By Blu Fernandez
Payola: The illegal act of paying or bribing a radio station to play your record on the radio or television without disclosing the payment.
It was made officially illegal in 1960, after a large scandal wherein it was discovered a few of the biggest radio stations in the US were taking bribes to put a song on the radio or television. Some were indirectly implicated, such as Dick Clark, host of American Bandstand, one of the most popular TV programs of that era with nearly 20 million viewers a night. Clark was responsible for playing new popular music that the youngins’ at the time would watch. Clark also had a stake in over 30 record labels or publishers, and owned a handful of radio stations as well. During the investigation, he divested from all of them and thus avoided major repercussions. Others, like Alan Freed, lost their careers to the scandal.
(American Bandstand was also responsible for reinforcing racism, by refusing to host black artists — but that’s another story.)
All that to say, payola used to be a huge deal and was partly responsible for elevating a lot of the popular music on radio and TV, ultimately leading to larger record sales for those artists and labels that participated. In many ways it never fully went away, and today it takes on new forms.
Recently it was ‘exposed’ that Geese, one of America’s favorite new bands, used a marketing company called Chaotic Good to promote themselves. Chaotic Good uses a form of marketing called ‘clipping’ (not the legendary hip hop act), which is basically a way to create a sense of virality and influx of content surrounding a topic, such as a band or artist. Essentially, a company like Chaotic Good will create a marketing campaign based on a new album, single, concert, whatever, and from there, feed it into your algorithm through contractors and employees who all own accounts with large followings.
Andrew Spelman, Co-Owner of Chaotic Good, explained it in an interview on Billboard’s On the Record podcast.
“On Tik Tok, it’s really easy to get views.,” Spelman said. “You just post trending audios. Like Tik Tok weighs that really heavily in the algorithm, but artists can’t do that because they want to promote their own music. And so a big part of what we are doing is posting enough volume across enough accounts with enough impressions to try to simulate the idea that the song is trending or moving or whatever you want to call it.” – Chaotic Good also calls their technique “trend simulation” and the cost starts in the five figures range. Sound familiar? This style of marketing has been the subject of heavy controversy since it broke that Geese used it, and even more so after Chaotic Good did their Billboard interview. Once you know this truth, it starts to feel like everything you see on your phone isn’t even real and the things you’ve been interested in aren’t even really naturally found like we’d like to believe. Okay, maybe we already knew that, but it’s still not clear which artists, and how many artists, have been using the clipping tactic.
The truth is, none of this is actually new. Since the Tin Pan Alley era of sheet music to modern streaming landscape record companies and publishers have always been scrambling to figure out how to put their artists’ music into your hands, and your money into their wallet.
There is of course an argument to be made that we currently live in the most democratic era for music promotion. Anyone posting music or videos online technically has access to your eyes and ears on social media, where, back in the day you might have had to convince ol’ Dick Clark or the like to play your song on their show. While anyone could theoretically pop up on your feed, a a marketing company can manipulate the algorithms with ease, and it’s increasingly hard to tell if we are setting our tastes or if they are influencing our tastes . Companies like Chaotic Good were inevitable in the rise of the popularity of streaming and social media. It’s not just music, most of what you see on social media is basically an ad for something anyway, and clipping is not exclusive to music by any stretch of the matter.
While this all sounds very discouraging, it’s not all bad. This sort of thing has always existed in one format or another. And at the same time, it’s easier than ever to discover new music on your own. Go on Bandcamp, one of the easiest places for a local band or DJ to post their own music, go to a local show, check out new rising platforms like Nina Protocol*, a site with incredible editorial and artist discovery, listen into DJs from around the world on the collectively operated NTS, or roam the world’s old school radio stations on Radio Garden. To get through the haze of marketing campaigns, it’s up to fans to seek out things on their own. If you’re reading the Wax Trax newsletter, chances are you already are.
There’s perhaps always going to be some form of in-your-face promotion and manufactured excitement. It doesn’t always have to be a bad thing, but it is important to be aware of it. Sometimes (and in my opinion in the case of Geese) the thing being promoted is actually pretty good and cool. Two things can be true: we live in a time of ultimate capitalist promotion and marketing trying to control your music choices, and it’s easier than ever to find your own niche of music you love.
*Note: Nina Protocol just announced they are closing down their site next month, so check it out before it’s gone.
Nice article. For me, investigating common albums I always see in the Used section keeps my interests growing, ie Barry White, Nilsson, Herbie Mann, Bob James are some recent examples.