So, the ARIA’s were presented the other night. If you are not aware, ARIA stands for Australian Record Industry Association, and the ARIA’s is the annual “night of nights” where supposedly the best of the best are given gongs in various categories.
Usually headlining by some visiting (or imported) US or UK celebrity- and I use the word loosely – (with true blue Aussies overlooked more often than not) these are judged by their peers in the industry, who of course have a hefty self interest through their association with the record companies themselves.
So, I thought some people may be interested in behind the scenes stuff from the record industry that may answer a few questions in this area.
This goes back a while I admit, but I am sure the basics of it still apply and are applied, today in a more subtle form and using today’s technologies to achieve the same ends.
Record Company PR
Many, if not most will not know that in a past life (and century), for my sins I was in PR with CBS Records, later to become a part of Sony Music. As such, among other things, I was responsible for how the record sales of artists such as Led Zeppelin, ELO, Earth Wind and Fire and Jeff Wayne (War of the Worlds) performed, as well as looking after visiting artists signed to the label who may be on tour.
In truth, this latter “glamorous” bit was only a teeny, tiny small part of the whole job, with the lion’s share revolving around ‘the charts’ otherwise known as the Top 40. This involved buttering up radio stations to make sure selected artists tracks got lots of airplay on rotation, record stores (remember them?) featured our artists’ merchandise strongly with window displays, posters, album covers and so on.
You also had to keep a close eye on the TV shows “Countdown” on the ABC (especially) and “Sound Unlimited” on Channel 9 (less so) to see which way they were swaying.
Survey Stores
Every week for the first 2 maybe 3 days, I would visit specific record stores for one reason and one reason only. These stores were supposed to be secret squirrel record shops that no-one knew were “survey shops”; the locations the radio stations that compiled Top 40 charts contacted weekly to find their 40 best selling singles and albums. Of course, in reality everyone knew who they were.
I must add that PRs from all the different companies used to do the same thing, but on different days of course so we didn’t cross.
From these lists, the participating stations would compile a single master version that was then published in weekend newspaper supplements, weekly music magazines and some had a Saturday or Sunday night countdown. What was in the Top 40 and especially towards the top had a huge dictate on record sales.
Now it doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that if there were, say, 20 survey stores, then moving an album or single up from its original spot (according to the shop) a few places in a few of them, the averages would be skewed to give false numbers. To your advantage of course! The higher you could move one, the better.
As most of the donkey work to compile these lists was done by junior staff in the stores, more often than not teenage girls out of school, dropping a few free albums here, a bit of free merchandise there, perhaps some concert tickets and even a vague promise or two to be able to meet their musical heroes if and when they toured, could work wonders.
Sometimes it took a bit of effort, especially when you had to deal with the owners. It wasn’t just famous “disk jockeys” that could be convinced with something like a rare album or similar for something that was really important.
A favourite bribe I remember was Led Zeppelin’s “In Through the Out Door” album as this had a cover of a bar scene with 6 people in it and there were 6 different versions, each from the point of view of one of the patrons. Having all 6 in your collection was seen as quite a coup!
Hated It
The funny part of that job was at the time I was there, I mostly hated the part of dealing with the radio stations in particular as the people I dealt with on the whole, seemed to match the title of “knob head” quite neatly.
And I was never comfortable with the deception of the chart rigging.
After I left however, and started my career at Tandy Electronics, the start of what I still do today, many of them became very good friends as we both learned our jobs had forced both of us into some sort of façade we felt had to be in place to match the perception of “the industry”. Otherwise known as the bullshit meter on 11.
Indeed, when I wrote and shot all the Microsoft Windows and Office Training Videos – 21 volumes in all – we were given permission to use one of the radio stations as the backdrop, and the lessons for Word, Excel and Access showed how a radio station could use these programs in its day-to-day operation.
Whilst at Tandy, I also sold many computers to radio stations – this was early in the days of the PC revolution and started even prior to the release of the IBM PC – as well as to radio station on-air staff.
Electronically
These days, the “charts” are compiled electronically, but I do not for a minute doubt there is still some electronic version of the PR me doing the same sort of skullduggery somewhere to make the charts more friendly towards one company, artists, album, and single or another!
In short, don’t believe all you read or are told. And buy – yes buy – what you like, not what is subtly or subliminally suggested you should.
People
Finally, remember it is a people industry and people write the songs, people play the music and people sing them. Others do the donkey work of the final engineering and mastering to make a record sound good. These are known collectively as “the artists” and they give music its heart and soul.
AI will never be able to do that. All AI can do is churn our regurgitated portions of bits it has found on the internet and cobble them together into a single track or album. Remember that and avoid it.
Oh! and go and watch the artists or artists play it like they want it to sound, by patronising live gigs wherever and whenever you can.
And the same could be said of films too juist quietly, as against AI generated nonsense.
The End
If you have any comment(s) on the above, please feel free to leave them here, or if you prefer, email me at david@creativecontent.au