Most folks are not old enough to remember the original "payola" scandal. The word Payola came from "pay to play" + the maker of the-then most popular jukebox, "Rockola". Aside from home vinyl records (45 and 33 rpm, with still quite a few 78s left over), you listened on (non-stereo) radio, played records (only stereo if you were a rich kid), or dumped quarters into Rockolas to hear music. That was the music I grew up with. In that era, a pay-for-play system (Payola) first started with the jukeboxes (every cafe, restaurant and bar which wanted the under 25-crowd's money had to have a Rockola), then spread to the radio stations. If you were a new musical group starting out and you wanted to actually rise up the charts and sell vinyl, you paid to have your music played. The scandal around the pay-to-play system grew until Congress held hearings, and banned the practice.
Payola tried to make a comeback amongst the gangsta rappers of the '90s, but when they started shooting at each other, it got too visible and that practice stopped.
Now it's back, and in the worst knock of the late Steve Jobs' Apple, Inc, it's all about an I-phone and I-pad app. While you are watching the TeeVee, you have your smartass Apple gadget sitting nearby, with the Viggle app running. It listens to the sound from your speakers, and determines what you are watching, then keeps track of how many minutes you've watched. You are "rewarded" for installing the app and using it, at the rate of two reward "points" for each minute watched. After you have watched 62 hours of TeeVee and used the app to monitor it, you are sent a $5 Burger King certificate.
OK, I promised I won't go all health-nut on you, suffice it to say that those who would get excited about being rewarded with free fast fatfood will be indirectly deciding what the rest of us will watch, and that's a bad, culture-busting (waistline-busting and pall-bearer busting) idea. Just how many Ruben Studdards does the entertainment industry need?
An even worse idea is that the entertainment moguls would allow this system to install itself in their empires. I don't give a fig about "American Idol", because, despite the fact that the yearly winners have mostly had good voices, none of them sing the kind of music I like to hear. None of them.
This new system is Payola all over again, pure and simple, this time a bit different, putting the keys to music success in the hands of the fast fatfood generation, and that's a BAD thing.
It is bad enough that I have a stupid flip phone basic.
911 and if she needs milk and bread, period.
Posted by: Skip | January 28, 2012 at 19:31
I usedta know a guy who had an M-1 carbine made by Rock-Ola. I think it's a damned shame that they didn't get to make the M-2s, all of which were made by IBM. I would love to have an M-2 made by Rock-Ola, just so that, if push came to shove, I could say "Rock and Roll, mother-f#@%er!"
Posted by: Justthisguy | February 15, 2012 at 03:10