How pop music became 'Idol'-ized
In a one-two programming punch too deliciously ironic to have been planned, PBS is broadcasting the "
"American Idol" -- with its pageantry of cookie-cutter performers and flash-in-the-pan stars -- typifies the corporatization that writer/producer/director Michael Kirk argues is at the heart of the once-vibrant music business's creative and commercial nosedive. While industry insiders have been watching artistry and sales slip in the name of quarterly targets for the last half-decade, "The Way the Music Died" (tonight at 9 on Channel 2) puts a human face on the phenomenon, telling the story through the experiences of four artists, all of whom are affected by the dramatic industry changes that have taken place over the past 35 years: veteran folk-rocker David Crosby; songwriter and producer Mark Hudson, formerly of the Hudson Brothers; Hudson's daughter Sarah, who is on the verge of releasing her first album; and Velvet Revolver, a supergroup composed of former members of Guns n' Roses and Stone Temple Pilots that will release its debut next month (and play at Avalon on Saturday).
Kirk examines a variety of important trends. Some are inherently wrong-headed, such as massive radio chains with strict playlists that squeeze out anything but the most commercially viable tracks. Others have unexpectedly negative fallout, like MTV, a creative force that has become so powerful that now it's nearly impossible for artists lacking hot bodies and a three-minute single to break out.
"You've got all these people who look great and can't write, sing, or play," notes Crosby, who also takes on label consolidation, reminiscing about how once upon a time record companies were run by entrepreneurial music lovers, not accountants. "You go to a meeting with a record company and it wouldn't be a guy who knew that you had written a new song and thought that was cool. It would be a guy who knew that he had moved 40,000 pieces out of Dallas this month and he had no idea of what."
Melinda Newman, West Coast bureau chief for the industry trade magazine Billboard, reports for the camera that of 30,000 albums released each year, fewer than a hundred are hits, and that sales have fallen from $40 billion to $28 billion in just three years. These are among the few hard facts and statistics Kirk offers in the program, however, which -- in decidedly un-"Frontline" fashion -- emphasizes anecdote over analysis. It's an entertaining and informative window on the industry's woes, but surprisingly incomplete.
The most glaring omission is the hot-button issue of Internet file-sharing and downloading, which the recording industry touts as the root of its woes. Where are the interviews with -- and perspectives from -- high-level executives at the major labels? They undoubtedly have different views from Danny Goldberg, a major-label expat now running the independent label Artemis, who paints an articulate but hardly exhaustive picture.
Matt Sorum and Duff McKagen of Velvet Revolver add little more than rock-star glitz to the proceedings with expletive-laden recollections of Guns n' Roses' good old days smoking crack on MGM Grand's private plane. Perhaps most telling are the segments with Sarah Hudson and her label's A&R executive, Joanna Ifrah, who gushes about finding the anti-Britney, the "cool chick who looks strange, dresses strange, didn't get all the guys, and had parental problems," and then goes on to supervise Hudson's makeover into a mainstream pop tart. Hudson's single, "Girl on the Verge" was released last month but -- as the closing voiceover informs us -- it has yet to find its way into the hearts of music lovers.
