Bags' Blog

Radio what’s new? Someone still loves you…

So WRXP here in the greater New York Metro area got sold and is undergoing a format change. Sadly, they slipped into K-Rock’s tired boring predictable format from the more edgy one it was when it first started. Still, what the hell are New Yorkers going to listen to for rock??? Times like these we should piss on Reagan’s grave for passing that bill his last few days in office allowing huge corporations to own multiple radio and TV stations.

Our generation is witnessing the end of the record store, terrestrial radio stations and the music business in general. All conspired by the forces that in the end and my opinion lacked real passion for music int he first place and instead treated like a commodity and ran it into the ground.

They all need to take ownership of it. From the pirates, to the big box retailers to the actual people that were supposed to run the business that let greed skew their real reasons for getting into the music business in the first place. People like to point to Gaga as proof that the biz is going to make a comeback, but it’s not about big artists making big money but more all those fringe edgy ones that A&R guys used to use their clout and money from those big ones to sign and nurture. Sure the 90s helped kill that as every label wanted their own Nirvana and ruined alternative music for many years, but I always thought it would be reborn. Sadly it never did.

Still I just wonder if there will ever be another Radiohead or Pearl Jam. Sure there’s some great bands out there coming up and the cost to get your music out there has made it easier for indie artists to make it etc. But is there a mechanism to sustain it? Small tours and big festivals probably aren’t enough to sustain them over a long period and with burn out you will see more and more bands like LCD Soundsytem call it quits long before their time like The Beta Band (one of my all time favs) did years before. Pitchfork can only do so much, you know?

It all feels so grim. Maybe I’m just in a mood, but I just feel like the world is just getting worse, and it’s all at the expense of marketers and accountants.

18 July 2011 ·

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• radio
• music