What worse news could there be for a young musical artist upon submitting a demo CD to one of the FIVE music companies in the world that, combined, control over 90% of recorded music than "your music is not radio-friendly"?
The frustrated artist then hits a point of diminishing returns when deciding how much integrity can remain in the music when considering what makes a radio-friendly song: too hard or too soft, too fast or too slow, too repetitive or too complex, too short or too long, too intelligent-sounding or too nonsensical... and after considering all of these qualifiers, what the artist must really decide is if the songs are too original.
Check out a list of the Grammy Award winning Songs of the Year back to 1959 and you'll see how homogenizing popular music has created some obvious patterns when it comes to radio play. Chart success (and award nominations) seem assured for:
1) Songs attached to a films (especially ones by Disney)
2) Ballads
3) Songs not done by bands (U2 is the only band to win Song of the Year since 1986)
4) Female singers
5) Solo male singers over 40 (except John Mayer)
6) Songs under five minutes (the only one longer is We Are The World clocking over 7 minutes, but a sentimental choice)
7) Nothing that couldn't crossover to at least two or three different genre radio stations Perhaps the most tragically-adhered to standard in the above list is song length. Artists buy into this parameter without even thinking anymore. How many young musicians would not even consider a song over six minutes? We're still stuck in a 1903 standard of 78rpm vinyl that did not allow for more than three and half minutes of recording. In 1969, Little Green Apples (3:20) performed by O.C. Smith beat out Hey Jude (7:05) by The Beatles for Song of the Year. And if you think things have changed since the advent of digital downloading, as of this writing the 97 of the top 100 downloaded songs on iTunes are under five minutes, and the three that aren't are live versions of Rush and U2 songs and Hotel California by The Eagles. I want music that's considered too long or too short or too complex or too obscene or too noisy to make it to radio. Commercial radio kills music, and the stark parameters placed by a radio-friendly badge makes me... HATE IT! "I am the entertainer, I come to do my show.
You've heard my latest record, it's been on the radio.
Ah, it took me years to write it, they were the best years of my life.
It was a beautiful song.
But it ran too long.
If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit-- so they cut it down to 3:05."
Billy Joel - The Entertainer
1) Songs attached to a films (especially ones by Disney)
2) Ballads
3) Songs not done by bands (U2 is the only band to win Song of the Year since 1986)
4) Female singers
5) Solo male singers over 40 (except John Mayer)
6) Songs under five minutes (the only one longer is We Are The World clocking over 7 minutes, but a sentimental choice)
7) Nothing that couldn't crossover to at least two or three different genre radio stations Perhaps the most tragically-adhered to standard in the above list is song length. Artists buy into this parameter without even thinking anymore. How many young musicians would not even consider a song over six minutes? We're still stuck in a 1903 standard of 78rpm vinyl that did not allow for more than three and half minutes of recording. In 1969, Little Green Apples (3:20) performed by O.C. Smith beat out Hey Jude (7:05) by The Beatles for Song of the Year. And if you think things have changed since the advent of digital downloading, as of this writing the 97 of the top 100 downloaded songs on iTunes are under five minutes, and the three that aren't are live versions of Rush and U2 songs and Hotel California by The Eagles. I want music that's considered too long or too short or too complex or too obscene or too noisy to make it to radio. Commercial radio kills music, and the stark parameters placed by a radio-friendly badge makes me... HATE IT! "I am the entertainer, I come to do my show.
You've heard my latest record, it's been on the radio.
Ah, it took me years to write it, they were the best years of my life.
It was a beautiful song.
But it ran too long.
If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit-- so they cut it down to 3:05."
Billy Joel - The Entertainer
