I clearly remember the Great Recession, which happened after the real estate crash of 2008-2009. I had just been laid off in 2006-2007, and when the big Crash happened, I was in college, for the second time, and after 2010 I was working semi-regular in the legal industry through the rest of the Recession.
Many of my boss's clients during the 2010's were bankruptcy cases. We helped a lot of people get back on their feet again.
I also remember driving down the main street of my city during the early to mid-2010's and seeing half of the windows boarded up or covered by illustrations and posters. There were a lot of vacant buildings and empty storefronts, and that only started changing at the end of that decade.
Then, of course, there was a small economic boom before the Pandemic hit.
The lingering nature of the Great Recession in many parts of the US was not widely publicized, for some reason. But there were some articles by some US and UK newspapers concerning the delayed Recovery -- especially in the Rust Belt and in parts of the South, as well as Appalachia and the Rural Western US. Many media observers said that some career fields that were slammed by the Great Recession would never return -- especially coal industry jobs, and other legacy fields like manufacturing, lumbering, mining, and a lot of energy production.
What were all those laid off workers supposed to do?
"Learn to Code," they said.
Just deal with the fact your job is never coming back, go to school, and "Learn to Code."
After all, computer tech is growing, and those jobs will be limitless. Computers and the internet are the future. There will always be jobs in those fields.
Or so they said.
In other words, all those laid off energy, manufacturing, and service workers -- especially those in legacy fields -- were supposed to go to tech school or college and get 'retraining', and the buzz phrase in the 2010's -- just 10 years ago, really -- was 'Learn to Code', learn how to program computer apps, web services, websites, and computer systems.
Being laid off on New Year's Eve 2006, I found out the hard way just how difficult it can be to find employment in your field when your field of work is in decline. According to NAICS -- the job statistic part of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics -- my field was 'Sound Engineering'. And thanks to computer tech taking over in Radio and Recording, the numbers of 'Sound Engineers' in the US was in decline.
The field of 'Sound Engineering' simply was NOT predicted to increase in numbers. It's one reason that when I went back to college, I had to choose the paralegal field because it most fit my aptitude and previous schooling, and because I didn't have the math capability to 'learn to code' or get into a tech field.
That said, when I kept hearing politicians and news media pundits tell laid off workers that they just needed to "Learn to Code", I was suspicious, because nothing seems guaranteed in this world, especially with job markets. I had learned that in Radio.
After all, when I went to college the first time around in the 1980's, Radio, TV, and Newspapers were supposed to be growing fields that would never suffer massive job losses. It only took around 25 years for those fields to turn into disappearing, 'legacy' fields where annual layoffs are a normal thing. Newspapers folded by the thousands in just one year in 2022. The number of journalists in the US right now is around 10% of what the number was in 1986, when I graduated from the University.
And the number of journalists drops every year now. It's the same in Radio and TV.
LEARN TO CODE -- THEN WE'LL LAY YOU OFF
So -- how did this "Learn to Code" thing turn out?
Well, not so good after all, it seems.
Many of America's biggest tech firms are announcing massive layoffs that make those in Radio look pale. Some estimates of last year's tech layoffs amounted to 245,000 tech workers.
This year, so far, 142,000 layoffs in Tech have been announced. That is 387,000 tech jobs either lost, or about to be lost, in just a year and a half.
Well known Tech companies like Meta (Facebook & Instagram), LinkedIn, Intuit, Amazon, Microsoft, Wix, CloudFlare, PayPal, Cisco, Coinbase, GM, Nike, Snapchat, GoPro, Vimeo, Disney, Oracle, T-Mobile, Epic Games, and Ubisoft have all announced layoffs scheduled for this year.
Although the US economy has been hit by a war-related boost in energy prices and some industries were hit by the tariffs that were enacted in the Spring of 2025, most of these Tech companies are saying that the adoption of AI is the reason for most of their layoffs.
AI WAS PREDICTED TO KILL JOBS -- in the 2010's, No One Listened
AI was forecast long ago to be a problem for the American worker. I remember reading articles in the newspapers back in 2012, 2013, and 2014 about how AI was going to make 50% of the workforce redundant within 50 years.
There were a lot of people back then saying that would not be true -- AI would just be another form of Tech, and Tech companies would always need people to program the AI.
In other words, "Learn to Code."
How's that working out, folks? Not too good.
Needless to say -- I really feel for all the people being laid off.
Trust me: I know how that feels.
