Forum

<SMALL>Sorry guys but you need to be aware that Country haters are a pretty large group, and it's mostly old style Country they hate</SMALL>

Thats just fine. I happen to love the old style Country, and if I am in the minority that dosn't hirt my fillings at all. Music is a matter of taste and I don't think every style should be watered down and sold off as "Pop Music" for everyone.Country music NEEDS to keep it's idenity and heritage as a true American art form. We should stop killing the soul of our music just to make it more acceptable to the masses!<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Alvin Blaine on 25 July 2002 at 02:24 AM.]</p></FONT>

b0b,
Singles are always remixed for radio. If you like the song you'll probably enjoy the mix on the CD version. Its all about advertising to radio. IMO Clear Channel Corporation (radio) compresses the life out of everything these days.
For those that are not aware, Clear Channel Corporation controls nearly every musical venue throughout the USA. What we hear and how we hear it falls under their guidelines. They are the Microsoft of the entertainment world. Labels, artists, writers, producers, and musicians all have to fit their agenda to be heard. Sadly, being played on the radio is not about anyones personal musical direction anymore.
Paul<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Franklin on 25 July 2002 at 05:59 AM.]</p></FONT>

Dave B., you are right about the country music haters.What they have to hate is what they hear today.I don't know how they could have ever heard any "Trad Country" or good swinging "Texas Music".They sure don't play it anyplace other than maybe Live 365.Ray

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Steeling is still legal in Arizona

What will the youngsters from now say in 40 years about country-music?
Just a thought...
JJ

Paul, maybe this begs the question for an alternative method of music delivery. Perhaps the Internet will change things enough to put this uncontrollable corp. out of business. Although I know that radio's a huge presence and influence in the listening world.

The folks who supply the music want to make a profit. Thus we have the commercials, compression, and corporate consolidations. (Hey, alliteration!) The people who listen just want good music. I agree that the internet is offering an alternative for those of us who want unprocessed, non-commercialized broadcast, but I'm afraid it is too inconvenient for most of us for now. I can't listen to it in my car, for example, and my home modem is (1) slow (making for poor sound) and (2) it ties up my phone. As internet bandwidth increases and alternate hookups (non phone) get cheaper (will they?) that will improve. But we all seem to want the music for free. Tuning in an FM station costs me 'nothing' while XM or digital cable stations cost me subscription fees. Of course, there actually is cost built into 'free' broadcast radio.... time spent hearing commercials, compromised sound (remixes, local reprocessing), and the increased price of store bought goods needed to pay for radio (etc) advertising. Also, as internet music delivery matures I get a funny feeling it will begin to either cost us fees or will have embedded advertising (as has happened with so many ventures on the internet which started out free or unencumbered with ads but eventually succumbed).

I'm pretty distressed about Clear Channel. The comparison to MicroSoft is a good one (I'm an Apple kinda guy). We're very fortunate in San Jose that our (one and only) country station is independent. I sure hope they stay that way.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Bill Llewellyn on 25 July 2002 at 08:12 AM.]</p></FONT>

Brother Dave:

<font size=-2>[Okay...I'll take the bait.]</font size>

Yep, just listen to all those country haters on the Ricky Skaggs and Dale Watson Live in London albums...just hating their heads off.

I have George Jones and Webb Pierce records which are British label imports.

My crappy cockney accent gets laughs (especially when I was trying to do a Canadian); hardly means we despise our good friends in the Olde Country.

Parody is one thing; the real deal is something else. Monty Python is hilarious. I wouldn't confuse <u>Holy Grail</u> with authentic medieval history, however.


<font size=-3><i>Edited for spelling.
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jeff Evans on 25 July 2002 at 10:50 AM.]</p></FONT>

Radio isn't about selling music to listeners. It's about selling listeners to advertisers. The fact that radio generates CD sales is largely irrelevant, from the broadcaster's point of view.

Now Clear Channel, in its infinite wisdom, has determined that this sped-up, compressed noise attracts more listeners than regular music does. I assume they have consumer studies to support this, but it's still something that I don't understand. Why are people more likely to change the station if the music sounds better?

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<small><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic) Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)

Speaking of CC...


LOS ANGELES, July 10 — Few executives better reflect the changes in the music
industry these days than Tom Poleman, program director for Z-100 (WHTZ-FM),
the top pop radio station in New York City and one of 1,200 stations owned
by the conglomerate Clear Channel Communications.
Mr. Poleman rarely plays his favorites. Instead, he spends each day
crunching numbers in his office in Jersey City, reviewing spreadsheets and
computer-generated data chronicling what listeners will want to hear.

