Reflecting on Music and Howard Beale
We're clearly surrounded by technology. A lot of what we're surrounded with we don't even see. Information or entertainment magically arrives on our iPhones, phantom speakers and digital screens. Seeing or hearing something, we may do a double-take and think to ourselves, "Hey. What's that?" Surprisingly, that's only marginally different from Top-40 radio in the 1960s and '70s. OK, more than marginally but the idea that someone, somewhere is selecting what we see and what we hear also, believe it or not, is selecting what we feel.
In the 1960s, most Top-40 radio stations were playing about 40 records (hence, "Top-40"). Just 40 songs. By the 1970s album-oriented radio (known in the industry as AOR) gave us a larger selection, but it wasn't limitless. Somewhere within the walls of those (mostly) FM radio stations a programmer was doing the same thing Top-40 radio programmers were doing: selecting what they thought we should hear. In a way, we were so many monkeys waiting for aural feeding time. In the car, in the office, at home, at the beach (remember those magically portable transistor radios?), we were being fed someone's opinion of just what was good.
I remember my days in Chicago, walking into the office of the program director of WLS and the music director of WCFL. WLS played, maybe 35-40 records. WCFL played 50. John Gehron at WLS and Nick Acerenza at WCFL would listen to the music I brought with me—perhaps one track each from three different artists—and render their judgement. Yes. No. Maybe. When the answer was 'yes' these 50,000 watt AM powerhouses could send me on my way knowing I had a shot at something, or in a funk thinking about the conversation I would have with my boss at A&M Records. I'd tell him "Hey, they loved the new Cat Stevens but they're not adding it this week" or, conversely, "They added the new single by Styx". The point is there were 35 to 50 slots at each station and my job was to get one or two of those each week. Happily A&M made great records and I succeeded more than I failed.
Top-40 radio and most of the AOR stations are gone, replaced by news, or news-talk, sports-talk, sex-talk, food-talk, talk-talk. Music is now used as much as an introductory theme or in the background as for your enjoyment. Yes there are exceptions but those make-or-break powerful stations are selling something else these days and for the most part, it ain't music.
iPhones and Spotify can give us music but it's not the same as those gut-calls made by human beings in the '60s, '70s and '80s. Facebook wants to tell us who our friends are, as in "hey, here's someone from Kansas City that likes the same type of music as you." (For the record, I hate Facebook. But I visit it and bemoan the Zuckerbergs of the world telling me what to like. Actually, it's not a personal thing. It's the formulas. Computer codes and algorithms. (An algorithm someone wrote (or perhaps created multiple algorithms—not to be confused with multiple orgasms.)
Algorithms are simply this: A formula or calculation written to take advantage of some trifle of information I gave to some online service. For example, I searched Yahoo for a Bob Seger song and they immediately peg me as a 70s-80s music lover. So instead of a simple answer to my question, I get music recommendations for the Steve Miller Band or Journey or Def Leppard. I wanted to find a particular Bob Seger song but that goal went flying out the window.
The same thing happens when I look for an artist on You Tube. I might find something that I like but inevitably, YouTube wants to open a rabbit hole of algorthmically-generated recommendations and I'm suddenly seeing the Captain & Tennille perform "Love Will Keep US Together". Save me.
Here's what I'm getting at. We believe we're selective about what we listen to but inexplicably we click and tragedy ensues. Clicking on "Love Will Keep Us Together" inevitably leads us to Paul Anka singing "Having My Baby", Spandau Ballet performing "True", Vanilla Ice ripping off Queen and David Bowie with a song called “Ice Ice Baby”, or Sister Janet Mead singing anything. Maybe I’m channeling Howard Beale. Remember the slowly disintegrating TV news anchor in "Network"? In a pivotal scene Beale is on camera, wearing a raincoat that had clearly seen better days. On national TV he tells his viewers to follow his lead:
"So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!’"
Today we'd be screaming about Zuckerburg and Facebook, or Instagram, YouTube or Twitter. In reality that won't do anything but anger your neighbors or motivate someone to call for the guys with that special white jacket that buckles in the back. Instead, we must take back choice. And when it comes to music, find what we like the old fashioned way.
Believe it or not there are radio stations in Mendocino County that play some good music. KOZT in Ft. Bragg, KZYX in Philo, and right here in Gualala with KTDE and KGUA. For example, I'm partial to a program called "Undercurrents" broadcast in the wee hours on KGUA (88.3 FM). Here's a string of 4-songs they played this morning:
• "My Silver Lining" by First Aid Kit from their album "Stay Gold".
• "Endless Road" by the Worry Dolls.
• Jackson Browne singing an acoustic version of "Take It Easy". (He wrote it with Glen Frey of the Eagles which explains why the 1972 hit version wasn't by Browne.)
• "Rockin' Down The Highway" by The Doobie Brothers.
There you have it. 4 tracks, perfectly segued from one to the next. You can listen to Undercurrents on KGUA and online.
Speaking of online, I like to listen to TSF Jazz (TSFjazz.com). This is radio from France. Most of the (DJs) conversations and introductions are in French. No, I don't speak French. But I love listening to the "station". Besides, much of what they play is American Jazz and they announce those artists and song titles in English. Maybe it just sounds sexier when one of their announcers says it with an authentic French accent. But that's not why I listen. I like Jazz. And I came across a talented artist. Her name is Melody Gardot. She's an amazing American ex-pat jazz performer—playing piano, guitar, singing, songwriting—and she hosts a one-hour show each Monday morning (California time) called Chateau Gardot. Her backstory is amazing too.
There is plenty of music worth finding on the internet. But the internet—and companies like Pandora and Spotify—have made us lazy. They want "to be our radio station". They'll be "our record collection". They'll use an algorithm to choose what we like. HELLO? Choose what WE like? It was one thing for any one of a dozen radio stations in Chicago to choose something and then play it over and over and over on their music stations. Sometimes I "discovered" the recording, sometimes not. But today I'd like to think it was me, not some 10,000 character piece of computer code on Pandora.
Happily, I've already gone through my own "I'm as mad as hell..." moment. I now refuse to "click" and let any online service tell me what to listen to. I still have enough gray matter to figure out for myself what I like.
