And I am SURE, that it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY that MUSIC FANS would watch a MUSIC RELATED PROGRAM.

Yep. I'm pretty sure Pitchfork readers will be the same genus as Grammy watchers.

btw - if this thread gets past 2 pages I'm using it as evidence that we actually read and care about P-fork.

Point taken, but a quick look @ rollingstone.com and vh1.com — places w/ audiences that are FAR MORE likely to be swayed into watching the Grammys — shows no ads on their main pages for the broadcast.

Sure, PFM was probably WAY cheaper for an ad vs. other places, but I still don't see it paying off much.

Doesn't Rolling Stone have a 5 or 6 page PULL OUT SECTION in this week's?

yes, there is business and then there is content. it requires a level of cooperation on the part of media outlets to further a sales person's goal and, sometimes, that goal overshadows the media's intentions.

a baby band has the potential to really lure in a new audience because they're good looking, have a cool backstory, can dance at their shows, etc. but they don't really have much musical talent. the persons selling that band need for radio, magazines, bloggers, newspapers, mtv, etc. to adopt that band, regardless, because they want business to be good. they have enough money to pitch every outlet three, four, 10 times over so that no one can say they don't know the name. sure, they can plaster city walls with posters or get that artist on the front page of iTunes music store, but even better buzz is to get a major outlet singing their tune. all it takes is money to get a band name out there.

why do media outlets agree to run stuff on said talent-hungry band? for exclusive content, interviews, spin-off programming. to do a favor for a label, to call yourself a frontrunner if everyone else follows suit, to get in good with promoters. if their music sucks, at least theyll bring some other multi-media nuggets to your site/paper/mag/channel/etc.. some of them think its just genuinely great but exaggerate in their accolades. even the smallest nods in the bands' direction will be taken by the band's salespeople and used to sell the band even more. we're all in a machine, much like politics -- some are just much more active or selfish about their participation in said machine.

say j. lo a million times and people will start chanting "j. lo." remind everyone a million times just how many times 50 got shot, and they'll mimick it back to you. bands like the bravery, morningwood and yellowcard seemed to blow up in seconds. ashlee simpson's press people can (try) to spin any story around to make any stupid incident look decent.

there are no maniacs in some room going, "let's make people stupider with.... black eyed peas!" they're just trying to turn out the biggest profit possible with artists who don't necessarily have longevity but can rake in some serious dough. i think this will hurt the record co.'s and their "salemen," but i also personally think such a quick-hit stance could hurt music listeners because of they way they're being "programmed" to enjoy music.


all that is to say i hope radcliffe can realize his dreams of a multi-page thread.

I disagree. Consumers are not stupid or readily programmable. That's a big problem that a lot of advertisers don't seem to grasp very well. They derive benefits from goods and services, and they purchase them.

If Pitchfork became a for profit terrestrial radio station, they would have a hard time surviving against the stations full of songs "people are told they want to hear". The fact is, Pitchfork and the music they promote is not in the general interest of most of the music listening population. It's just not. Just because the majority of the board follows it doesn't mean it's relevant to the "Two And A Half Men" set. Hell, I don't like or follow Pitchfork or the sitcoms.

At the same time, there is a Classic Rock or Oldies station in almost every media market. Why, because listeners have emotional attachments to those songs, they make them happy by bringing back memories of happy times and youthful hellraising. That's what people want to listen to.

People have a hard time reconciling the Quality vs. Success dilemma. McDonald's doesn't make the best burgers, but they move more than anyone else--it's not even close. They have more sales because they provide consumers with a solid benefit package: it's quick, it's easy, it's cheap and the quality is consistent at just about every store in the country. Benefits move product, not necessarily quality, and definitely not marketing message alone or programming.

EDIT: I got interrupted by the phone twice on this, so it's proabably a little behind the pace.

But all of these people you just mentioned make easily digestible pop music. You can't apply this same model to Merzbow or even Neutral Milk Hotel.



But this is not really that new of a phenomenon. Rattle off a few Elvis albums not named after movies. The quick-hit stance doesn't hurt much outside of album sales, especially now that you can buy songs for a buck a pop online.

The simple fact is that the boards at Obner, Hipinion, Mojo, CMJ or whereever are not populated by most music fans. We are the early to middle adopters. The majority of music fans are going to land in the middle of the consumer curve, and they don't have the patience for Tom Waits.

edit: elvis... didn't know we were specifically talking about pitchfork in the media/music machine diagram. my feelings are unfolded a little below. i think we were two trains that just passed in the night.


at the same time, of course, consumers want to be programmed thus programming them gives them what they want, so point taken. so many consumers go to pitchfork to aide them in their buying habits, thus clap your hands, say yeah! sells a bunch of copies. did pitchfork put a gun to everyone's head? naw, but people believe in the brand of pitchfork, what pitchfork has is what they want, thus clap your hands is what the people want. i like pitchfork and i don't think they're intentionally cowing people (though i may dislike some of their writers and their content on mainstream rap is a hoot). we're talking about an online zine that is trying to reach 4-5% of the music-buying public in america. it works because that public is loyal in trying to find new music.

they believe in the brand of a station. that's why people get up in arms when an oldies flips to Jack or something like that -- heritage means a whole lot. The heritage may not be programming quality, but unfortunately in radio, that station may be the only choice.

i think meeting halfway and saying that consumers are both cowed and not cowed would be a very honest assessment. magazines and radio and all that stuff is all guilty for feeding a fire when the fire oughta go out... like i said, some are more guilty than others. there's a lot of media out there that gets paid, in some form or another, to run stories on bands and artists and celebrities. some even pay the salesmen just to get that exclusive look. that's a business that has a muddy editorial policy or one whose policy doesn't exist at all to serve a public or a subscriber.

If you read katie's post really fast it goes like
pitchfork pitchfork pitchfork cowing people pitchfork consumers muddy subscriber

"as long as they pay on time"

yeah they do. in the issues to subscribers it's stapled in the middle of the magazine but in the newsstand issues it's stapled on the outside of the magazine. hint hint.