The loss of even one rating percentage point, Mr. Poleman said, could cost
his station as much as $10 million a year. "I feel the pressure day to day,"
he said. "There is too much at stake."
Advertisement


Long gone are the days when radio programmers simply played pop songs
requested by listeners or bet on a band discovered at a hometown club. As
the world of radio hardens into an industry dominated by three or four major
chains, the use of research is accelerating and has become far more
sophisticated, leading to mounting criticism that the quest for ratings is
homogenizing music radio and making it harder for a different sound to break
through.

Researchers rely mainly on telephone polls, playing eight-second sound bites
from songs, called hooks, to decide what is played. Recording executives
have taken to pretesting songs with listeners, in some cases rerecording
them to meet their critiques.

And a division of Clear Channel, the largest chain of radio stations, has
begun charging record labels as much as $20,000 a song to test unreleased
music on its nationwide network of programmers (information record labels
use to gauge a band's promise), altering what once had been largely informal
discussion about taste among colleagues.

The use of research is having a huge effect on the relationship between
record labels and radio stations. Blockbuster acts benefit. The star rapper
Eminem's "Without Me," for instance, has played on radio stations nationwide
more than 125,000 times since it made a debut more than a month ago, a
spectacular amount for that length of time.

"You could make the case that doing research is better than some program
director on the take, spinning discs," said Craig Marks, editor of Blender,
a music magazine based in New York. "But if a song does not test well it is
dead even before it hits the streets. The coldness of it all is a new
phenomenon. And bands think that is demoralizing."

Radio executives defend their research, saying that it creates the most
democratic form of programming, because it is a direct response to
listeners' tastes. But critics warn that the number of songs tested is
limited, making the outcome biased. "If your band is not among the 30 songs
a radio station tests each week, you effectively do not exist," said Titus
Levi, an assistant professor who studies the music business at the
University of Southern California. "If it's not on the menu you are not
going to order it. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

It could also explain why music sounds so similar across the country.
Country music stations, Mr. Marks of Blender said, are known for having the
most restrictive formats, dependent on big-name stars like Trisha Yearwood
and the Dixie Chicks. "I would think it has impacted culture," he said. That
is because programmers in different markets, particularly smaller ones,
often share the same data even though listeners can have markedly different
tastes.

Since the 1960's, independent promoters, paid by record labels to hawk their
music to radio stations, have influenced much of what is played, and at
times have offered disc jockeys cash and gifts despite laws making payola a
punishable crime. Polling was unsophisticated, and because ownership was
fractured, research was done locally and the results were not spread
nationwide.

That changed in 1996 when the federal government increased the number of
radio stations a single entity could own and the industry shifted almost
overnight. Five years after the ruling, in March 2001, the number of radio
stations, federal records show, increased 7 percent while the number of
owners dropped 25 percent. The biggest acquirer was Clear Channel, based in
San Antonio, which has doubled its stations, to more than 1,200 since 1999.

Today, a growing number of artists, consumers and legislators are concerned
that radio conglomerates wield too much power. Senator Russell D. Feingold,
Democrat of Wisconsin, introduced legislation on June 27 that would give
federal regulators the authority to revoke radio licenses if a conglomerate
forces musicians to play at station-sponsored concerts or buy advertising as
a condition of playing their songs.

If there is anything driving the use of research in radio programming it is
the search for new sources of revenue. In the last decade, listeners spent
10 percent fewer hours listening to radio, according to Arbitron, which
tracks listening habits. "We are trying to monetize everything we do," said
Mr. Gerry Kagle, an executive at Premiere Radio Networks, a division of
Clear Channel.

Like its network of radio stations, Clear Channel's research empire is vast,
stretching from a nondescript office tower in Burbank, Calif., where a
roomful of computers monitor stations in 140 major markets, to an office
park in Cincinnati, where workers huddle over telephones playing sound bites
and interviewing radio listeners.

In simplified terms, here is how it works. In the Burbank tower, a
sophisticated computer network records thousands of eight-second sound bites
of songs, called hooks, from more than 1,000 radio stations, most of them
Clear Channel's, across the country. Then a team of 150 workers listen to
the hooks and identify them by name, the station and time of day they
played. That information is sold to record companies, which use it to track
the popularity of their songs, and to radio stations that want to follow
trends and know what other stations are playing.

Clear Channel also conducts another type of research, call-out research,
where telephone operators poll listeners weekly about songs its program
directors are playing. In a test, listeners are asked to rate 25 to 30
hooks, answering questions about whether they like it, recognize it or are
tired of hearing it.

This, analysts say, is the most influential information. Clear Channel
shares this data throughout the chain so a programmer in one market can tell
what it is hot in a similar market.

Randy Michaels, chief executive of Clear Channel Radio, said this data is
used in many ways, including how to arrange the order of songs.

"Research is almost essential because if you focused on your personal
tastes, you'd only make yourself happy," he said. "If you focus on the
audience, you see the ratings go up."

