When MTV started broadcasting music videos in the 1980's, a lot of people cried foul because it was going to kill the radio star. Someone even wrote a song about it. But did it really? Was it not just another revenue channel for the artists that were already played on the radio anyway? Or did the radio stations fear loss of income because of the new competitor? It could have been the perfect opportunity for them to redefine themselves and distinguish themselves from their visual counterpart. It could have added to the diversity in our media landscape and increased the exposure of lesser known bands and artists.
Video didn't kill the radio star. Marketing kills music and it keeps chipping away at it until today. Advertisers bring in the money. In order to get advertisers you need many listeners on the radio. To accomplish this, most radio stations play the same music by the same artists that are popular. Record companies supported this model because the return is greater if you spend a lot of money on your big dog instead of splitting the same budget on ten lesser known acts.
Why did no one invent LiveShowTV? A channel that would broadcast concerts 24 hours a day. Any style, any genre, just music played by people for people. I know VH1 has started a few shows on their classic rock channel but it is very limited. The problem is that a lot of acts in the charts can't perform live. They can't play or sing what we listen to. Britney Spears wouldn't be on LiveShowTV. Once again, the whole idea of LiveShowTV would fail due to the lack of viewers and thus the lack of advertising.
It's funny that we prefer to watch a cheap, amateurish clip placed under existing music rather than someone perform the music live. A few clips were created and filmed professionally and it shows, but the majority of them were not.
Even though there is a huge amount of material out on YouTube in varying degrees of (sound and video) quality it has a lot more to offer in terms of music videos than any cable network ever will. Seeing shows from bands or artists that no longer exist or perform can be a great experience and otherwise unthinkable. Because YouTube runs on user generated content it doesn't discriminate between styles and genres. Unlike radio or TV where you have to play a certain genre to fit in a certain show so you can attract viewers, listeners and advertisers you're free to view whatever is available on YouTube.
In the next few posts I will present a few more acts that never made it big although they are probably a lot more musically talented than the majority of the chart toppers.
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