Are you old enough to remember the “Payola” scandal?

[sunjamr]

Back in the ’50s and ’60s, the main way people heard new music was on the radio. The person who selected the music and broadcasted it to the public was called a “disc jockey”, or DJ for short. If a disc jockey played a the same song many times per day, it would usually become a hit song with the masses. A hit song meant lots of money for the record company, and money and fame for the artist. So it was common practice for record companies to bribe the DJs with money or gifts to get them to play their songs as often as possible. Congressional investigations into record companies bribing disc jockeys to play specific songs were aimed at curbing these deceptive practices that manufactured music hits. The hearings led to the 1960 amendments to the Communications Act, making payola a criminal offense and enforcing strict disclosure of paid airplay.

And since we’ve been thinking about “hooks” lately, it occurred to me that what these disc jockeys were doing was forcing people to get “earworms” from hearing the same song over and over. And isn’t an “earworm” just another word for a hook?

So the question is, in modern times, do companies like Spotify and other music streamers also somehow manipulate their playlists to bring certain songs and artists to the top of the pile? I’m sure it could be done in a much more subtle way using the algorithms that run all streaming services now days.

Sunjamr Steve

[charjo]

I’m sure they do whatever will increase the total number of streams and their bottom line. That includes pushing playlists for which they don’t have to pay any royalties.
Payola seems so quaint and unsophisticated compared to social media, algorithms and AI of today.

John

[Richard G]

Yes Steve,
I’m afraid I am old enough to remember ‘Payola’ Totally corrupt of course but I suspect that was somewhat inevitable being that so much fame and fortune was to be gained with Chart-Topping successes.

However, a Hook in a song is quite different, it doesn’t come about by frequent playing. A successful Hook is a musical sequence that stands out from the rest of the song/tune and the part that everyone remembers. Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street with the fabulous Saxophone solo, to me, is a classical Hook.

Richard

[San Luis Rey]

Yeah Steve, I remember. What people forget is that the “scandal” was more about not wanting Rock n Roll played on the radio. DJ’s like Allan Freed took $ to play rock and paid for it dearly.

Mike

[Author]

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