All things bass, music, and ranty

Link: http://www.financialpost.com/analysis/story.html?id=41742c5d-07b2-45d6-abe3-d8abafd5a6f2&k=22484

Well, I just heard about this. And if ANYBODY finds a petition, or a way to encourage this, then PLEASE contact me asap.

Recently the CRTC has decided that CanCon is being abused, or more accurately, certain parts of it IGNORED. While many of you may not know this, radio and television in Canada is regulated in such a way that canadian broadcasters have to play 35% Canadian content. And while this canadian content is quite a loose broad term, even more so for television, this is an amazing thing. I there are some that don't approve of this, however, the canadian indie scene, just the music scene in general, over the last 5 or 6 years have become world class. Thanks in part to the CRTC and it's help.

Well, it has recently come to light that new emerging artists, part of a cancon regulation, are being ignored, in favour of playing tragically hip or nickleback 2000 times a week. Which, while I love tragically hip, is pretty lame.

This is the good part. Flatlined, as an emerging artists, (an artist that has not hit a top 40 hit in 1 year or less) should be played on the radio. By LAW. Well, not JUST flatlined, and even not flatlined at all, but you get the idea. Recently, the CRTC has gotten some stats back about this sort of thing, with emerging artists getting an 2.9% or less or something of airtime. Which is a really, REALLY, small number.

So if you stumble across information on this, or a petition that we as musicians and fans alike can sign, please, don't hesitate to contact me.

Check out the link above to read further.

We'll, I'm a big fan of radio. Kinda. I listen to it constantly. While I work, or better yet, WHEN I work a regular job. Driving my car, gotta have some radio. Shit like that. I even listen to online radio when I'm sitting at a computer. Usually however, if I have the option, I'd rather listen to cd's or music the guys in the band send my way.

The reason I prefer to not listen to radio after a while is simply that it's getting terrible. When I was younger and not in a band making my own music, I used to love it. I could listen to it for hours, and I would buy cd's that I actually heard on the radio.

And then it started to go downhill for me. I realized that songs on the radio are fucking GARBAGE. Not all, but alot. In my area, we get 3 decent rock radio stations, plus tonnes of classic stuff. We have a university radio station, although the signal strength isn't all that good. So I don't listen to it much. And the songs these stations play, other than the university station, are crap. If I have to listen to that new puddle of mud song once more, paranoid pshycho or whatever, I'm going to walk right into 97.7 and shoot the dj in the face. The songs that pass as radio hits are horrible. 2 chord songs, terrible lyrics, just crap. Am I the only one who notices this?

I started wondering... Why? Why are these songs so big? Is it the demographics that these stations are pandering to? Do people with more money than me get better songs, because they listen to pay radio? Sattelite radio? I often wonder what I'm missing. I would get it if I could afford it... but why? Radio shouldn't be like this. And it's not ALWAYS crap, I do like some songs. But jesus...

Does anybody else feel the same way? My guess is that the people reading this aren't even INTO radio at all. Most likely everybody downloads, listens to mp3's. Is that you? That, however, is a totally different topic all together, and I'll dive into that soon enough.

My point is, music seems like it's suffering these days. It's harder and harder for musicians to do well. Is it because radio sucks? Is it because people are settling for artists and songs that don't offer a damn thing? I'm starting to think that people will listen to anything. Not everybody mind you, but there is a large chunk of the population that just doesn't care what music has become... and radio isn't helping. Save me from this frequency modulated HELL...

Chris - Flatlined