AI IS KILLING SELF-PUBLISHING FOR A LOT OF AUTHORS
I've said here before that I am an independent author. I don't make much, if any, money from my eBooks, but I do have a strong connection to the independent author forums and author social media, and track what goes on in independent authoring and publishing.
And some independent, eBook authors online are complaining that AI-written books are literally killing their incomes. All the AI competition -- AI-written books, introduced by the hundreds every week, all with AI-produced covers, flooding the eBook marketplace, making eBooks written by REAL authors more and more invisible -- it's killing self-published authors books and revenues.
And this sort of trend is coming to EVERY CONTENT FIELD, and probably most career fields.
AI has already made photographers, illustrators, journalists, writers, authors, voice talent, models, actors, editors, paralegals, telemarketers, secretaries, receptionists, musicians, video producers, clerical workers, and some educators redundant. And the job losses from AI are just starting.
Lawyers, teachers, analysts, researchers, agents of all types, librarians, professors, historians, middle level managers -- all these career fields and more may be next in line for the AI job loss chopping block.
And if you add in the increase of AI programmed robots in completely automated factories -- and similar robotics-related job losses -- there won't be much left for human employment.
And the AI losses right now are hitting the Tech field, the field that everyone said would always be immune to layoffs and job-killing AI.
So how do we fix this problem? Can we?
I really don't know. But it bothers me to see this happen. Like I said, I was laid off in 2006. My Radio job never came back. My old newspaper job I had in the 80's never came back. If I were to try to find new employment in the legal field tomorrow, I doubt there are jobs available. If I were depending on income from my eBook sales, I'm sure I'd be feeling the pinch from AI-produced competition.
We're in a new era, folks, and it doesn't look all that pretty. And sometimes this merry-go-round of get laid off / get retraining / get laid off again / get more retraining just looks more and more like a broken promise.
IN OTHER LIFE....
I just paid off the last of my late mother's debts. That's a big load of rocks off my shoulders. The weather's been a bit better. My neighbor, who is a mechanic, moved back in across the street with his wife and kids, so hopefully my Lincoln Continental can get fixed and back to 100% so I can drive around a bit once more. It runs. I just need it to run dependably.
I added about 90-100 feet (30 meters, roughly) to my shortwave antenna on the 19th of May, and 25th of May, by running a spool of wire outside to my hawthorn tree. At first I added about 50-60 feet, and then I added some more a few nights later. I know have about 7-8 dbu additional signal strength for my radios.
It's my way of preparing for the Solar Minimum, I guess. Right now there is a Morse Code, ham radio contest going on. I heard the Chatham Islands this morning -- a station called ZL7IO. The Chatham Islands are a part of New Zealand, and they're right next to the International Date Line. Pretty cool to hear, even if it was just Morse Code.
My XHDATA D808 radio is really good with Morse Code, actually. It's also great for MW and LW. It has Airband, which is useful for current, local weather reports from the Renton Airport. FM is good, but I'm not an FM DXer, so I can't say how DX-worthy the FM is on the D808. But the other bands really pull in the signals well.
I've still been riding my bike at nights, when it's cool and quiet out. And I'm still playing my bagpipes, trying to learn an old tune called Blue Bonnets Over The Border. I always wanted to learn it, but never thought I could. I've got it about 80-90% down.
Now it's back to writing my next eBook which won't sell because of AI. :-)
Enough doom and gloom. Here's some 2010's pop to brighten your day. Andy Grammer put out this hit in 2010, right after the Great Recession was kicking in big time. It's a great song. I first heard it on Radio Disney in 2011. Keep Your Head Up!
I miss the early 2010's. Yeah, the economy was still crap, but the pop music was so good, and it was so upbeat and fun.
CBS News Radio, RIP. They're 99 years old and having their plug pulled.
America's CBS Radio News, a top-of-the-hour news program on hundreds of radio stations across the US, is shutting down in May of this year, according to several reports and a memo from the head of CBS.
The reason for pulling the plug on the 99 year-oldnews service is apparently economic. The heads of CBS, in a memo to CBS Radio News employees, said that "a shift in radio programming strategies" (whatever that means) and "challenging economic realities" (lessening revenues) have "made it impossible to continue the service."
The complete notice sent from the CBS heads to their employees can be read here.:
CBS Radio News presently is broadcast on the top of each hour on approximately 700 radio stations in the Unites States. It's long been considered one of the premiere news services in the country. There aren't that many radio news networks in the United States -- aside from CBS Radio News, there is ABC Radio News, Fox Radio News, Townhall, and a few smaller services, some of them regional.
