Axl’s first salvo at radio from the more-and-more-likely-to-actually-come-out-no-I-can’t-believe-it-either album Chinese Democracy hit the active rock stations of America hard last week, and this week brought a few news outlets claiming that the title track was, in fact, a bona fide, many-years-in-the-making hit. But is it?
“Respondents to the survey indicated that college… More »
Many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock. To help figure out which is which, here’s “Corporate Rock Still Sells,” where Al Shipley examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of rock and roll. This time around, he gives Billboard‘s newest radio-airplay chart, which focuses on the lighter rock offerings served up by Adult Album Alternative (or “Triple-A”) stations, a once-over:
I’ve had the sports-radio yakfest Mike & The Mad Dog on for most of this afternoon, and it’s been distractingly compelling, thanks to today’s show being the last of the program’s current iteration. The show, an afternoon-long chat about sports between sorta-smarmy Yankee partisan Mike Francesa and frenetic Giants fan Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, had been on New York’s WFAN for 19 years, and served as something of a sports-talk juggernaut; last night, WFAN announced that Russo was exiting his contract and was off the station effective immediately. Today’s show, hosted by Francesa, has featured call-ins from fans all over the country, including the governors of New York and New Jersey, and a tearful goodbye to the fans from Russo himself. (There’s much, much more background and play-by-play at this hilarious blog dedicated to the show.) One thing that’s struck me has been how many people were crying–really, truly sobbing–over the end of this era; it’s a testament to how radio is such a personally powerful medium because at its core, it’s basically just people talking to other people, even if those people may be scattered all over a geographical area (or, in the current era, around a particular IP address). And it made me wonder if any of you out there feel, or have felt, as powerful a connection with any radio hosts who brought you music.
What do those much-buzzed-about Millennials want out of terrestrial radio? According to USC professor Jerry Del Colliano, they want freeform song selection and fewer, “better” advertisements with live reads by the DJs. So, in other words, they want to listen to college radio. More »
What do those much-buzzed-about Millennials want out of terrestrial radio? According to USC professor Jerry Del Colliano, they want freeform song selection and fewer, “better” advertisements with live reads by the DJs. So, in other words, they want to listen to college radio. More »
Following a campaign that included mailing herring and a dictionary to their current nemeses in the terrestrial radio industry, a consortium of groups comprising record labels, songwriters, and musicians, had a small victory yesterday, when a House of Representatives subcommittee passed a bill that would require performance royalties being paid when songs are played anywhere on the AM/FM dial. A co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), didn’t go so far as to say that radio spins are tantamount to piracy, but he did profess skepticism about the medium’s promotional value, saying that there’s merely “a correlation, not causation” between being on a top-40 station’s playlist and music sales. But now that it’s come out of committee, will the bill make it out of the House?
