Payola crapola

NEW YORK (AP) - Recording industry titan Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed Monday to pay $10 million and stop bribing radio stations to feature its artists in what a state official called a more sophisticated generation of the payola scandals of decades ago. Entire article ...

Looks like a few more rats have been found aboard the sinking ship of radio. Rats who probably will keep their high-paying jobs with Sony BMG, even after they were busted engaging in a little pay for play. Props to the NY state attorney general not only for sniffing this out, but also for pointing out that no way is this new generation of payola isolated to Sony BMG (whose labels include Arista, Columbia and Jive and whose artists include such singularly talented standouts as J.Lo, Avril Lavigne, Jessica Simpson and Good Charlotte). I hope his investigation continues, and I hope as many people as possible are made aware of what Hickory Wind readers and many others already know: What you hear on the radio has very little if anything to do with talent, hard work or paying dues. The only thing getting paid is cold hard cash from one CEO to another.

Postscript: MTV also has a good write-up on this, lots of detail on some of the tricks of the payola trade. Sob! I can't believe those drunk girls calling radio stations asking for Good Charlotte songs are fake!