Petty's "Last DJ" Making Radio Waves (12-20-02)

Petty's 'Last DJ' puts the wrong spin on radio, spokesman says

December 11, 2002

BY JIM DEROGATIS POP MUSIC CRITIC

The National Association of Broadcasters is mad as hell at Tom Petty, and they'd like to give him a piece of their mind.

In the title track of his latest album, "The Last DJ," Petty delivers a withering critique on the state of rock radio, essentially charging that corporate consolidation and increasingly conservative, bottom-line-driven programming is killing the medium we once knew and loved.

As Petty crosses the country on a tour that comes to Chicago tonight, the radio industry's largest lobbying and special interest group is contacting newspapers to refute the artist's charges. I spoke Tuesday with Dennis Wharton, senior vice president of communications for the NAB, in an attempt to give radio equal time in the debate.

(Petty declined numerous interview requests from the Sun-Times, and the NAB could not provide a Chicago-based programmer for comment. Petty is getting heavy air play on several local stations, including WXRT-FM.)

Q. I have to say, Dennis, that I agree with much of what Tom Petty is saying in "The Last DJ." How do you read the song, and why do you think he's wrong?

A. My reading on it is that Tom Petty has made a song that is popular and it's getting air play. That's how the radio industry works.

Q. But I had just lunch with a programmer at one of Chicago's top rock stations who told me that Petty is not getting played by Clear Channel-owned stations because of his negative comments.

A. I do not have any knowledge of that. I think you should call the Clear Channel people to see if that's a false statement. [Clear Channel did not respond to a request for comment.] I'm not familiar with the Chicago market, so I can't really comment on it, but I do know that Petty has made a hit song, and it's getting played, and that is the name of the game. My advice to Tom Petty is to make better music and you'll get played on rock 'n' roll radio.

There has never been more diversity on the radio dial than there is today. I am looking at the diversity in the radio market I'm familiar with, which is Washington, D.C., and there are eight Spanish-language stations, there is a Chinese station, there's a Korean station, there are all-news and all-sports stations, there are all-religious stations and all-business and all-alternative-rock and all-jazz and all-country stations. In terms of format diversity, particularly in the ethnic area, it's never been better.

Q. But I've also interviewed artists like Moby, who sold 10 million copies worldwide of "Play," but he insists that the only way radio paid attention to him was when he went around radio and brought his music to people through TV commercials and movie soundtracks. Only then was he played by radio.

A. Everyone who is a recording artist thinks that their music is the best and should be on radio. I think that for every Moby there are probably hundreds of people who think their music is just as good as Moby's.

Q. But there is heavy pressure for congressional hearings into the corporate consolidation in radio and the practice of independent promotion, which some are calling a new form of payola.

A. There are one or two members of Congress who have raised this issue, and mind you, there are 535 members of Congress. I would concur that they have gotten an enormous amount of press attention, but whether there's a groundswell of support for actually passing this legislation, well, I'm not gonna finish that thought. When was this golden era of radio [that Petty is singing about]?

Q. The early '70s, free-form FM radio, when a DJ chose what he or she was playing, and was able to go from John Coltrane to Jimi Hendrix to the Temptations.

A. I still hear Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix today.

Q. Never on the same station!

A. I think there is something to be said for radio stations today better defining the target audience that they are directing their music to. In many ways, I think the radio industry, radio broadcasters, are doing a better job now of finding what listeners want to hear than they have ever done before. Stations spend an enormous amount of money on research to find out what listeners want to hear. If the allegation is that radio broadcasts today are delivering a product that millions and millions of Americans like and want to hear, we stand guilty as charged.

Ninety-five percent of all Americans listen to their local radio station once a week; 75 percent every day. That tells me that we're delivering a service that people like. It's probably not the station Tom Petty wants to hear.

Q. But what he's saying is that you have a music lover, maybe somebody who's devoted 20 or 30 years of their career to being a DJ, and they are no longer able to control what they play on the air. It isn't even decided by the station's programmer, but by some national consultant, who is taking his cue from independent promoters and the major-label hype machine. That's who Petty is eulogizing in "The Last DJ."

A. Do you have specific examples of that?

Q.Yes. I've interviewed a dozen DJs in Chicago and Minneapolis on six different rock stations over the years, and they all agree with that critique. They complain about following pre-set play lists fed to them on a computer. If they deviate and play something else in a moment of inspiration, they receive a scolding memo, and sometimes they're even fined. Does "The Last DJ" really exist anywhere today besides college or public radio?

A. Yes, I think so. I don't believe they're gone. In Washington, D.C., WHFS is a tremendous alternative-rock station.

Q. But I have seen its play list, and it's almost identical, song for song, to three dozen other alt-rock stations across the country.

A. If the charge is that they're playing songs that people want to hear, guilty as charged.

Q. What Petty is questioning is what comes first, the apple or the horse? Is radio playing songs because they inspired the programmers and the DJs, or is it playing songs that are being pushed by millions of dollars of promotional money? And how can people like a song that they have never had a chance to hear?

A. I don't think the idea is to inspire DJs. I think the ideas is to inspire audiences to come back with music they want to hear.

Q. If that's so, why is this such a chronic complaint from artists, from Elvis Costello to R.E.M. to Tom Petty? When was the last great rock song written about how good radio is?

