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Music industry troubles caused by radio?

Apparently the music business is in trouble. For the first time since the Beatles, sales are diminishing. Some people think it's because of internet downloading and perhaps that is part of the problem but I think it's more because there's not much new worth listening to. The thing is, I'm sure there are amazing musicians out there who we're just not hearing. They probably fall outside of the narrow range of music that most radio stations choose to play.

I can remember discovering FM in the '70s. It was amazing. Low key, huge variety, minimal commercial content, and whole album sides sometimes. In the '80s, I enjoyed a paricularly cool modern rock station where once again, variety ruled. Then along came the '90s. The bean counters took over and issued an edict that the same 40 songs should be played over and over ad nauseum. Pick a genre and you can almost predict the song that will be played based on the time of day. With less variety, there are fewer opportunities to introduce new artists and a bland, homogenized form of radio pap results.

Maybe I'm just becoming an old fart but I can't think of many bands worth mentioning that actually came on the scene in the '90s. The artists that I find are still worth listening to emerged in the '60s, '70s and '80s and continue to record today.

There might be reason for hope. If XM can offer a more diverse pallate of music, maybe some of the fun of radio could return.
jlambrick
jeffloistarca
1,004 posts
 
Lugnut,

I was reading your post and felt it was well done, certainly nothing that could be considered anything less than someone voicing an informed opinion and willing to air his well thought out views. Debate is healthy and lets people consider the subject at hand from a different viewpoint.

The last paragraph is rude and uncalled for. Since you seem to struggle with civility I would suggest when posting on AudioGon you keep anything that is not related to audio or music to yourself.

Regards, Jeff (one of your unwelcome Canadian neighbors)
shubertmaniac
348 posts
 
Jeff: So who will win the Memorial Cup, the Ottawa 67s or the Sudbury Wolves, maybe the Brandon Wheat Kings.......
The one thing that is great about this country is freedom of speech. Who cares what Lugnut says; in fact who cares about what anybody says; does not matter one iota!!
kjg
171 posts
 
Lugnut - As to your point about the rise in popularity of CD's in the 80's, I believe that your assertion that they sounded worse than LP's is somewhat incorrect. For 90% of the music listeners, the CD player represented an enormous advance in audio quality over the inexpensive, typical turntable systems of the day. The convenience of the format and the obvious improvement of audio quality made their success a no brainier in the marketplace. From an audiophile perspective, the move was a giant step backwards, but then as now, we make up such a small percentage of the consumer market that our needs aren't likely to be addressed by the majority of manufacturers.

As for the rest of your post, the comments you made at the end are appalling, and completely uncalled for. I'm sure that whatever problems you might be personally experiencing are not being created by our neighbors to the north, and that neither the Canadians nor anyone else are responsible for your apparent unhappiness. I agree with Jeffloistarca - please try to keep your posts to something related to audio. In that context, they're worth reading and responding to.
kthomas
911 posts
 
I find questions like this difficult to assess because each of us have our own experience as our most prevalent reference point, and yet we change over time as well. For me, radio has made a series of missteps that has made it totally irrelevant - to me, anyway. There is absolutely no reason to listen to it, and many reasons to not listen to it - the music selection is terrible, there are commercials, you have to listen to an announcer, etc. It's so easy to have your choice of commercial-free music of your choice and variety anywhere you happen to be going, there's no reason to listen to radio anymore.

I agree that the incredible quantity and diversity of music coupled with a lack of adaptation by the people marketing music have led to the "decline". The music industry is responding about as slowly and ineptly as baseball is responding to they're problems - so slowly, you can barely perceive it. While I don't support piracy, and in fact am an incredibly good customer of the music industry, it's pretty obvious why piracy occurs and that it will continue to occur until the industry starts to make fundamental changes instead of the little tactical ones they're currently taking.
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