New Radio Format Brings Closure!

[JSngry]

The only mention of it that I could find on the Web was here

http://www.michaelspears.com/about_current.htm

at the bottom, under "RADIO SASS — Short Attention Span System", and it's vague, to say the least.

But I hear through the grapevine that what Mssrs. Spears and Gimarc ahve done is to take all the beloved and overplayed oldies of the last 40 years or so and found a way to edit them all down to 90 second "mini-records".

Hey - if you still need to hear "It's My Party" or "Kashmir" or "I Ran" or ANYTHING like that more than once a week or less (approximately), then 90 seconds ought to get the job done, no?

Hopefully, the net result will be that "the masses" FINALLY wake up and say, "Hey, I've heard this already! What ELSE is there to listen too?" But that's hoping against hope, I'm sure...

Downside is that wedding bands will have to GREATLY expand their repertoire in order to fit it all in.

Sure to be controversial if it takes off, I'd imagine.

Stay tuned.

[JSngry]

This is not a joke, this is a real format that's being worked on.

For those who know or know of him, it would be supremely fitting if George Gimarc went down in history as the man who finally killed conventional rock radio by letting it choke on itself.

[Dan Gould]

From the link:

Initial focus group testing in late 2003 brought exceptional response. Soon, a beta testing will begin on a local radio station. Plans are for a nationwide rollout of the format protocol in early 2005.

What's amazing is the idea that this will work and sweep the nation. The people who want to hear "It's My Party" or, heaven help us, "The Lion Sleeps Tonite," want to hear the ENTIRE song. On top of that, the biggest complaint radio listeners have is DJ chatter over songs. So what's gonna happen? Will they produce a 90 second song edit with a thirty second ramp for the jock to talk over?

No freakin' way this thing takes off.

One other thought: there are Christian fascists who do their own editing of Hollywood films for language or sexual content, clean it up for other Christian Fascists. If I recall correctly, this has led to lawsuits as a violation of the copyrights of the film owners.

Is this kind of music editing any different?

[Joe]

I wondered what George was up to these days...

[JSngry]

I see this format functioning as a barrage of "nonstop hits" in continuous medley form, not at all unlike a club DJ does.

As for the talkovers, my guess is that there won't be any, or very few. If ever a format was made for automation, it was this one.

Now whether or not it actually takes off, that's another deal altogther. But by titlint it "Short Attention Span System", they might be hitting closer to the mark of modern reality than any of us would feel comfortable admitting. If you don't give people time to think, they'll never know what hit them, and a rapid-fire attack of smoothly edited hits with "just the good parts" left in might hold more of an appeal than we would imagine. I mean, who would have thought that people would flock en masse to eat McDonald's hamburgers, not just as convinience, but as "the real deal"?

What I failed to mention in my initial post was that Gimarc & Co. have supposedly (this is all "grapevine" talk, mind you, but fairly reliable) accumulated a library of songs in this new format that numbers in the tens of thousands.

How much ear candy can you stand?

[7/4]

Is this the return of easy listening radio?

[catesta]

That's some shit.

[7/4]

Our deterorating culture.

[catesta]

Our deterorating culture.

Word.

[BruceH]

It's like the songs are being compressed into cultural compost.

[JSngry]

But composting the old and expired enables something new to grow.

Maybe...

[ajf67]

When I first read this, I thought "He can't be serious." But the more I thought about it the more it makes sense in our quick-fix, instant-gratification, throwaway culture.

[JSngry]

I am indeed serious. Although my information is entirely secondhand, it's from not unreliable sources.

I can't see this format making it "big", but I can see it carving out a niche in urban markets.

Frankly, anything that helps to kill off the residue of the 20th century amongst those who uncritically accept it as THE way is fine by me. You got people who still think that The Clash were "radical". CRAZY radical, in fact.

Cecil Taylor's been making records for almost a half-century. Talk to me about "radical".

[Jazzmoose]

The people who want to hear "It's My Party" or, heaven help us, "The Lion Sleeps Tonite," want to hear the ENTIRE song.

That's a seriously disturbing statement!

[catesta]

Frankly, anything that helps to kill off the residue of the 20th century amongst those who uncritically accept it as THE way is fine by me. You got people who still think that The Clash were "radical". CRAZY radical, in fact.

The Clash, radical?

That's a good one.

[Dr. Rat]

From the link:

Initial focus group testing in late 2003 brought exceptional response. Soon, a beta testing will begin on a local radio station. Plans are for a nationwide rollout of the format protocol in early 2005.

What's amazing is the idea that this will work and sweep the nation. The people who want to hear "It's My Party" or, heaven help us, "The Lion Sleeps Tonite," want to hear the ENTIRE song. On top of that, the biggest complaint radio listeners have is DJ chatter over songs. So what's gonna happen? Will they produce a 90 second song edit with a thirty second ramp for the jock to talk over?

No freakin' way this thing takes off.

One other thought: there are Christian fascists who do their own editing of Hollywood films for language or sexual content, clean it up for other Christian Fascists. If I recall correctly, this has led to lawsuits as a violation of the copyrights of the film owners.

Is this kind of music editing any different?

Unlike everybody else, I don't think this format is necessarily a bad thing. The kind of radio station that plays this isn't very interesting to people who like music, anyhow.

I was amused by the compost reference, as "culture" means the act of growing something (as in agriculture) and culture at the oldies/hits level is really more or less ideological compost--a medium that people exist in, and otherwise grow (though probably not through the action of the compost, which is probably there more for drainage--these songs can inspire soppiness!-- than nutritive purposes).

I am interetsed in whether Dan is right. I'm thinking this is the new Muzak. Music that everyone will complain about (discerning folk are supposed to complain about such things, and we all want to appear to be discerning), but most folks will actually find innocuous or rather pleasant, in a cultural composty sort of way.

After all, these are the same folks who watch television.

--eric

[ajf67]

From the link:

Initial focus group testing in late 2003 brought exceptional response. Soon, a beta testing will begin on a local radio station. Plans are for a nationwide rollout of the format protocol in early 2005.

What's amazing is the idea that this will work and sweep the nation.  The people who want to hear "It's My Party" or, heaven help us, "The Lion Sleeps Tonite," want to hear the ENTIRE song.  On top of that, the biggest complaint radio listeners have is DJ chatter over songs.  So what's gonna happen?  Will they produce a 90 second song edit with a thirty second ramp for the jock to talk over?

No freakin' way this thing takes off.

One other thought:  there are Christian fascists who do their own editing of Hollywood films for language or sexual content, clean it up for other Christian Fascists.  If I recall correctly, this has led to lawsuits as a violation of the copyrights of the film owners.

Is this kind of music editing any different?

Unlike everybody else, I don't think this format is necessarily a bad thing. The kind of radio station that plays this isn't very interesting to people who like music, anyhow.

I was amused by the compost reference, as "culture" means the act of growing something (as in agriculture) and culture at the oldies/hits level is really more or less ideological compost--a medium that people exist in, and otherwise grow (though probably not through the action of the compost, which is probably there more for drainage--these songs can inspire soppiness!-- than nutritive purposes).

I am interetsed in whether Dan is right. I'm thinking this is the new Muzak. Music that everyone will complain about (discerning folk are supposed to complain about such things, and we all want to appear to be discerning), but most folks will actually find innocuous or rather pleasant, in a cultural composty sort of way.

After all, these are the same folks who watch television.

--eric

Flawless lagic, but I still don't like it

[chris olivarez]

This is such sludge and I wouldn't be surprised if it got good ratings.