My thoughts About Barack After the First Election

Everyone has crowned our president and given him the keys to the white house. We have all said ok.. go... Make miracles. Change hundreds of years of systemic racism, prudice, ignorance and struggle. Go out there and make black folk turn around the self hatred that has further crippled us. GO!! But has anyone evaluated the fact that we may not be ready ? We expect this man to come wave a wand, and the second he does something that looks like he choosing the wrong side, black folks are gonna crucify that man. Are we able to allow him to grow as a leader without completely doubting his "loyalty"? After all, he did pledge an oath to this country not to black america. Did you ever think about all the knowledge and burdens he will be faced with on the first day? The secrets that have only been known by 48 other men? Just because he might make things better don't make him christ. It Just means currently he is the best option. As long as he makes a difference thats positive then thats good enough. He cant be everything to everyone and he is human. Lets remember that.

SAME SONG: INSIDE THE PAYOLA, POWER AND CORRUPTION IN THE MUSIC

SAME SONG (EXCERPT)

INSIDE THE PAYOLA, POWER AND CORRUPTION IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

BY PAUL PORTER

Do you know Karen Kline? I do. And so do a lot of people in the music industry. She used to be a really good friend of mine. For a minute, I was in love with her, even though I knew the relationship could never last. Karen’s known and loved throughout the world of music, video and radio. She’s a jetsetter and she’s known for being reliable and dependable.

And Karen Kline has this incredible ability to be in many different places at theexact same time.

This Saturday morning, like many Saturdays for years, a truck will show up to the homes of many people in the music industry and Karen will be delivered right to their front door.

I met Karen while I was staying at the Hotel George in Washington D.C. (I’d heard of Karen for years but we’d never been formally introduced). It was 1999 and I had just been hired as the Program Director at BET, the fast growing entertainment channel. BET was then being broadcasted into over 48 million homes and my job would be deciding what videos would be played on the channel.

By this time, music videos had surpassed radio as the place to break a record. And the record labels were nervous. Was I going to change the format? Cut down the number of videos played? Pick and choose what kind of videos I would allow to be played? The answers were yes, yes and yes. But no one knew that yet.

It didn’t matter. My friends at the major record labels were not going to take any chances.

During my first week at BET, I set up the playlist, deciding which videos would be played and how often. I cut the playlist, from four hundred titles to a mere eighty. Some industry executives were elated; some were furious. The next weekend, a FedEx truck pulled up to the Hotel George with two packages for me.

Both packages were exactly the same, five thousand dollars in each, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and tucked inside the FedEx envelopes. No return address; no instructions, just the name Karen Kline, a fictional woman that I loved like she was flesh and blood.

It’s called payola. And it’s as old as recorded music itself. Even the very word tells you how far it goes back. Payola is a contraction between the words “pay” and “Victrola,” the old-school phonograph that was used to spin the very first records.

Payola is firmly embedded in the music industry, deep in the grooves like tracks on a vinyl record. It’s been going on for so long that it’s hard to believe that people are still getting away with it. But they are. I know I did.

And it wasn’t just money. When I was working at BET, I was still coming up to New York City every weekend for my job as a DJ on WBLS. Every Friday, various record labels would fly me up to New York, usually first class, and put me up at the best hotels. Knick tickets, pricey restaurants, whatever I wanted—I would have because I was in a position of power. I had control. And if you were a record label executive, you needed to make sure I was happy.

Almost everybody in this industry takes money. If they have the power to put a song on the radio or a video on television, they’ve been offered money to do it—and they’ve taken it. Maybe it’s only been once or twice. But they’ve done it.

I turned down payola for years. I really did. But it’s impossible to turn down ten thousand dollars in cash when you know you’re going to play the song anyway and it’s from a friend you’ve known for twenty years. There’s just no way to turn that down.

So, I’m putting that out there right now. I’m guilty. I’ve taken money. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. But I’ve never been anyone’s slave. Legally, I could go to jail or maybe not. I think I could win my case. I’ve taken money. But I’ve never played a song or a video I didn’t like. I know I still have to live with my demons. And maybe I’ll have to pay the price for it. But I’m not alone. And my relationship with Karen Kline was a one-night-stand compared to how she’s operating today. Karen Kline is not just visiting people on Saturday mornings anymore. She’s married—to corporate America. And she’s bringing in more money than anyone could ever fit inside a FedEx envelope.

SAME SONG is an explosive look at the corruption that is running rampant throughout the music industry. From the desperate promotion departments at major record labels who will do anything to get their acts on the radio and on video to the greedy program directors who take cash, gifts and other luxuries,SAME SONG will explore how corruption is rearing its ugly head once again.

SAME SONG also examines “legal payola” and how corporations are now the major beneficiaries of under-the-table payments and pay-to-play.

With the Telecommunications Act of 1996, consolidation would forever change the music industry. It was a bill that was originally designed to stimulate the economy by loosening up the rules for selling goods on the Internet. But inadvertently, it gave license for communications companies like Clear Channel to start buying up radio stations like penny candy.

Before long, seven companies owned 70% of the radio stations in the United States. There were very few individual owners who could determine what would be played. This meant smaller, corporate-influenced radio playlists. There would be less variety and more of the same artists, over and over again. These new stations were like funnels and the only records that would make it through were the ones with the cash to push them out. If the record labels wanted to hear their acts on the radio, they would have to fall in line—and cough up major bucks.

The same would happen in video as well. When Bob Johnson sold BET to Viacom for three billion dollars, it meant that MTV now owned it’s only major competitor. And getting your video on either channel would now cost you thousands.

