[78-L] This Will Make Radio Even MORE Dead

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Shoshani" <mshoshani at sbcglobal.net>
> On Mon, 2009-05-11 at 05:51 -0700, Alan Bunting wrote:
>> It is my understanding that playing records is "free" on American radio 
>> stations is because it was originally seen by the record companies as a 
>> good source of advertising so they allowed it to happen.
>
> Actually, it wasn't. Record companies went to great lengths to prevent
> their music from being played "for free" on radio during the 1920s and
> 1930s, with most labels putting a notice that read "Not Licensed For
> Radio Broadcast" on the record label itself.  Radio was deadly
> competition back then, because who would want to spend 35c to $1 on a
> record when one could hear the same songs free of charge on the radio?
> Remember, the day of the artist-specific song was yet to be. Popular Tin
> Pan Alley songs were all represented by numerous artists back then.
> Today you'd go out and buy the latest Gawky McPimpleface record because
> he's the only one who sings it, while back then you could get the same
> song by half a dozen bands on record easily, and hear two dozen more
> bands playing stock arrangements on the radio. It was more the song than
> the performer, so the record companies had reason to worry.
> This situation probably did not change until the two major US radio
> networks wound up owning the two major US record labels. RCA owned both
> Victor and NBC, while CBS owned Columbia Records.  Certainly by the
> 1950s the situation had reversed itself, with record companies actually
> bribing disc jockeys for airplay.
>
In actual fact, this was more of a "cultural" change than anything! Through 
about
1935, record companies all (there were only three of them!) tried to carry
EVERY popular (adjective) "popular"(genre) song in their catalogs...so one
could buy three different versions of each song hit! From c.1936 this 
changed...
the new generation of pop-music fans wanted not only the "latest hits" but
also SPECIFIC versions of those hits. A teenage music lover not only
wanted "Tuxedo Junction"...he/she/it wanted the Miller version or nothing!

This recording-specific music fandom actually kept INcreasing through
the years which followed...to the point that recording artists seldom if
ever "cover" current hits of others...!

Meanwhile the concept of "standard" (tunes or recording genre) has
all but disappeared...!

...stevenc