NEVER HAS HAVING HITS AND A NEW ALBUM MEANT SO LITTLE
About a year and a half ago, I was lamenting the tininess of today's Record Business as compared to the way it was in the 60's and 70's. I had just released my new studio album Hold the Fire and we had done everything by the book. We hired the best promotion guys, we charted earlier that year with three top 5 AC singles from the album - one of them 'Love Words' making it to number one. We even debuted the album for the media 'live' at New York's famed B B King's nightclub. So why didn't I feel on top of the world. The answer was simple. Never had having hits and a new album meant so little.
Where were the numbers? The fans? The sales? The listeners? Everything that radio used to do, creating excitement, breaking records, moving product, wasn't happening. Not just for guys like me but for 18-year-olds with new bands and new music. You could actually have a number one record on the charts and hardly anybody would even know you had a record out. With radio dividing its listeners into ever-smaller categories, and the fans now having so many other options available to them for musical gratification such as Internet radio and downloading, there is no longer that one forum in which to build a consensus on what is truly a hit. So where is everybody?
Then it hit me. They are watching TV. Everybody watches TV. Certainly more people than listen to radio and many more than are on-line. The more I thought about it, the more impressed I became with what Don Imus had originally done about ten years before, which was simply to put his radio show on television? Simulcasting. For years, the number one morning TV show was a radio talk show. Why couldn't this work for music radio as well? And it wouldn't have to be the MTV or VH1 approach with prohibitively expensive videos or endless documentaries and self- defeating exposés like The 100 Worst Songs in Rock and Roll. I'm talking about street level TV.
There is no reason why cable networks can't open up their airwaves to music radio. You could have contemporary music programming reaching millions of people everyday. Following the Imus lead, you could have a show that does live interviews and interacts strongly with the fans by taking requests, voicing opinions, and voting for their favorite records. There could be live performance segments as well as national news and sports breaks. Done right, you could have your own national radio station on TV with comprehensive rotation of new music and a corresponding chart.
THE GREATEST CHALLENGE IS PUTTING NEW MUSIC IN FRONT OF THE FANS
The greatest challenge that everyone in the music business is facing right now is putting new music in front of the fans. What more obvious and inevitable medium than television where you already have the largest audience possible. In a sense, this is what American Bandstand did fifty years ago when it was debuting new music and in so doing did more to promote pop music than any other entity in the history of the record business.
Television is already making impressive inroads. You can now listen to different genres of music on the upper end of the dial on most cable services. It would be very simple for these channels to become completely interactive and offer their music to the fans for downloading. The technology to do this is already in place.
THE CD BUSINESS MAY BE DYING BUT THE MUSIC BUSINESS IS FINE
The CD business may be dying but the music business is fine. Established artists are creating new music and there is no shortage of dynamic new acts and more and more both new and veteran stars are turning to TV to advertise their product. And if computer access finally links up completely with cable providers, there is no reason why your TV can't be your radio, Internet, music store, music library as well as your club and concert hall. Where else is the music business going to go?
Don't get me wrong. I love radio. I owe my career to it. But we cannot have a living breathing and sustaining music business without the kind of immediacy and sheer numbers that television can provide. If there is going to be a music business in the 21st century, it has to make its move to television.
