"If It Was Good, It Was On The Radio"

Today (4th August 2014) I was watching an infomercial on TV. The presenters were Mormon teen idol Donny Osmond and some un-named woman. The product they were hawking was a seemingly-enormous set of CD's that purported to contain every radio hit of the 1970's. In between the stilted, somewhat-awkward dialogue of the presenters, video & performance clips of the artists played in the background. Someone who had lived through the era certainly would have felt their nostalgia heart-strings tugged. That is perfectly understandable & legitimate. 

What is undefendable, & actually plain wrong in this information was a statement made by Mr. Osmond (or rather, his script-writers). Analyzing an infomercial is ridiculous, I know. But I am a social scientist & my thirst for material is insatiable! The content is illustrative and allows me to make a point. "If it was good, it was on the radio," Mr. Osmond said in between clips of Bread & other stars of the 1970's musick industry. Beyond ontologically-messy questions of what constitutes 'good musick' in a post-modern world, I believe this statement deserves analysis. The dark truth of the musick industry behind this statement, unforeseen & unseeable to those who remember is the real nature of 'Golden Age' AM radio. 

During the 1970's decade, the record industry began to achieve parity with other segments of the entertainment industry. Hitherto, recorded musick had been understood as a lesser arena, to films (& even television). From 1970-1979, sales increased in the sector, & recorded musick achieved a new status of prominence in entertainment. The modern incarnation of the corporate, worldwide 'Rock Star,' who indulges in a life of sex, drugs, and disorderly conduct dates from here. On the business side, the process of corporate consolidation accelerated. 

As the number of independent record labels fell, and sales increased, the competitive tactics of the business reached a level of seediness, illegality, & brutality that Hollywood could only dream of. I hate to burst the bubble of those who lived & loved the era, but it is simply not true that "If it was good, it was on the radio." In fact, notions of quality often-times did not even enter the picture at all.

Radio hits were often made in this period by bribes, if not in money, than in drugs ('drugola'). Cocaine seems to have been the 'drugola' of choice for most of those tasked with the promotion of new singles. Don't believe me? Take these examples from Fredric Dannen's "Hit Men" as an illustration:

"Asher (a CBS records executive in the 1970's) wanted to see whether it was possible to break a single on Top 40 without paying large sums of money to a handful of men known as independent promoters...CBS Records was out of control...No one was accountable...It now ran you as much as a hundred grand to hire a top promoter for one Pop song...This network (A clique of highly-paid newcomers to the record/radio business, starting in the 1970's, were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by labels to get playlisted @ radio stations by any means necessary) business was something new, yet disturbingly familiar at the same time...Payola, a contraction of 'pay' & 'Victrola'...It was rampant again in the early seventies...Cash, cocaine, expensive gifts, & hookers" were all involved in the promotion of the 'golden age' of AM radio. (Pgs 5-14)

More from "Hit Men"- "...he did not rule out the possibility of mob involvement...The industry is spending $40 million or $50 million a year, that's sizable enough, to attract organized crime" (Pg 26)

"Roulette (Records) had been a way station for heroin trafficking" (Pg 53)

"Allegations began to surface in the press that CBS Records had bribed back radio stations & done business with an organized crime figure...'drugola'...a word someone coined to describe the use of cocaine as a payoff" (Pg 86-103)

If a favourite song of yours was receiving heavy rotation on radio in the 1970's, more often than not it wasn't because the DJ hand-selected the song as being objectively 'better' than others, but because paid song pluggers made sure he was receiving crates of blow & hookers when he wanted them. 

Take that nostalgia!