SAME SONG is about how the digital age in the mid-90s exposed radio stations that frequently lied about how often they were playing the songs they were being paid by record labels to play; it’s about how the golden age of the trained broadcaster was soon replaced with interns, DJs and mixers who, for years, had been silent in the booth. SAME SONG explores how radio has become one of the few media outlets where salaries have plunged as profits have skyrocketed. AndSAME SONG will break down the shake-ups that will be happening very shortly. Much like Alan Freed’s payola trials in the 50s, and the pay-for-play scandals involving music men like Clive Davis in the 70s, the music industry is on the cusp of another huge investigation and many of the major players in the music industry may find themselves unemployed, at best and possibly, in prison.

And in many ways, SAME SONG is my story. Since 1976, when the busing riots in Boston sent me scrambling into the radio station at WRBB at Northeastern University, the music industry has been my life. During my very first stint in radio, I was Paul “Pure Love” Porter from midnight to three AM and I fell in love with the medium of radio and the impact I had on my community.

Radio introduced me to women. Radio introduced me to cocaine. Radio introduced me to some of my best friends. And radio killed some of them too.SAME SONG is a ride through my whirlwind of media jobs, working for and with some of the most colorful, well-known and scandalous players in the music industry.

I know that radio and video are influential in shaping young minds. And my experiences have changed my outlook. “Morality is not an option” is now my mantra. And there are people out there who won’t buy it. They’ll think I’m writing this book for revenge or just to make a buck. That’s fine. I can live with that. I can’t live with what’s become of the music industry. I’m partly responsible for bringing it to the depths it’s sunk to today. But I can also be responsible for exposing the ugliness and peeling back the layers for everyone to see.

Google+ Now Has 50 Million Users (After Just 88 Days)...

That's the latest tally from 'unofficial Google+ statistician' Paul Allen, whose figures are now being closely watched. No, not that Paul Allen (Microsoft, American Psycho): this is the cofounder of ancestry.com who uses rare surnames to forge Google+ estimates, the latest of which now crosses a healthy 50 million.

That is, after just 88 days, a 'breakneck' if we've ever seen one. "Since being opened to the general public (over age 18) last week, Google+ has been growing by at least 4 percent per day, meaning that around 2 million new users have been signing up each day," Allen noted.

All of which makes this a great time to start ramping your Google+ strategy. Because Google has a huge base to convert, starting... now. "By integrating +1 and Circles (targeted sharing) and other Google+ functionality into its Chrome browser, Android phones (and tablets), Gmail, Google Reader, Blogger, Google Photos, and other properties, Google+ will give its more than one billion users repeated chances to sign up for and use the functionality of Google+," Allen relayed (of course, in a Google+ post).

All of this is happening against significant product development, including more work on profiles for companies (and perhaps bands as well...)

Join the early discussion.
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/092911googleplus

FACEBOOK IS THE NEW GOOGLE

Facebook Admits to Tracking Logged-Out Users...

paul

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Spotify dropped the undeletable cookie, but Facebook has now admitted to tracking users — even when they're logged off. That is, through various cookies and unique identifiers sent from like buttons, all of which are complicated to remove. "Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit," programmer and technologist Nik Cubrilovic exposed in a recent blog.

"The only solution is to delete every Facebook cookie in your browser, or to use a separate browser for Facebook interactions."

This also means that users will probably share more activity than they intended, thanks to 'lubricated' APIs. But don't worry, Facebook can explain. Perhaps attempting to contain another privacy blow-up, Facebook told the Wall Street Journal that this complicated cookie-and-identifier setup is all about security. That is, preventing false logins and phishing attacks without extra authentication.

And, Facebook further claimed that all of this logged-out data is immediately deleted (you'll just have to trust them on that). "The onus is on us to take all the data and scrub it," said Arturo Bejar, Facebook's director of Engineering. "What really matters is what we say as a company and back it up."

Facebook is no stranger to these sorts of breach controversies. The company has been caught improperly collecting data on a number of occasions, and its security standards are, let's say, insecure.

All of which raises another question about Spotify's decision to attach themselves to the Facebook hip. Because these things don't always end well.

Which Are You? 14 Music Industry Dress Styles...

presnikoff

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The days of dress codes and proper attire are long gone, at least in the music industry. But after close observation of music executives in their natural conference habitat, we've identified a few commonly-donned attires. It's a Digital Music News fashionista exclusive...

Don't Think Traditional Radio Matters? Then Read This..

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The first chart compares the number of songs streamed online to the number played across traditional airwaves in the US, specifically between the dates of January 3rd and May 1st of this year. The second weights those plays against the total audience for each play/spin. The data was compiled by Nielsen, and presented at the NARM conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

ILLwrite Featured on MTV Hive

The debut solo album of Pennjamin Bannekar has finally arrived. The much anticipated work has been in the making for the last year and has the final touches before it launches May 3rd 2011. The success of the current single "ILLwrite" which can be seen on MTVU among other video channels has many people waiting to see what the member of Project: Fr3sh can do alone. The album has a depth of range yet centers on the person Pennjamin has become through the journey of life. Producers such as Best Kept Secret helped shape the feel of the album which also boast features from Chicago's new school hip hop artist such as Omen and Phil G who give a standout performance on "Counterfeit." "Fast Cars" is a lyrical second to none but one of the most creative ways to talk about sex. Please Listen and enjoy this art.

Check out the New Single Featured on MTV Hive

Check out the New Single Featured on MTV Hive

twitter.com/pennbannekar

Check out the New Single Featured on MTV Hive