Payola, gatekeepers and Top40 were way worse than social media

Perfecting Equilibrium Volume Three, Issue 7

And I went down to the demonstration

To get my fair share of abuse

Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration

If we don't we're gonna blow a fifty-amp fuse"

Sing it to me, honey

You can't always get what you want

You can't always get what you want

You can't always get what you want

But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find

You get what you need

The Sunday Reader, May 19, 2024

It was decades before I’d let more than the first bar of Maggie May play before changing the music.

It’s a song I should have loved immediately. It was very much in the vein of Rod Stewart’s great story songs, such as my favorite, The Killing of Georgie (Part 1 & 2).

(Editor’s note: We are discussing Rod Stewart of the Jeff Beck Group and the Faces and early solo career, not Hot Rod of Disco infamy. We choose to ignore the latter.)

Whatever I might have felt about Maggie May was overwhelmed by the fact that Top 40 radio stations played it over and over and over and over until those opening mandolin chords were like nails on a blackboard. It’s almost impossible to understand how bad it was in those days. We rode around in cars with five to 10 push buttons on the radio; you could hit button after button, and Maggie May would be playing on every single station.

And this went on for months. Maggie May spent five weeks at number one, and hung around the top 10 for a huge chunk of the year.

So when I see article after article after article about how algorithms and AI are ruining art and music and news, I only have one question:

Are you insane? Do you not remember Top 40 heavy rotations? Were things better when hit songs were selected by payola? (Also: How much ya wanna bet payola is STILL going on? It’s just called targeting now.) Were people more informed when gatekeepers decided what you could know about events in the nation’s capital, and decided the entire population of the United States was not mature enough to see photos of President Franklin Delano Rosevelt in a wheelchair? Or any reporting at all about the open secret of President John F Kennedy’s White House?naked pool parties?

I was mostly finished with this article when Freddie deBoer published Our Dystopian AI Future Isn't Skynet. It's a "For You" Algorithm Stomping on a Human Face Forever. Now I love Freddie’s work and I’ve been a paid subscriber since I first discovered him. But…ummm dood, just click on something else. In this Perfecting Equilibrium article alone you’ll meet Dogs for Senate, with 44 subscribers, and Two Guys Walk Into A Bar. With three subscribers.

Including me.

Yes, you cannot just passively sit and consume whatever you’re being spoon-fed by Google News or Apple Music. But you never could, in any era.

You have always had to use your freedom of choice. And you always will.

Look, I get it. You just want to put some music on while you work, or drive, or clean the house. The music problem, the Netflix problem…it’s all the same. You don’t want to spend half an hour browsing through 9 million choices. You just want to click once and have some music play that doesn’t suck.

And even if you do choose something, algorithmic stupidity soon raises its ugly head and aggravates you into throwing your speaker out the window. There’s nothing like taking the time and effort to cue up David Bowie’s TVC15 only to have, say, YouTube follow it with Andrea True Connection performing More More More.

Because when you’re listening to David Bowie the first thing that comes to mind is Andrea True Connection. Because TVC15 and More More More came out the same year.

So what’s the solution? Algorithms suck, and who has time to put together playlists once you’re out of college?

The most important thing is to remember that these are the good old days. You have infinite choices. And while that’s daunting, it’s way better than being stuck with a radio with five or ten buttons.

So what are your alternatives to algorithms? You could build some playlists, but if you’re a playlist kind of person you already know how to do that.

Besides, the problem with playlists – and with algorithms – is that they repetitively serve up stuff you like, or think you’ll like. There’s little to no opportunity for the joys of the shock of the new.

So here are some of the things I do to mix up my music:

• Play your albums like it’s 1979: Whether you were into vinyl when that was there was in the pre-digital days, or you’re part of the great vinyl revival of the last decade, one of the joys of Long Playing Records is dropping an LP on the turntable and listening to it straight through. With just a quick break to flip to Side 2. Don’t just listen to the hits! Drop Station to Station on the turntable, and listen to it straight through the way the Thin White Duke put it together: Station to Station; Golden Years; Word on a Wing. Then flip to Side 2 for TVC15; Stay; and Wild is the Wind. Listen to how the album builds and slides from one song into the next. Listen to any album from one end to the other, with the deep cuts that are almost never heard any other way. Just because you’re listening to digital tracks doesn’t mean you cannot listen to the album in the original order.
• Listen to the radio. There’s still no substitute for the curated listening experience, and digital means you can listen on any of your devices. Here are two of my favs:
• * KXT Public Radio: Yes, a public radio station with zero political reporting and 100 percent music of every shape and description. They are currently running a Songs of Summer tournament; contestants include?Hot Fun in the Summertime by Sly and the Family Stone, Get Lucky by Daft Punk, and Texas Sun by Leon Bridges & Khruangbin. And they have a local music show featuring bands with great names I’ve never heard of before, such as Dogs for Senate and Two Guys Walk Into a Bar.
• * Little Steven’s Underground Garage: Little Steven Van Zandt is a veritable renaissance man of the entertainment world. He was the bandana-wearing guitarist for the early Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band albums. He was the co-leader of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. Then he quit all that to go be Tony Soprano’s right-hand man Silvio Dante on the HBO mob drama The Sopranos for all six seasons, then co-wrote a show for Netflix and Norwegian broadcaster NRK called Lillehammer, which is basically Silvio turns state’s evidence and then goes into the witness protection in the Norwegian city that hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics because he liked the way it looked on TV. These days Little Steven is back touring with Springsteen, plus his own Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, and has his own radio station on satellite and the Web. Little Steven’s Underground Garage plays the music he loved growing up, the music that influenced him, new bands he finds interesting…a mix as eclectic as the man who could win accolades both playing guitar with The Boss, and whacking rivals with the mob boss.
• Finally, use your freedom of choice. Popular music becomes popular because of payola, or algorithms, or a Top 40 format…for a million reasons, none of which were your choice. But if an artist speaks to you, why not trust them? If you love Van Zandt’s wailing guitars on Springsteen’s early albums, why not check out Little Steven and Disciples of Soul? I like this cut – dat hair! – but then I’m a sucker for anything with horns that swings. Or take Bowie, who has roughly a dozen albums that routinely make those greatest albums of all time lists: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars; Station to Station; Young Americans; the entire Berlin trilogy plus Scary Monsters; Let’s Dance; Blackstar… But have you listened to anything from his much maligned stretch in the late 80s and 90s? Here he is in the band Tin Machine. And here is the paranoia masterpiece I’m Afraid of Americans. Just because the critics were down on him them doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy this music.

There’s no need to fear algorithms or their crappy musical taste when you can use your freedom of choice. You have more than 10 radio buttons; use them!

Next on Perfecting Equilibrium

Tuesday May 21st?- The PE Digest:?The Week in Review and Easter Egg roundup

Thursday May 23rd?- The PE Vlog-FIGHT!?Creating long musical pieces like soundtracks with the Udio AI music generator

Friday May 24th?- Foto.Feola.Friday

Sunday May 27th — Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!