This is not so much about bands as it is music in general lately.
It doesn’t seem to matter where it comes from; it could be the satellite music at the office, or what plays over the intercom at the YMCA, when I get in my wife’s car and the radio comes on, even lots of music on hold. There seems to be this enormous programming shift that says there was no popular music before the Nixon administration, and there has been none since the first Bush administration.
We have Sirius at home; one day I was working outside and changed it to I think "The Loft". Just simple acoustic performances of lots of songs. My wife came out and looked at me like I grew a third eye. She promptly went in and changed it to "Classic Rewind", which plays AOR hits primarily from the 80s.
I used to love the classic rock stations, but it feels like their playlist is actually shrinking.
I grew up in the AM radio days of the 60s and early 70s, when rock was next to soul was next to country, etc. So I suppose variety was in my upbringing. But don't folks get sick of this day after day?
yeah, it's gotten so bad all i ever listen to on the radio is rap or classical, and i don't really like rap or classical that much. the problem is the internet gutted marketing for marginally commercial bands, so all you get now are the candy image sellers like niki minaj. pearl jam wouldn't get airplay if they came up now because they wouldn't have the studio support or pr budget. if you want to listen to newer music, you have to find it and download it yourself. at the same time, the oldies stations' rotations seem like they're smaller because you've heard all the songs before, and because they're going to cut any songs that aren't going to bring in the ad dollars. it's all a money game, and the money's evaporating.
I'm lucky. I have a 19 year old son who is quite the socialite and comes home once a week with a new tune or something for me to check out. Sometimes good, sometimes not.
Where I fail is by not writing the good ones down or saving the links off somewhere. His CD collection mirrors what he shows me quit a bit, so I guess I always feel like I've got access to it. No rush to remember kind of thing.
RE radio stations, yeah, we've talked about this many times around here. it seems to be quite a universal thing. Alas, these are not non-profit orgnizations. They are responsible to shareholders and private ownership to achieve goals, meet performance metrics, etc. What I've seen over the past 30 years or so in any business is an overall shift from long term to short term thinking. 30 years ago, a common rules of thumb was that it will take 5 years for a new business to take off and be profitable. These days I wonder how many organizations even have a five year plan. :/ My point is, that the radio stations put the playlists up that they feel will keep a listener tuned in right now.
Oh, is it my imagination or did Sirius - XM (or whatever they call themselves these days) seem to jack up their prices all of a sudden, or was I living under a rock? My bill came in last month and I was rather taken back.
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
