Dead Prez said "Turn Off the Radio" damn near 10 years ago and since then I feel like most people with an IQ in the double digits have given up on the incestuous pool of AM/FM radio save for the college stations and the hidden gems buried on the dial.
I literally have not turned on a radio since Star and Bucwild got fired.
Even satellite radio, which is attempting to emerge as a breath of fresh air to stale closet of terrestrial radio falls into the same repetitive clusterfuck as terrestrial radio at times.
So where was the intrepid music listener supposed to go?
Internet Radio.
Or at least that was the solution, until the SoundExchange decided to raise the royalty rates of Internet radio to a level most smaller companies can't afford and that most larger companies won't put up with when their profit margins start shrinking.
That means no more,
Last.FM
Pandora
Woxy
Soma
Launchcast
Y'all know how much I love me some damn Launchcast. I got put on to so much diverse shit I probably would have never heard if it weren't for the customized recommendations and the Payola-free environment you can only get online.
From the Yahoo! Music Blog,
- Compare the implications of this decision to terrestrial radio which pays NOTHING to SoundExchange, or even satellite radio which pays only 3-7% of their revenue to SoundExchange, and it’s hard not to be left scratching your head. The irony of all this, of course, is that this ruling will keep LAUNCHcast, Pandora, and the like out of your living room and push you toward FM, where the labels are paid zero. This decision cuts off a genuine future revenue stream before it has had a chance to grow.
I have never seen an industry respond worse to technology and innovation than the music industry. I smile every week when I read the Nielsen Soundscan numbers and witness the rate at which the industry is imploding.
Keep fighting the Internet and I'll keep fighting gravity.
JP just commented on my last post
- "I probably do need to look a little harder for some of the real music being made. I don't want sound too nostalgic. I just wish I could still turn on the radio and hear something a little better than 'This Is Why I'm Hot.'"
If you have any love for Internet Radio visit SaveNetRadio.Org, click a link and let your thoughts be heard.
Posts
All I can say is this: Those assholes. Music Industry can't help but hate.
ReplyDeleteI'm just going to buy everything on your top 25 and listen to that for the rest of my life. How do they expect this to "save" the industry?
ReplyDeleteD
A couple of weeks ago, this happened, so maybe there is some slight hope of sensibility from the music industry in dealing with technology. Of course, as an issue, removing DRM from music purchased from highly commercially successful digital stores like iTunes Store is something completely different from the way in which independent internet radio is being squashed at the moment.
ReplyDeleteIn iTunes's radio section, under Hip-Hop/RnB, I sometimes listen to "BeatBasement". Some of it isn't bad, although some of it is too backpacker-ish for me.
those fuckers. that's one of the only ways i'm exposed to anything new and good.
ReplyDeleteThe anti-DRM movement is one of the few highlights on the music industry but for every step forward they take two back like this Internet Radio shit.
ReplyDeleteThey're just alienating the people who used to love music.