Calling All Humans

Monday was the 30th anniversary of the launch of MTV. We've come so far in our media landscape that we really can't remember a time when something like MTV was so revolutionary and also so unavailable to much of the country. Oh sure, you see the occasional story now about a Time Warner Cable working to get on board with NFL Network or ESPN3, but long gone are the days when it was a patchwork of cable providers across the country, and you had to work to get picked up by one of them. People born in the last 25 years have no idea how important the "I Want My MTV" campaign was, because this important pop culture phenomenon could have died in its infancy if not for that campaign, the rock stars who took part, and the legion of fans who answered the call.

As for the anniversary tributes, the fact that MTV itself largely ignored its own birthday has been covered very well by a lot of other bloggers and for that reason, I'll set that aside. I watched a lot of the MTV30 programming on VH-1 Classic, and I have to say I really liked how they went about doing it. I thought it was great how it was just a random video collage of clips. They threw in MTV's first hour from August 1, 1981 (complete with the countdown) a few times throughout the day, but for the most part, it was jumping from a VMAs performance to part of an episode of "House of Style" or "Daria" to another live performance, and so on. Very much in the spirit of the original MTV (throw everything against the wall and see if it sticks), even if it was devoid of MTV's original raison d'etre (videos). At least it was heavy on the Music part of Music Television.

Seeing that first hour of MTV a couple of times, I feel kinda bad for PH.D. and Robin Lane & the Chartbusters. They had, respectively, the 5th and 10th videos to air on MTV, but unlike the other bands featured in that first hour, they became historical afterthoughts. The Buggles, of course, were no-names as well when "Video Killed the Radio Star" first aired, but they got a huge bump from being the answer to a trivia question, and that continues to this day. The other artists shown in the first hour (Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, The Who, Cliff Richard, The Pretenders, Todd Rundgren, and Styx) were already established by 8/1/81, and got boosts to their already-established careers by being on MTV. Not so for PH.D. and Robin Lane & the Chartbusters. They were obscure when they got their videos on MTV, and they are still obscure now.

Meanwhile, there were other tributes in other places. I wound up listening to Pierre Robert on WMMR in Philadelphia, who did a 3-hour tribute to MTV by playing songs with memorable videos. He played songs with videos that were shot in Philadelphia at the old Spectrum, he played Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Metallica's "Enter Sandman", Devo's "Whip It", Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing", and so on. He also interviewed original MTV VJ Mark Goodman, who actually held down the evening shift on WMMR before he went on to MTV and his own status as the answer to a trivia question. Toward the end of the show, Pierre cautioned that he was going to take a few "left turns", and that he did... he started to describe one of the landmark videos, and before long, it didn't take a genius to realize he was talking about "Beat It" by Michael Jackson. This is a song that would never be played on a Rock radio station, but it worked. Immediately afterward, a listener called in to say that no video tribute was complete without "Weird Al" Yankovic. Pierre agreed, and followed "Beat It" with Weird Al's "Eat It", before ending the show with 'MMR favorites The Grateful Dead and "Touch of Grey." God bless the Grateful Dead, indeed.

It was awesome, it worked, and you could tell the audience was tracking with it, and it got me thinking: Why don't we see this happen more often on radio? Why don't we see daring and creativity and "out-of-the-box" thinking on our music radio stations?

Oh, that's right, because most radio stations are run by computers and consultants.

I've already mentioned here my dislike for consultants and the "numbers rule" mentality: Using statistics to dictate how things work is good for academics like myself, but not so good in real life. In the world of radio, it becomes almost iron-clad. Do what the numbers and the consultants tell you to do, on pain of death... or at the very least, unemployment. It happens at stations both big and small; I recently heard of a friend who did a weekend Beatles show on a smaller-time radio station and was fired because management insisted he only stick to the well-known Beatles songs and not play the rarities and deep cuts. Well, what is the friggin' POINT of doing a Beatles show then? If you're listening to this show, you're probably enough of a Beatles fan that you WANT to hear the rarities and the deep cuts! WMGK, the classic rock station in Philadelphia, stops regular programming for a block of Beatles songs not once, but TWICE a day, and they hit the deeper stuff. It shouldn't have to be a large market station for this to happen. Again, a disconnect between the artificial world of consultants and numbers and the real world of actual listeners.

As for the computers, it's so easy to trust the computers' logarithms that many radio program directors and music directors do just that. The result is a station you can set your watch by. At 7:15 every morning, they'll play "Born This Way" or whatever. When I was a PD/MD, I actually (*gasp*) took the time to look through my logs to see what made sense, making sure songs didn't play at the same time everyday, making sure the songs that were in a rotation but never seemed to come up got their spin, things like that. I get that many PDs these days have to handle multiple stations, so setting up the music for the next day is something that has to be done quickly, but show me a PD who dismisses taking the time to tweak a playlist, and I'll show you a PD who has become jaded and doesn't really care anymore.

Even Dwight Douglas from RCS, the company that makes the Selector software, says that humans have to work with the software and not just let it dictate what gets played when. Program directors always claim to use gut instinct to program, but it often doesn't show when the computer is in charge. Douglas wishes that people would take the time to learn the software so that they can use it better, and really that's what it comes down to. Control the computer; don't let the computer control you. Actually put a touch of humanity into your work, and the audience will notice. After all, last time I checked, they're all humans...

Turning back to that first hour of MTV, I know from the research for my Masters thesis that MTV was originally conceptualized as a "Rock format". Hence, the attitude and the mindset in the promos, the hiring of VJs J.J. Jackson and Mark Goodman, who had backgrounds on FM Rock radio, and of course, the selection of songs and artists. But it should be noted that 3 of the first 10 videos played on this Rock-formatted video music channel had WOMEN SINGERS. These, of course, were the days when Chrissie Hynde and Pat Benatar were just two of several prominent women in rock music. Now, of course, there appears to be no place for women on Rock stations.

Again, blame the consultants and their numbers. We have segmented everything so narrowly that we cannot be concerned with anyone outside of the "target demographic" who would listen to the radio station, nor can we even consider that men would like the occasional female singer on a station tailored for them. Unfortunately, the consultants and their numbers tell us that the way to program a station for men is to practically overdose on testosterone, with "Babes of the Day" on station websites, as many songs about drinking, smoking pot, and sex (especially kinky sex) as possible, and all male-fronted bands. If a "token" female-fronted band like Halestorm makes the cut, well it's because Lzzy Hale sings about getting off, so it fits the permissible subject matter.

Seriously, it makes my head hurt. As a human, that tells me something is wrong. As fellow humans, you should feel the same.