Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 1992 13:02:16 EDT
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Crazy Fingers

So "Leonard Watkins" <ISTS024@UABDPO.BITNET> says:

> This is just a crazy thought that i had to throw out. I wonder what the
> possibilities of us netters getting together and picking a record that
> is/was nor overly popular and telling all our friends (and ourselves)
> to purchase this record and with the wide scope of the net i wonder
> how far up the charts we could push this record. I'd be great to really
> pick a dog and propel to the top. What are your thoughts ? crazy huh

My first thought was something akin to Marco's first thought (see below), which
I won't get into just yet.

My second thought was that the list simply doesn't have the numbers to make a
difference. When I was a kid, the Byrds could sell 100,000 copies of a record
and it would be considered a hit. Ten years later, Byrds founder Roger McGuinn
got his Columbia recording contract dropped for only selling 100,000 copies.
Economies of scale have only gotten more extreme since then: _Nevermind_ sold
4 million so far. (The best selling debut album by a new artist to date was, I
believe, the first Boston album, at something like 8 million.) How many of us
on the list are there, anyway? Even if you add in friends who might trust us
enough to buy a pig in a poke, it's still not enough.

My third thought was, how on earth are we ever going to agree on a record? I'm
always trying to get the list to buy Fred Frith records, and n.n. is equally
persuasive on the topic of Allan Holdsworth, and I haven't seen either of them
in the charts lately. I think the Sharrock thread was our greatest promotional
success so far, maybe a dozen additional records sold...

But don't let this stop us from trying!

From:         "The Chrome-Plated Megaphone of Destiny"
              <ALEVIN@RCNVMS.RCN.MASS.EDU>

> It's not so crazy. It happens every day. The only difference is that
> it's the corporate scum telling us what to purchase through eMpTyV and the
> Top-40 radio stations. Just look at all the crap on the Billboard charts.

Yup, well, they're certainly good at it :-( I've probably mentioned this before
(probably entirely too often), but I don't believe that all those 40 million
people who bought _Thriller_ really cared about the music. I think they wanted
something good to dance to, or something that reminded them of the video, or
something they could play at parties with their friends, or just something
that would demonstrate a minimal level of coolness amongst their peer group.
I think most popular music now gets sold on that basis (plus certain other
suspect categories, like New Age), because I think the major labels have now
manipulated the audience to the point where they'll consume music for reasons
that are completely irrelevant to music. I think maybe half those 40 million
Michael Jackson records could just as easily have been lunch boxes.

This is the downside of those economies of scale I mentioned earlier. Those
100,000 people who were Byrds fans and continued to be McGuinn fans perceived
musical value in that sort of music, and wanted to hear it as it evolved. How
many of the 40 million came back to buy _Bad_ and _Dangerous_? Considerably
fewer than Sony hoped. Does Michael sing worse? No, and if anything, he dances
better. But his celebrity points are way off. He needs to pose with Ross Perot
for a photo spread in National Enquirer or something.

From:         "OUT,
              OUT - YOU'LL NOT FEEL THE FALL-OUT..." <OLIVOTTO@ITNCISCA.BITNET>

>         Me! Me! Help ME!!! I have the record - my CD is going to be out in
> a few weeks and I DO need help... :)
>         Of course, I am joking. But the point is that the scope of the net
> is possibly not SO wide when you try to talk people into spending some money,
> methinks...
>         If you want to speed me up into the charts I'll gladly sit and watch
> anyway, and then send very nice gifts to every Allmusicer, you can rest assu-
> red...

Yup, lotsa deserving folks right here on this very list. Beer's on a CD, John
McIntyre's band has a cassette (plus there's a solo cassette, is that right?),
I'm in two bands that have product to peddle, ROTCOD ZZAJ has a whole catalog
of underground productions... and I bet we all thank our lucky stars for day
jobs that allow us to finance these grossly unprofitable activities.

So by all means, buy the Urban Ambience cassette album _FLOW_, 68 minutes of
advanced sound sculpture, available from yours truly for $7 plus postage...
this bit of crass commercialism has been brought to you by...

From:         "Leonard Watkins" <ISTS024@UABDPO.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: crazy thought

> after thinking about it i believe we shouldn't  pick a dog , but a
> SRV or Miles someone deserving and push it on the charts. Question
> if this did happen would the radio stations play it since it is a
> Top Forty tune ?

Periodically there are little tweaks on the charts. One of the reasons _Tubular
Bells_ did as well as it did (financed the first 5 years of Virgin Records :-)
was that it appeared in the soundtrack to the big hit movie "The Exorcist." For
a little while you could actually hear an extremely edited version of _Tubular
Bells on the radio. (Radio was a lot looser 18 years ago, too.) The Chieftains
likewise got a big boost from "Barry Lyndon," and sales of Mozart picked up big
time when "Amadeus" came out.

Then there are occasions where the media test their awesome powers. There are
several different stories. Dick Clark claims he once picked some turkey of a
record and played it on American Bandstand every day for a month or so, but it
proved itself to be a lame record and never cracked the charts. (He claimed the
artist knew it was a dog, and later asked him why he even bothered, and he said
he was trying to prove the point that mere exposure wasn't enough to make hits.)
But I heard a story that some fairly popular radio station in L.A. decided to
program a particular Mozart chamber work every morning during drive time for a
couple weeks, and sales of that record (or any other recording of that piece)
just took off-- record stores couldn't keep it in stock. (And this was before
Amadeus, so there wasn't any merchandising or promotional tie-in, this was pure
messing with the public mind.) In a certain regard, it's nice that the classics
can demonstrate a lasting appeal, if the public ever gets to hear them in heavy
rotation :-), but on the other hand, this illustrates that the key to success
in marketing music is to cram it down people's throats :-(
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU