The effects of corporate music


I'm old enough to remember AOR and being able to listen to music that at the time I thought was just bizzare, and that was on the radio. There were so many stations around with a huge variety of music to hear, including things I had not heard before.

In the last thirty years music radio has changed so much, and for the worse that I no longer listen to music radio. I can't help but think that cumulus and others of their ilk have destroyed radio, but I also wonder how big their influence has been on the quality of music.

There used to be more of an edge to music, and I'm not talking about the trash made up of violence and sex that is todays rap music. People had more to say, and better ways of saying it when I was young. The musicians did not try to substitute shock for substance when making their records.

Are there still musicians around that are great artist, but we never get to know them because they don't fit the formula of corporate radio stations? Is there still a place for small stations that are unwilling to play the drivel that passes for pop music, or the oldies that comprised our youth, but are getting old even to those of us that love those songs???
nrchy

Showing 2 responses by uppermidfi

Slappy, I never thought I would disagree with you, but the bands you mentioned are all very negetive and hateful. I remember liking some of the angry music from my own youth like The Who. Behind Blue Eyes among other, but they were not nearly as nihlistic as so much of the music people put into their heads now. I'm too old to believe that what goes into your head is neutral, and does not affect the psyche. I have enough problems without living those of Marilyn Manson et al.

Jsonic do you really think people over 25 have not listened to the rap music they dislike. I have heard too much of it and I really don't think any of it was any good Since Grandmaaster Flash was doing it in the 70's. Maybe my life is just not trivial enough to be interested in other peoples sex lives or who they want to kill.

Even Classic Rock stations are so locked into what they play that the vast majority of what was recorded and heard in the 60's-70's, and was played on AOR stations cannot be heard anymore. The playlists are so narrow that it's only a few hundred songs available. The stuff I heard on the radio in the 70's would land a DJ in jail now because it was just too wierd! And we loved it! Most of the time.

I wish I could start a station that was not controled by Viacom or Cumulus. I would play the old wierd/fun stuff along with the new talanted artists that cannot geta second of airtime on corporate radio. Although I wonder if a station like that could succeed. Most people turn the dial (I must be old!) when a song comes on that they don't like. How many people wouyld sit through Careful With That Axe Eugene, or Stargazer, or a twelve minute song by Yes or Jethro Tull?
AOR is Album Oriented Rock. The stations that played it would play any track from any LP, not just the ones that made someones top 100 or whatever.