Payola Never Went Away...

Members of the Baby Boomer generation will tell you stories about the Payola Scandal, in the 1950's. In order to turn select songs into hits and select artists into superstars, the record companies bribed radio stations across America, coercing them with cash to play specific artists. This practice went on for a number of years, while record companies, disc jockeys, and artists lined their pockets with countless millions.

That is, until someone let the cat out of the bag. Then the party was over. The FCC, the courts, and the government intervened, essentially making it illegal for radio stations to accept bribes from record companies. Alan Freed's career as a disc jockey was then promptly flushed down the toilet.

Then this morning, after an 11-month investigation, Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed to pay a $10 million settlement, due to a recent payola scheme. An excerpt:

Sony BMG issued a statement acknowledging some of its employees engaged in conduct that was "wrong and improper." The company agreed to hire a compliance officer to monitor its promotion practices...

...The attorney general said his office found evidence Sony BMG paid for vacation packages and electronics for radio programmers. It also paid for contest giveaways, some operational expenses and hired independent promoters to pay radio stations to get more airplay for its artists.

...Record companies are prohibited from offering financial inducements to radio stations under a 1960 U.S. federal law that made it a crime punishable by a $10,000 fine and up to a year in prison. The law was passed in response to scandals of the 1950s and early 1960s implicating some famous disc jockeys of the time... [CBC.ca]

It's difficult for me as an artist, to describe my bitterness towards payola. It essentially destroys all faith I have in the music industry. I would like to hope that record labels care for and support their artists, and dedicate their energies and resources to the talent that they manage. Back in the 1950's and 1960's, that might have been the case when record companies were private corporations, but now only five major record labels remain: Sony, Universal, BMG, Time/Warner, and EMI. They are all publicly-traded companies, each governed by a board of directors whose main goal is to generate huge profits. They are more concerned with their shareholders than with their artists. In the stock-market, it's all about profitability. It doesn't matter what commodity, product, or service the company makes or provides; it's all about the year-end. This is about as cold and lifeless that music can get.

Speak to any artist, any musician and ask them what their music means to them. I doubt they will tell you that the only reason they make music is to make money. Instead, they will tell you that making music is an expression of their personality; they put their heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears into the songs they write. Many artists are so protective of their art that they consider their work like their children. To take something so personal and have it exploited by a board of directors, squeezing out every last quarter and nickel out of consumers to maximize their profit, at the expense of the composer is, in my opinion, sickening.

If you would like to learn more about the operations of the record industry, I suggest you listen to Matt and Tony's podcast, and hear it first-hand, from a successful Canadian recording artist, what the music business is all about. Make sure you set aside a good hour to listen -- as it is a long podcast, but it is well worth it.