December 29, 2002 |
We also know that the Clear Channel has attained a de-facto monopoly over commercial radio, and that it’s done so mainly by putting in long hours at the office, playing hardball with the competition, and knowing what hands to shake & when in Washington. Lots of us would phrase that last sentence in considerably more damning terms but that is not my mission here. For real. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page: several spins a day on the Clear Channel is no small thing for a band; it’s crucial if “next-level” success is what the band has in mind. This, I’m sure, is why it’s so hard to break into the Clear Channel playlist: “the list means life,” you know, to wrest a line pretty brutally from one context into another. But you see my point. If something gets played on the Clear Channel, then the listening ears of the nation (the world, really, unless I have my stats wrong) are assured. That’s an awesome responsibility the Clear Channel has, then: to select the songs that will constitute the soundtracks to millions of lives. I’m sure that the meetings at which the actual selecting gets done are tense, arduous affairs, and that nobody takes the job lightly. What I’m suggesting is that we think outside the box a little, and throw caution to the winds for just a minute and see what happens. I’m not asking that you throw your hard-earned top-dog position to the winds that play -- if I were, I’d be suggesting that you play, say, the entirety of Peter Brotzmann’s Balls at least once every day. I’m not. But don’t you sometimes feel constrained by The Process: by adhering to the practices that have got the Clear Channel to the enviable place atop the scratch-and-clawheap where it sits today, don’t you worry that you might be opening the door to stagnation -- to complacency -- to the awful malaise of “that’s good enough”? Don’t you wonder whether you might take things to the elusive next level by tinkering with the formula just a tad? Certainly it wasn’t business-as-usual that took the Clear Channel to the top. It was innovative thinking. Whether such innovation was for the better -- that’s for others to say. All I’m saying is: Kalmah. |
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