Record Labels Bribed Radio Stations to make J-Lo, Ashlee and others Platinum Selling Pop Stars!

Have you ever wondered why canned music by pop tarts (like Jessica Simpson and her whining little sister Ashlee) outsells real music by gifted artists (like John Legend and Rikki Lee Jones); or why cheesy songs (like Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Achy, Breaky Heart”) are played a hundred times a day whilst more interesting ones (like Anita Baker’s “You’re My Everything“) are heard only once in a blue moon?

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announcing his settlement with Sony BMG for illegal payola to radio stations to ensure airplay for select artists on its labels.

Well, wonder no more. Because on Monday, NY State Attorney General Spitzer blew the lid off the scandalous practice by record companies of bribing radio stations (targeting program directors and deejays) in key markets to play songs by artists who can’t really sing but have great cross-promotional potential (to be packaged for TV, movies, clothing lines, commercials (for diet coke, apple pie and Chevrolet) and, in the case of 50 cent, to peddle the gangsta lore of hip hop).

The practice is called payola and it flourished in the 1950s during the early days of rock and roll. In fact, it’s how a few former radio personalities like Dick Clark made a lot of cash and acquired a great deal of power in the music industry early in their careers.

However, payola was then, as is now, an illegal practice. Spitzer described it rather comprehensively as follows:

It takes many different forms. But it is essentially the same scam where — instead of airing music based upon the quality, based upon artistic competition, based upon aesthetic judgments or other judgments that are being made by radio stations — radio stations are airing music because they have been paid to do so in a way that has not been disclosed to the public. This is wrong, and it is illegal.

Alas, by the time federal authorities were tuned-in to what Clark was doing at his radio station, he had become so much a part of Americana that they were loath to prosecute him. (And the rest, as we say, is history.) But other deejays – including the almost as famous Alan Freed (the man who coined the phrase “rock and roll”) – were not considered such sacred cows. In fact, after receiving a fine and six months suspended sentence, Freed was fired from his ABC-radio and WNEW-TV gigs and died penniless in 1965 – a broken man at 43.

This should have been a cautionary tale for record labels and radio stations. But it was not. In fact, Spitzer lamented during his press conference that given the current state of payola in the music industry “it’s deja vu all over again”.

Indeed, in the 1980s, the practice led to the notorious scandal in which the Arista label was exposed for paying deejays to make the lip-syncing duo Milli Vanilli the Grammy winning heart throbs of pop music. (Soon thereafter the conspiracy behind the music of other acts like C&C Music Factory and Black Box was also exposed.)

Yet payola flourished through the 1990s and into the present. But it’s one thing to manipulate playlist rotations at radio stations to ensure that digitally manufactured songs by no-talented pretty faces go platinum. However, it’s a far more egregious fraud to promote a live performance by Ashlee Simpson (on Saturday Night LIVE) only to have her suffer a nervous breakdown on stage when her canned voice does not sing on cue for her to lip-sync along.

Ashlee Simpson making her pretty face into an “oh my gosh, now the whole world knows I can’t really sing” face after being exposed on national television as a lip-syncing fraud. Even the morally bankrupt and easy to please Jude Law had to bite his lip to contain his outrage…

But thanks to Ashlee and others it is now widely known that digital enhancements, slick PR campaigns and aggressive radio airplay can guarantee a hit record for almost anyone. And Attorney General Spitzer should be applauded for forcing truth in advertising in the music industry. Because, it’s not only a fraud on the public but also grossly unfair to truly talented artists for record labels to pay radio stations to pass canned music off as real recordings.

After being exposed, Sony BMG agreed to pay $10 million in fines for offering bribes (of everything from plasma TVs, flights on private jets, free vacations, computers to cold hard cash) to buy hit records for J-Lo and others on its labels (which include Columbia and Epic Records). And, Spitzer indicated that Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI Group are all expected to settle his payola charges by paying similar fines. But he also warned that he intends to extract far greater fines from radio stations (like Infinity Broadcasting Corp and Clear Channel Communications) that he claims are “the ones who are most fundamentally violating the public trust”.

Rock on Spitzer!

Note: Spitzer has earned a crusading reputation for exposing the insidious and arrogant nature of white collar crimes in New York City. But some of us are beginning to wonder why he seems so inclined to accept plea bargains which allow these office criminals to part with only a few of their ill-gotten dollars instead of being thrown in jail where they belong. Because here he’s letting executives at Sony BMG get away with a $10 million fine when everyone knows that they pocketed billions from these scams. (Besides, $10 million is probably how much Sony BMG budgets just for J-Lo’s make-up and traveling expenses). And, when coupled with the equally modest fines he extracted a couple years ago from financial firms (like Citigroup) and stock analysts (like Henry Blodgett, Mary Meeker and Jack Grubman) for hyping worthless tech stocks, one sees a very disheartening and cynical pattern: Rich criminals using a fraction of the money they stole to pay for their crimes. And that too – Mr Elliot (Ness) Spitzer – is wrong!

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