And, of course, on the Public Radio side of things, there is NPR.
So why, really, did CBS pull the plug on its vaunted CBS Radio News broadcasts?
Money, that's why -- at least according to a few Radio experts and observers. There really isn't enough money in Radio news anymore to keep the lights on at the news department. CBS Radio News was a commercial service, and with Radio revenues down across the industry, having a large Radio news department doesn't pencil out the way it did in 2006 or 1996.
Radio revenues nationwide are down around 50-60% or more since 2005. Radio took a big hit during the Great Recession after 2008, and the Pandemic economy during Corona didn't help, either. Internet competition has hurt Radio, which doesn't help radio news. Many stations went under after the Pandemic faded, and this economic malaise affecting Radio in general hurts the news services, too.
Competition from the internet has affected all 'legacy' media -- Radio, TV, Cable networks, Newspapers, Magazines, etc. The large advertising agencies have more media choices than ever -- they not only have what's left of Broadcast and Print media, but they have an infinite number of websites and apps to use for their advertising purposes. All those ads you see on YT vids, and the large number of ads popping up on news websites are replacing commercials that used to run on Radio and TV.
When the news of CBS Radio News impending closure hit the Radio side of social media, most reaction seemed to be mixed -- there is a lot of sadness over the coming demise of the network of news greats like Edward R. Murrow, which also had the longest running Radio news program in US history (CBS Radio's World News Roundup).
Also, there are those who say it's just another day in Radio -- another network shut down, another heritage broadcaster pulls the plug. "The money just isn't in it anymore."
And it may very well be true. Some observers who still work in the industry say that Top Of The Hour Radio Newscasts just don't make money. You can't sell those commercials to the big advertisers anymore -- not like in the past. It's one reason that virtually no music radio stations in the US have news anymore. They can't monetize newscasts.
When I was a child, even the Top 40 music stations had newscasts, usually starting at five minutes before the hour. During the 1980's that all disappeared. To hear Radio news, you had to tune to the actual News stations, and those were all on the AM/MW band. Today, most News stations are still on the AM band, and are part of what is keeping AM alive (along with ethnic programming, Sports talk, conservative talk, and religion).
But every few years or so, another News station bites the dust. In Canada, some News radio stations have combined some operations with other stations, in other metros, even 500 miles away. CFFR 660, one of Calgary's news radio stations, runs some traffic and news reports for Vancouver, as it has combined night-time operations with CKWX, 1130. Consequently, you can hear Calgary news and traffic on CKWX at night, too.
WCBS 880, once a great all-News radio station in New York City, had the plug pulled, and it's now syndicated sports shows. KGO San Francisco, a well known News-talk station during the 1960's-2010's, went to Sports-Betting talk, and then the station was shut down, its transmitter now being used by conservative talker KSFO (which moved to KGO's 810 transmitter from their old frequency at 560 kHz).
WCBS, interestingly enough, made a LOT of money. They were the #10 station in the US (AM or FM) in revenues up until their owners pulled the plug on the News programming in 2024. Observers in the industry kept saying "the News format cost too much money to run."
But they were NUMBER TEN in the country.
"But the News format still costs a lot of money to run, so the owners are saving money by running sports." Or so they said.
It still looks a bit odd, that any Radio company would ditch a #10 billing station to run Sports on the cheap, but hey -- when I worked in radio, I was first a newscaster, then a news director for 3 years (at a small public radio station), and then I was a sound engineer for around 16 years -- I wasn't working on the business side of things. So what do I know?
Either way, the movers and shakers at CBS believe that CBS Radio News is costing them too much to produce to keep the shows going out to the 700 affiliates.
I'll end this article with my own feelings. I am really saddened by the death of CBS Radio News. I used to listen to the local CBS news station a lot. During the early Sunday mornings I'd hear The Takeout, with Major Garrett, which was a really good interview show (it's now on YT as a podcast, with 6.9 Million subscribers, but the recent episodes have 6-10K views). I'd also hear the World News Roundup, and sometimes the Weekend version.
Like most Radio aficionados, I remember when network radio was vital. In the 2010's, when I rediscovered the night-time Radio DX hobby, I heard a LOT of network radio -- CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox Radio newscasts, NPR (from Oregon's AM outlet KOAC), and there were several interesting Sports talk networks, with three of them (CBS Sports Radio, NBC Sports Radio, and Fox Sports Radio) associated with their news radio counterparts.