But a lot of stations are overdependent on research, said Scott Sands, a
program director at WZPL, an independent pop alternative station in
Indianapolis. "I'd like to think I'm a strong enough programmer that
wherever I worked I could program the way I see fit," he said.

Take for instance the most recent single from the Dave Matthews Band, "Where
Are You Going."

"It is not testing well among listeners online," Mr. Sands said, but he is
not ready to pull it off the air. "This is an artist that takes time to
test," he said. "It may take 400 spins."

John Dickey, an executive vice president at Cumulus Media, which owns more
than 250 radio stations, said he did not understand the criticism. Music
listeners, he said, are getting exactly what research shows they want. And
that, he adds, is not likely to change anytime soon.

"It's just like the fast food industry being blamed for the fattening up of
America," he said. "If America didn't want it, we wouldn't serve it."

Get XM radio if you are tired of FM broadcast.

XM radio has 6 country channels. Bluegrass, old country, WSIX Nashville, and I foget the rest. Yes, XM has NCS but at least it is CD quality S***.

100+ channels. mostly Commercial free. $10 month. You get what you pay for.

I don't like what they serve in fast food restaurants, either!

It only takes a few hours in one weekend every one to two months to hear the top 20, 30, or 40 current songs on the charts. You can use that to determine what if any you might want to purchse. The rest of the time you can listen to something else.

I read on a songwriting web site that many writers make as much if not more from radio play then from sales. This is an astounding statistic.

That's right Erik. A cut on a Platinum CD is worth $80,000 to the writer/publisher ($ .08 X 1,000,000 copies). A hit single off the CD can be worth upward of $250,000 in performance royalties for a country records, and much higher for a pop single...<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by John Macy on 28 July 2002 at 12:17 PM.]</p></FONT>

John, i meant performance fees(plays), not sales. So, getting a song in rotation is more lucrative than sales units... according to that "pro". Or maybe you were including that in your figure.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by erik on 28 July 2002 at 10:29 AM.]</p></FONT>

Erik,

That firgure for the single IS performance fees--not sales. I did not make that clear. I'll edit the first post...<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Janice Brooks on 28 July 2002 at 01:15 PM.]</p></FONT>

I don't listen to any country radio AT ALL any more.

I figure that some day it will get better and I'll hear about it from someone and tune back in. Until then, I feel that Country is Dead.

Semi-on-topic:
By the way, anyone heard of a band called the Gin Palce Jesters? Saw them at Lee's Liquor Lounge in Minneapolis, MN.

Absolutely kick-a**. More rockabilly than country, but excellent. On one song the drummer stood up and played a railroad spike with a hammer. Brilliant. It felt very retro.


Someday country WILL come back.

1. High "tenny" sounding mixes, expecially cymbals- that actually make your ears ring. 2. Goofy- soap opera lyrics.
3. The same, redundant, pop drum pattern, as in Tim McGraws' "More than a lover-there could never be another-to make me feel the way you do."(My Best Friend)
4. The female singers all sound like they are trying to be love-goddess', and sing like they are in a trance. I get sick of hearing them breathe so close in the mic.
5. As someone mentioned before- the fiddle, banjo, organ, high mixed steel, dobro, string section, synthesizer, bass, drums, bongos, electric slide, fuzz guitar, tambourine... you name it- all in one. Too full to hear the song.

Also, to the fellow who is embarrassed and influenced by what other people may think of country music, who cares? I hate heavy metal, and I'm sure a lot of others do to, but should they change it for me? Heck no. I am proud of my country roots and I don't care who makes fun of it.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>
Goofy- soap opera lyrics</SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

ha ha!

<SMALL>The same, redundant, pop drum pattern, as in Tim McGraws' "More than a lover-there could never be another-to make me feel the way you do."(My Best Friend)</SMALL>

That's the "Boom-Poppa-CHING-Poppa" I was talking about!

Put a cowboy hat on Michael Bolton and he could have even been in the top 10 on CMT...Thats what most of todays "so called country music" sounds like to me. Just a bunch of Michael Boltons with a cowboy hat.
Just my 2 cents.

Specific dislike:

Vocal harmony that is too thick. Hard to find the lead singer in the mix. This is true whether live or on CD.

The sad thing is there is a lot of exceptional country music out there that never sees the light of day. Example, The Derailers "full Western gear", any of Buddy Miller's CDs, The Maverics

As for music that is played on the Radio, I love the Dixie Chicks, especially the first CD, the stuff Alan Jackson plays that doesn't make the radio is also quite ggod.

"Michael Bolton with a cowboy hat"

Too dang funny Michael. I can't stop laughing.

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Carter D10 9p/10k
Richard Sinkler

Ditto, Michael Wilson. Well put.

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<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Barbara Hennerman on 21 August 2006 at 01:06 AM.]</p></FONT>