America’s number one country radio station KZLA changed formats on Thursday to beats and dance tunes. Advertisers are more interested in pleasing minorities. Rock and classical music are increasingly being replaced by formats such as pop, hip-hop and talk radio.
The Los Angeles radio market is basically 40% Hispanic, 11% Asian and 8% black, and country fans are about 98% Caucasian,” said Rick Cummings, a top executive at KZLA’s parent company, Emmis Communications Corp.
“I almost threw up, I was so upset,” said longtime KZLA listener and Mission Viejo resident Ruth Rogers, 53. “I think it’s racist. This is becoming a nation of minorities. I’m not going to turn on my radio anymore. Country music promotes patriotism and family values, and they’ve replaced it with something that just promotes money and hate.”
“This is a huge disappointment,” said Gary Borman, a manager representing country superstar Faith Hill, among other artists. “KZLA did a fantastic job building a country music community here, and our artists were proud to contribute to that. If radio executives can focus on urban and Latino listeners, why can’t they focus on white America? This seems like the arbitrary hand of corporate America at work.”
“Los Angeles is our No. 1 sales market in America,” said Bill Bennett, head of Warner Bros. Records Nashville. “If I were Sirius or XM Satellite Radio, I would see this as a major opportunity. We’ll survive. New York hasn’t had a country station in years, and Faith Hill and Tim McGraw still sold out Madison Square Garden. But it’s a real blow.”
This is why radio sucks. It’s never about the consumer, the listener. Its about big companies advertising. This is why people don’t buy new music. Losing another station to Urban? What about the other listeners who don’t want to shake their ass to a disco ball? I certainly don’t want to get jiggy with it. Let’s turn the bad news into good. This gives more reason for consumers to turn to satellite. Although satellite is not quite there yet, it’s better than terrestrial radio. Much better……………….
I have always been a fan of The Cars. Rick Ocasek wrote great pop songs which dominated the charts for over nine years. I remember buying The Cars Heartbeat City and watching the video “Magic” and “Hello Again” on MTV . Its simple guitar-synth oriented rock. But it’s not modern manufactured pop sung by a lounge singer that so many people seemed to have abandoned. It’s much more distinctive with a wall of synthesizers and huge choruses. The Cars are long gone and here we have a new set of wheels hailing from Canada. KOAR welcomes Hello Operator to our short list of Higher Learning artists. Singer/songwriter Mike Condo who started the band states,
“We’ve always been about trying to write the best songs possible. Everything else seems to fall into place when we’re happy with the songs. We’re trying to follow in the footsteps of people like Bowie, Costello, Brian Wilson and of course the Beatles, who all blurred the lines between pop and rock n’ roll. First and foremost those bands wrote great pop songs and in turn they recorded amazing albums that were also interesting and complex. We expect no less in the music we make – songs with longevity and albums with substance”.
Like any unsigned band should do, Hello Operator is playing anywhere and everywhere and has built up a strong local following and put together an exciting live show. Canoe listed them as 1 of 12 bands to watch out for after their exciting performance at Canadian Music Week, and more recently, Hello Operator was listed as a “newsmaker” in Macleans magazine. The London Free Press called the band a “guaranteed breakthrough rock act” and Hello Operator are working hard to live up to the title. They sold us. Managed by Coalition Management. For more information contact Mike Condo.
I was having dinner with my friend Mark Mazzetti, former A&R at our mutual employer A&M Records, and who is now putting the finishing touches on his new label, R&M Artist Records that will launch shortly. Mark is a very knowledgeable record person, but had some issues he wanted to talk over regarding co-writes for some artists he’s interested in signing. From that conversation, I thought it might be useful for KOAR readers to have some guidelines for co-writes.
Co-writing with your producer, friends, band mates or [other] professional songwriters is a good thing. But remember–you’re creating a piece of property when you write a song (or record a master for that matter, but that’s another subject). This time that property is intellectual property. Like any other form of property, intellectual property has certain rules of the road that can have some twists, turns and dangerous shoals. You wouldn’t build a house with a partner if you didn’t understand at least the basic legal issues of co-owning real estate, and neither should you create a piece of intellectual property with someone without knowing at least a bit about intellectual property law, and particularly the law of copyright. CONTINUE READING
How the modern world has changed for artists. Hackers have hit myspace and say the viruses in circulation can change settings, delete files, secretly track users’ movements online and even damage computers.
Unfortunately, hackers have hidden dangerous software on the site which means that computers can be attacked unaware to users while they are just viewing pages. Clicking on your favorite band may cost your computer.
“There is a very real threat to users of MySpace, and in fact we have already seen several MySpace specific viruses emerge,” Graham Cluley of computer security company Sophos told the Standard Lite newspaper.
Myspace popularity has led to it becoming a target for scams.
“The problem is that people tend to let their guard down because they think the site is safe. But even a picture of a fluffy bunny rabbit on the site can contain a hidden piece of software that could harm your machine,” he said. “We’ve also seen pages that contain code to automatically spread viruses through MySpace’s buddy system, which lets you add friends to your profile.”
(Reuters)
 
We receive new submissions every day here at KOAR, constantly in search of great bands with something to say. After listening to demo after demo after demo, we’re forced to ask the question ‘Are there just no great bands anymore? Or are the great ones not sending out demos?’ Nothing has stood out. Nothing has been great, or even noteworthy. We’re in search of the real deal but are bombarded with regurgitated mediocrity.
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So what are we looking for then? Basically, we don’t care about style and genre. We don’t care about fads. We don’t care about hype. We simply want great music. We’re looking for originality and a point of view. We aren’t just looking for hit songs we’re looking for hit bands. We’re looking for bands that have something to say, and say it in a way that makes us stop to listen. We don’t help bands just because they exist; we help them because we support what they’re doing and feel this industry would be better if they were a part of it.
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We listen to every submission we receive, and encourage artists who feel they honestly have what it takes to keep sending them in. However, we will not be arbitrarily supporting artists simply for something to talk about. We’d rather never promote bands than promote unworthy bands. Think you have what it takes to get past our critiques? send your press kits to KOAR or send website/myspace link to Dean@kingsofar.com
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