A. You're the rock critic, you tell me.

Q.I have to go back to "Roadrunner" by the Modern Lovers or "Rock 'n' Roll" by the Velvet Underground, both from the early '70s. That's a long time!

A. You're always going to have artists complaining about not getting air time on radio stations, except for the ones that are actually being played and that are popular.

Q. But Billboard, the music industry bible, has done extensive reports on even those artists complaining about how they are pressured by radio stations to play for free at these big Christmas and summer concerts in exchange for air play.

A. The alternative, I suppose, is for radio stations to play music that is not popular with the audience, and I think given the choice, most listeners would prefer the former to the latter. If an artist is popular with a new song, if it's something that appeals to a large number of people, that song will get played. That's the way the business works. It's a hotly competitive business, and people vote with their dial every day. The name of the game is to provide programming that people will come back to.

Q. So your basic gripe with Petty is that he is eulogizing someone who isn't dead and something that still exists?

A. In a nutshell, yeah. If the claim is that somehow radio is all bland and boring, our response is that's not an accurate reflection of the business today. Tom Petty is being played all over American radio today, he has a hit song, end of story; his argument has no validity.

Dear corporate America: Tom Petty doesn't like you

http://www.radio-subversive.com/websites/Petty%20corporatepop-opoly.mht

He won't back down: Tom Petty takes on the corporate pop-opoly in 'The Last DJ'

Steve Morse

Boston Globe

Published Dec. 8, 2002 POP08

Dear corporate America: Tom Petty doesn't like you.

For years, Petty has been a rock rebel who fought for his rights and lashed out at the conglomerates that turn artists into numbers on a ledger sheet. His latest album, "The Last DJ," is Petty's sharpest attack yet, targeting corporate radio stations and record labels as well as greedy rock stars who cave in to sponsorships and high-priced "golden circle" concert tickets.

"The culture is getting meaner and meaner," said Petty, who brings his Heartbreakers to St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center on Monday. "If you go to artists or record-business people, no one thinks that it's them causing the problems.

But it's all of us, in a way. The album is a statement about the declining moral values in society, and that we don't really care enough about each other anymore."

Only an artist of Petty's stature could dare make a record like "The Last DJ." When Petty speaks, people listen. That will happen when you've survived 25 years in a fickle industry and have just been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"The artists who have been around have got to take responsibility for the power we have," he said.

The title track of "The Last DJ" is a fiery tune that defends freedom of choice for radio DJs, whose song lists usually are chosen by anonymous consultants: "You can't turn him into a company man/ You can't turn him into a #####/ And the boys upstairs just don't understand anymore."

It's really a "pro-radio song," Petty said. And though some radio programmers were shocked, the song was the most added single at Triple A (adult album alternative) and rock stations when it was released.

Petty said the CD uses radio stations and record labels as a metaphor for the "corporate nightmares" affecting many industries. But it's hard to avoid the specificity of the lyrics of "Joe," about a cynical record-label chief executive seeking new teen singers to exploit:

"Go get me a kid with a good-looking face/ Bring me a kid who can remember his place. . . . Or bring me a girl/ They're always the best/ You put 'em on stage and you have 'em undress."

Then there's "Money Becomes King," a gutsy track about a singer named Johnny who doubles the price of his concert tickets, sells out to a beer sponsor and plays to upscale fans who "sat in golden circles and waiters served them wine/ And talked through all the music and paid John little mind."

"Rich people aren't fun to play to," said Petty. "And a rock show is still just a rock show. I've never seen one that is worth $100." (The top price for Monday's show is $55.)

"Everyone seems so concerned with making as much money as could possibly be made," he said. "It used to be OK to turn a healthy profit, but you didn't have to take every damned dime you could get. It's completely accountant-driven now."

Sticking to his guns

Petty's new album is the most radical protest recording of the year from a mainstream rock star. So if you work for Petty's label -- the very corporate Warner Bros. -- what do you think of a record like this?

"Tom is talented enough and blessed enough that he's always been able to stick to his guns," said Warner executive vice-president Diarmuid Quinn. "He practices what he preaches. And nobody here in this building has said, 'Forget Tom Petty' because he's talking about us. They understand where he's going, and Tom has also come in here and perfectly articulated his position to everybody.

"We also understand that he's making a bigger statement about the world, not just the music business. I would call the album more of a reinforcement of a sentiment that a lot of people are feeling. The reality is that we all work for corporations, and we all have to deal with quarterly profits and stock prices. It's not like the '70s or '80s, when it was more about just the music. The world is different today."

Petty worked two years on the music, and it rivals his best work. He and the Heartbreakers offer a thoughtful amalgam of pop and psychedelia, with such influences as Pink Floyd ("Like a Diamond") and Bob Dylan ("Have Love Will Travel," which has a "Basement Tapes" feel).

Not every song is about the music industry. There are touching love songs, plus a tune about the homeless ("Lost Children") and an incorrigible Lothario ("The Man Who Loves Women"). But many songs are threaded together, and the DJ from the first track reappears later on. The album ends on a stirring note with "Can't Stop the Sun," proof that Petty wanted to take his shots, but also offer hope. As he sings in conclusion:

Hey, Mr. Businessman
You may think it's all over
But there'll be more just like me
Who won't give in, who'll rise again
Can't stop a man from dreaming
On and on and on.