In the conventional process of acquiring stardom in the music industry, most would think it necessary to chase radio play across the nation in as many cities as possible. It seems like a credible notion that radio airplay means success, but does that really hold true today? Not quite. When I say most, I mean most people with conventional thinking. The newly innovative thinking is the counter and the conventional process seems more like a burden for many musicians and their managers across all genres.
Within the aspiring music-making community, radio has recently been revered as a monotonous zone of favoritism and exclusion. Naturally, that's what favoritism does but there has been some speculation that record labels may play a bigger role in what gets played than the radio production crew itself. With revenue declining and lack of growth, radio has all the incentive to play artists' music when backed behind a label that would gladly pay a premium.You think that new artist you heard the other day with the new hit single was given a well-deserved chance for fame all by their lonesome like the good ol'days? Not exactly. Record labels have been known to forward content from unsigned artists as a "hook, line, and signer" strategy to get them signed to their label as a lure.
So what's wrong with the conventional process? The answer is that high transformational variety is still a hot commodity among listeners and is in high demand; so why aren't radio stations listening to what the people want? My self-proclaimed saturation theory would state that constant radio play does not guarantee success and industry fame but, in fact, jeopardizes it. People get tired of hearing the same 10 songs on all three -good reception- stations every hour of every day. Furthermore, the saturated content of radio play pushes the listener to look for something new within a shorter amount of time. This leads to listener agitation and away from advertising, hence lower ad sales and the, now current, high demand for ad sales reps in radio. In response, now the artists and their people have to work harder and faster to get new music out to the public, lessening the quality of their content and increasing the liability of radio advertising, music promotion and poor listening choices.
The medicine; online radio. Internet (online) radio has begun to fill the void and even surpass the poorly coordinated attempts of (subscription-based) satellite radio much like the flash drive did the embarrassing debut and ousting of the zip drive. Online radio has been, in my opinion, the best innovative response to the lack of variety in conventional radio. Not only do you have more personality talk and new artists that you may come to know and love, but you also have new exclusive songs from current artists that mainstream wouldn't accept or is just hot off the production board. Not to mention, many online radio stations do not saturate you with 20 songs from Beyonce and T-Pain, allows listeners to sample other genres with more stations than three to choose from, and is now becoming readily available for your car, creating a viable market for advertising and music sales (ie. instant access to digital sales et. al.).
If that's not innovative then I don't know what is, but I tell you it surely isn't conventional and radio should have recognized the opportunity a decade ago. So bye-bye bland band radio, it's time to burn off that saturated fat and start dining elsewhere.
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