Just over the past several years, Radio networks in general have been dying off. CBS Sports Radio is no more. NBC Sports Radio is no more.
Radio Disney is no more. SB Nation Sports Radio is no more. ESPN Deportes is no
more. Air America left us in the early 2010's, but the few straggling
progressive talkers that still carried a few of their hosts are all gone.
And you can add to that the stations that have
left the air -- most of them AM, but a lot of FM stations are gone, too,
including at least one college FM station in my area.
I know it's just progress,
and change is always with us. But sometimes those changes just don't feel good.
I'll miss hearing CBS Radio News, just as I miss hearing CBS Sports Radio. And just as I miss hearing Radio Disney, a well-operated Hit Radio network that was aimed at kids, but also had a good pop music playlist. When they went off the air it felt like a sock in the gut, being that they livened up the night-time radio airwaves with the really good pop music that was big in the early 2010's.
I suspect that in the future we'll be seeing more Radio networks bite the dust. It's probably a good practice to appreciate the ones that remain. Maybe they have 10-15 years left? We'll see. Because the revenue issues hitting Radio won't go away.
IN OTHER LIFE....
In other life, the weather here has warmed up slightly, and I can hear the frogs croaking and chirruping at night, which usually happens in March during normal years. The past several years this hasn't happened until April or May. My birch tree's climbing rose bush is already starting to bud green.
My cat Bear is doing well. She still is too scared to come out of her room. She's a very skittish cat, but she meows and wants me to pet her, so it's going well.
I'm still having some internet issues, especially when it's cold and rainy. I am looking into alternatives for internet service because of it.
The Ionosphere is Weaker than watered-down Tea
In the DX hobby, the ionosphere is not performing well lately. Some wags in the ham radio hobby and SWL hobby blame Solar flares, but really it's the ionosphere is weakening. I think we are already in the Solar minimum, and it's diving fast, just like in 2018 or so, when SW conditions went from good to fair to abysmal in just a few months.
It's eUV, that supreme factor that makes the ionosphere work. It's been in decline since the mid to late 1990's, and it's also that one factor that you won't find much information about online. There are scientific articles stating that eUV from the Sun makes the ionosphere ionized, but the decline in eUV is only mentioned in one NASA article that hasn't been updated in over 5 years.
Two New MW Stations Heard -- KGOW 1560 and KIRV 1510
So there hasn't been that much to hear, or listen to, on the Shortwaves. Medium Wave, my first DX love, is OK but I haven't heard any new stations aside from a couple surprises, usually due to human or computer error, not ionospheric conditions.
I heard KGOW, Houston Texas on 1560 kHz one a.m. when they had just switched up to day power, and KVAN, a Spanish language religious station in Pasco, WA had a period of silence (probably a computer glitch or other issue at that station). KGOW is a Vietnamese and Asian language station out of Houston, and the way I was able to ID it was hearing a woman speaking Viet, and the music was Asian pop standards. As soon as KVAN's audio came back on, KGOW was gone.
Another new station, KIRV Fresno, on 1510 kHz, was a surprise appearance. They are a daytime only station out of Fresno, with Spanish language religion. The talk on this station matched the KIRV stream, and that's how I was able to ID that station. Otherwise, 1510 had Ben Maller (KGA Spokane) and KSFN Piedmont, California's Mexican ranchero music.
Travelling the Airwaves with the Sangean PR-D4W
Both of these stations I heard on my trusty Sangean PR-D4W, with help from my Eton AN-200 loop antenna. The PR-D4W is my best MW DX radio, bar none. Not only does it pull in stations terrifically, it sounds as good, or better, than a GE Superadio, especially if you use headphones.
It has 'smart tuning', where the DSP chip will take 2-3 seconds to maximise the signal once you tune to a MW channel. Sometimes you have to re-up the tuner -- flip down to the next frequency and back up again, for the DSP to maximise the best. This is probably because radio signals fade, and the DSP might 'lock in' at the wrong time during a fade-up. But it often only takes one 're-up' to get the signal as loud as it's going to get. Then I peak it with my AN-200 and I'm listening to MW DX on a channel in high fidelity.
