Random Ranting

So as I mentioned earlier that radio would eventually start feeling the heart from Satellite radio, iut appears I did not speak soon enough, as they are already planning an ad campaign (to the budgetary tune of $28 million USD) to promote regular radio over satellite.

Does anyone else see not only the hamfisted clumsiness of this ploy, or is the irony halo too bright (the irony being the only bright thing in it)? Let's see; people move to satellite radio because they have a better granular selection of what they get to hear, and they pay to hear no advertisements. So what do the stations decide to combat them with? Change none of the programming and add more advertisements. There is a phrase for such an action - futile stupidity. The mental somnambulism in the marketing management at Clear Channel and Infinity must be endemic at this point. And to show how sincere they are, they have recruited artists like Avril Lavigne and Ludacris to do the spots. I wonder if this constitutes as a new form of Payola, so that they can get a little extra rotation in a few more markets.

Now, to be halfway fair (and that is as much as they deserve, barely) they cannot compete with satleiite in terms of price point. They cannot charge listeners directly and must rely on advertisement, but they could try to stop consolidating all the stupid damn playlists and try to address market interest in music rather than the same 12 songs browbeaten into them 12 hours a day (the other 12 being the adverts). Market interest is not straightjacketing listeners into what makes the best bottom-line sense to the record labels or to your parent company. It is, at the regional/city level, taking chances and making breaks for local talent promotion, and getting into the cycle of helping to create a local musical culture based on what people show interest in (or could show interest for were they exposed to it).

Now, onto something slightly different, but more stupid. What could be more stupid you ask? Well, it's Eminem thinking he could have affected the Presidential election if he had released his last single sooner.
I would like to provide an adequate tirade here, but I have never viewed Eminem as worth too much effort and this is no exception. In short, he is a complete imbecile with an ego and has about as tight a grasp on politics as George Bush does on a pretzel.

And for those of you who really enjoyed the recent Madvillain release, Salon has a download of a remix for Figaro

As a final note, I knew that I loved the track All Night (Don't Stop) because of the funky-ass guitar vamp that was sampled from Herbie Hancock's Hang Up Your Hang Ups, but it was only today that I finally (accidentally) found my copy of the album it came from, Man Child and it has been in loop mode all evening.