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  • WEDNESDAY JULY 27 2005 10:15 PM

The Smoking Gun for Sony Payola

Submitted by Keith

Edited by Keith

If there were ever any doubt how so much undeserving shit gets on the radio, here's the answer: one station gets a new digital camera, another gets some plane tickets to Orlando, Florida, just to play Train and Beyonce five extra times a day. Every adult-contemporary Infinity station gets a promotional spot from Celine Dion in exchange for "reporting" her "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)" single. It's not just the typical pop crap, though, one email talks about how it cost $4000 "to get Franz [Ferdinand] on WKSE". All these and more in this PDF collection of documents from the Sony payola case posted on Boing Boing.

Highlights: Epic lists exact payouts for 75 spins based on size of market. Quotes: 'I'm a whore this week, what can I say?' 'Get a power rotation commitment before we commit.' 'Don't want to position Duran Duran with an 80's club ... they are still just as relevant in 2004.' And of course the inevitable 'Sent from my Blackberry Wireless Handheld.'" It's awesome: this lists DJ after DJ who accepting paltry little tchotchkes in exchange for their integrity and mortal souls. They're not just whores, they're cheap whores.


Sony settled out of court with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, but they're not the only ones in the hotseat. The other major record labels have also come under scrutiny, as have radio stations. In fact, radio mega-conglomerate Clear Channel has been served subpoenas in the case.

A Clear Channel spokesperson told FMQB, "We are cooperating fully with Mr. Spitzer's office. Clear Channel has extremely strict internal policies against payola; so strict that we severed ties with independent promoters in early 2003 to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. We investigate any allegation of this nature. The allegations made today will be fully investigated and any wrongdoing will be met by swift and appropriate disciplinary action."


Sweat, you motherfuckers, sweat.

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Comments
TheFuckOffKid

TheFuckOffKid

NEWSWIRE

Australia

JUL 29, 2005 07:27 AM

One_Pure_Thought said:
I think it's fantastic how talent need not apply in the music industry anymore. It's all about marketing.


What's with the "anymore"?

This is hardly a new thing.

Idjit

Idjit

HOPEFUL

I'm lost

JUL 29, 2005 07:34 AM

TheFuckOffKid said:

One_Pure_Thought said:
I think it's fantastic how talent need not apply in the music industry anymore. It's all about marketing.


What's with the "anymore"?

This is hardly a new thing.



Exactly. What does everyone think DK was singing about with their perverson of "My Sharona" into "My Payola"?

Keith

Keith

Oklahoma City, OK
August 2002

JUL 29, 2005 07:43 AM

The crime doesn't have to be new for us to celebrate when they catch the criminal. You guys seem to think I'm naive about this, but if you'll go back to my first story about this, you'll notice I said something to the effect of "at this very moment, greedy fuckheads are furiously searching for new loopholes to exploit so they can keep doing the same old shit."


[Edited on Jul 29, 2005 by Keith]

Idjit

Idjit

HOPEFUL

I'm lost

JUL 29, 2005 07:53 AM

I think you're being oversensitive, Keith. What One_Pure_Thought said indicated that he thought the state of affairs is somehow unique in the history of music, when it clearly is not. Music has been all about marketing for as long as any of us can remember.

PointBlank

PointBlank

New York, NY
November 2004

JUL 29, 2005 07:58 AM

Idjiit said:

TheFuckOffKid said:

One_Pure_Thought said:
I think it's fantastic how talent need not apply in the music industry anymore. It's all about marketing.


What's with the "anymore"?

This is hardly a new thing.



Exactly. What does everyone think DK was singing about with their perverson of "My Sharona" into "My Payola"?


I thought it had something to do with not voting for Jerry Brown.

Idjit

Idjit

HOPEFUL

I'm lost

JUL 29, 2005 08:02 AM

I love DK:

PointBlank

PointBlank

New York, NY
November 2004

JUL 29, 2005 08:06 AM

Has there ever been a better name than "Klaus Flouride"?

No.

TheFuckOffKid

TheFuckOffKid

NEWSWIRE

Australia

JUL 29, 2005 08:13 AM

Keith said:
The crime doesn't have to be new for us to celebrate when they catch the criminal. You guys seem to think I'm naive about this, but if you'll go back to my first story about this, you'll notice I said something to the effect of "at this very moment, greedy fuckheads are furiously searching for new loopholes to exploit so they can keep doing the same old shit."



Idjiit said:
I think you're being oversensitive, Keith. What One_Pure_Thought said indicated that he thought the state of affairs is somehow unique in the history of music, when it clearly is not. Music has been all about marketing for as long as any of us can remember.


Correct.

My own coment was about the issue of historical context.

That said, I don't particularly imagine that payola will go away. Nor is it clear to me that it's obviously an evil thing. For major record companies with major artists, radio is simply a form of advertising and it's not clear why they shouldn't pay for it.

"Talent" is a meaningless term in this context (except as a noun used as a synonym for "recording artist") -- there's no expectation that having talent alone will result in airplay. Some amount of networking, backscratching, what have you, will always be going on. Payola just makes it explicit and (ironically) more honest.

*shrug*

KMFCM

KMFCM

Peekskill, NY
September 2002

JUL 29, 2005 09:11 AM


c'mon

who REALLY thought that shit ever stopped?

DireChocobo

DireChocobo

Fairburn, GA
July 2004

JUL 29, 2005 01:14 PM


tchotchkes



I hate that word. Can't they just say "knickknacks"? Much easier to spell, thank you very much.

Since I pretty much never cared, I was generally ignorant to this practice up until recently, even though I made smartass comments about certain songs being played so often, when the group obviously had very little talent, or was just a clone of another group. But this all explains how Nickelback and the like tortured me when I didn't have a CD player in the car.

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