May-June 2007

Protecting Who?

By Larry Wines

Music, coupled with an effective medium of dissemination, can fuel revolution. The implications are as old as radio broadcasting and as new as the FCC/big label/big radio payola settlement and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) demands.

Today, when we are experiencing the horrors of a meaningless war, today's pop music does not feed our need to express and explore, motivate and lament, eloquently protest or identify with and proclaim a joyous "yes!" when we hear a song on the radio. Today's pop music is insubstantial and irrelevant. Lyrically-poor, groove-driven pop and red-state, trailer-park country are big business-commercial music's carefully guarded fortresses.

Want to give big label executives apoplexy? Open the doors to indie artists who bring thoughtful lyrics, good melody lines, well-crafted harmonies, and instrumentation that's designed to support the song rather than bury it.

March-April 2007

Single-Paradigm Marketing in a Niche-Market World

By Larry Wines

There's a scene in the film, Fried Green Tomatoes, that resonates beyond its context. Kathy Bates' character is maneuvering her car in a parking lot, about to take the only available space. Suddenly, a carload of teenage girls races from the opposite direction. Missing her car by inches, they steal the space.