Apparently, there is a new “payola” scandal making its way through the popular music business. Internal memos from several major record labels revealed compensation — whether in the form of outright cash payments to trips and tickets to ball games — from record labels to radio stations and DJs in exchange for promoting the newest releases from major artists ranging from Jennifer Lopez to Jessica Simpson.
I can’t say I’m surprised. American popular music has been more about making money than promoting talent for a long time. Witness American Idol, which sells itself as a talent contest but which is, in reality, nothing more than a popularity contest dominated by teenage girls adept at text messaging. Is it really all that surprising that a record company like Sony or Epic would do all it could to promote its performers instead of just relying on their “talent” to guarantee success ?
Eugene Robinson has an excellent piece in today’s Washington Post on this subject. From my perspective, here’s the money quote:
But if you want to realize just how low our standards have fallen, listen to the pop music of the 1940s or ’50s. Listen to Ella Fitzgerald — her incomparable voice, her musicianship, her subtlety and nuance, her perfect phrasing. Listen to the way she can flat-out swing. Yes, I know there was only one Ella. And I’m not suggesting that in 2005 we should be grooving to 50-year-old tunes. We need modern music for modern times. I’m just saying we should demand that the musicians we shower with fame and fortune be talented, and that they work to perfect their craft.
You said it. If success in the music business was only about talent, then Diana Krall would be selling out football stadiums and Britney would be waiting tables back in Louisiana.
