What comes to mind when one thinks of the music business? Perhaps a mental picture of music videos, compact discs, vinyl records, and recording studios are in the forefront…but is the quality of the music considered? Often people associate an artist’s productions with the image of the artist themselves based on what the consumer has seen of the musician on television. It is this association that is pushing the industry in a new direction that may not be a good progressive move. The music business is entering a new age where the popularity of music is becoming image-driven based on the artist instead of relying on the quality of the music itself.
When examining the problems associated with the new age in music, the institution of radio becomes an important issue. For as long as the current generation can remember, radio has always been present in the media scene—whether its popularity has maintained the homeostasis of its previous glory is another story—but still, it has stayed on the scene. Throughout the years for musicians, having one’s own song played on he airwaves was the ultimate goal, really; once they hit the radio, they would hit the “big time” simultaneously. It became the Mecca of the struggling singer-songwriter due to how many people could be reached within just three minutes in a radio slot. There were many obstacles though, such as getting one’s cassette tape or compact disc to the right person in authority, having connections to the right individuals, and having the monetary resources to back it all up. For example, the band Semisonic had to pay over $700,000 to get one of their singles on the radio. While independent artists do not have this wealth of money to hand over, there have been recent developments in the radio industry that will promote the smaller artists by having their own time slots. One has to ask, though…is it too little too late?
The downfall in radio listenership has not occurred overnight, but rather in a downhill slope over time. According to a study published on Business Insider.com, Kafka reports that radio listenership has dropped 7 and 8% in the course of only a month. This fall of radio is also affecting Wall Street, as the drops in popularity have far exceeded their predictions. In the area of Atlanta, one radio station in particular experienced a fall from grace and then a re-emergence. In 2008, 99X was removed from the airwaves due to poor levels of popularity and placed on the internet as online radio. After fifteen months of protest from the faithful traditional radio listeners, 99X was placed back on the air. This time around, though, they were handed the short end of the stick; placed at 97.9FM, the channel is very difficult to pick up on a radio. Only about two sections of the metro Atlanta area have been able to clearly pick up this new and non-improved frequency. Maybe this less than triumphant return is symbolic of the current position of radio, not just that of 99X.
You Think You Can Sing?
With the fall of radio, it must be acknowledged that the entertainment industry has not been left with an empty gap. A lessening of radio’s popularity has been succeeded by a strengthening in the popularity of television, maybe more prevalently in the rise of musical contestant shows such as American Idol and Don’t Forget the Lyrics. As most know, American Idol operates as a weekly elimination system where contestants perform often cringe-worthy covers of songs and are voted off based on their performances. This sounds like a fairly American activity, living the rise-to-success dream, right? Well…maybe not so much. It has become common knowledge that throughout the progression of this show that the votes are most often based on the physical attractiveness of the contestants in question. One needs to watch only a single episode of American Idol to gain this insight; from the get-go, it is very obvious who the favorites are based on their looks. What does this have to do with the music industry? It’s a simple correlation: the image emphasis projected by television spill over into the quality of the music produced in the industry. After a contestant wins American Idol, they are quickly thrown into a studio where they hastily record songs written by label executives that are intended to be chart-toppers and not much else. Even though the concept of musicians recording songs written by producers is not a new idea, the haste and rush associated with the show’s method of carrying the process out is even more disconnected and flimsy than usual. Even if the winning contestant is more than just a pretty face and actually possesses musical ability, their true voice is cut out of the equation due to their lack of involvement in the writing process of their own songs. This means that the music industry is met with an influx of second-rate songs devoid of true meaning or stories to tell. The artist becomes merely a middleman for the record companies’ success.
While Don’t Forget the Lyrics does not thrust musical hopefuls into the mainstream spotlight, it does bring to one’s attention just how far the music scene has fallen. The purpose of the show is for contestants to basically sing karaoke in front of America and to win money by not forgetting lyrics to the songs. Strangely enough, this set-up sounds notably similar to what happens at the dive bar down the street every Wednesday night, but those local contestants have enough dignity to slather their performances in alcohol so as to relieve the accountability for their actions. Don’t Forget the Lyrics is a thirty-minute cringe-fest that brings down one’s respect for music just a little bit more with each warbled note. One has to question whether or not this type of entertainment would have such a place in the media world if radio were still in its glory. Would there be a need to watch struggling amateurs as they tried to sound like passable vocalists? Most likely not, as new music would be premiering on the airwaves and there would be a higher standard for what should be considered listenable material.
Hope on the Horizon...or In the Sky
The new trend in an image-driven music industry can look bleak, if not hopeless, to those concerned about the fate of artists who may not be aesthetically pleasing, but have quality music. What happens if a musician has a “face made for radio” but is stuck in the realm of television and images? A hopeful frontier opening up for these individuals is that of the satellite radio system. In chapter seven of his book The Satellite Communications Handbook, Bruce Elbert shows that through satellite transmissions in space to units placed in cars, XM Satellite Radio is leading the way in a new kind of avenue for radio. The affordability of the satellite radio units would need to be altered to fit a wider audience, though, if they are to revive radio. At the present moment, the average family does not jump readily at the prospect of paying a steep monthly fee just for airwave transmissions in their car. However, if prices could be lowered, radio would be able to take back its place in the mainstream media and set a higher standard for music quality in the industry.
The image-driven music scene must find a new alternative, such as a revival of radio, in order to preserve the quality expectations that are necessary for the progression of music. Even though radio seems to be drawing its last breath, there is still hope for a new take on the scene that will offer artists a medium in which to express their music that is not shallow and solely based on looks. To keep up what should be a thriving and growing music arena, the focus must be removed from the image of the artist in question and shifted to the quality of their music.