I have to admit that during the nights that Shortwave is dead -- to where even the noise maker on 6838 kHz is inaudible -- it's nice to plug the headphones into the PR-D4W and hear talk, news, and music on the AM band in hi-fi. I often hear KEJB Eureka, California, an oldies station on 1480 kHz. They play a wide mix of oldies.
One night they played a track I hadn't heard in ages, Steam's Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye -- a track which was never intended to be released as a single. In fact, its makers were just trying to fill tape to make a B-side to back Garrett Scott's next single (Garrett Scott was the singer on the Steam record).
Garrett Scott's own single never was released, and Na Na Hey Hey was released as an A-side at the insistence of Mercury Records. It's the only prominent single that Garrett Scott sang on, that got extensive airplay, and it became a hit -- knocking the Beatles off the number one spot in December, 1969.
Here it is. Listen to the drums. It also has congas and Garrett Scott hitting a piece of wood with a drumstick. The instruments are all keyboards -- a piano or two, several organs, and some vibrophones (all played by Paul Leka, who wrote and produced Green Tambourine, a hit track by the Lemon Pipers in 1968). The drums were mostly an 8 bar tape loop, taken from a drum track to another, non-released Garrett Scott single. I think there is a primitive rhythm-box in there, too. Being that it was made to be a throw-away B-side, it's a remarkable recording. And what a catchy chorus!:
A TV promo video for Na Na Hey Hey, by the Steam touring band. The singer here, Bill Steer, didn't sing on the Na Na Hey Hey single, but I think he sang on the album that came out after the single hit.
This is the LONG version. The one that was a hit on radio was a shorter edit. This video shows the Steam touring band miming to the hit. None of the guys in this video were on the record. They were a put together band to capitalize on the hit. The music, of course, is off the CD.
The famous Hollywood Sign, a US national landmark.
(photo courtesy Wikipedia)
When I was growing up, the influence of Hollywood, and Los Angeles, was everywhere. Every movie was made in Hollywood. Most of the music -- more than half of it, probably -- was recorded in Los Angeles, with some of the recording studios in Hollywood. The Rolling Stones 60's albums that weren't recorded in London (at Olympic Studios), for example, were recorded in Hollywood studios like Sunset Sound and Goldstar, where the famous, sunshiny, 60's music from Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys to nearly every folk rock pop hit from that era -- were all recorded.
Van Halen's albums were recorded there, at Sunset Sound. Kiss recorded in or near Hollywood. Guns 'N' Roses recorded their first album near Hollywood, and were part of the Hollywood metal scene in the 80's. Tons of vital rock and pop songs were recorded in the Hollywood studios.
From the 1960's through the 2000's most of the popular Rock music was recorded in LA. Even Nirvana's breakthrough album, Nevermind, was recorded in or near Hollywood. A lot of Nu-Metal acts I loved in the 2000's -- from Korn to Coal Chamber to Engines of Aggression to Buckcherry to Limp Bizkit -- were either part of the Los Angeles scene, or recorded there.
Most, if not all, of the movies I enjoyed were Hollywood productions. As a child of the 70's and 80's, TV was all Hollywood. In the 1980's and early 90's, I was an aspiring musician. To me -- as it was to most musicians in Seattle during those times -- Los Angeles was where you made it big. That was because Los Angeles (Hollywood) was THE center of Rock and pop music.
A view of Los Angeles from behind the Hollywood sign. Looks like paradise, doesn't it. Balmy weather all year long, and look at all those nice houses. Way off in the distance is downtown LA, and off the picture, to the right, are the beaches. But the mainstay industry of the Los Angeles region -- the entertainment industry -- is taking a big, big hit. Will it recover, or will AI do it all in?
(Photo courtesy Wikipedia)
But now there is a big problem. Hollywood is DEAD.
There have been some videos on YouTube, put there by podcasters who know the industry, who are talking about the fact that Hollywood is dying -- the famous movie and TV production studios have vacant lots and empty soundstages. Actors and all the other people who were part of the industry are unemployed, or only working part time, having to travel to other places to do their job. They're hurting for money.
There have been reports that box office revenues are at record lows. New 'blockbuster' movies aren't busting the block anymore. Something is awry here.
This chart, obtained from The-Numbers dot com, is pretty informative. On the left column, you'll see that in 2025 the Movie Industry sold roughly half the box office tickets it sold in 2005. In the third column, where the numbers account for inflation, you can see that in 2025 the Movie Industry made roughly half the box office receipts it made in 2005.
If the chart is hard to read, it can be right clicked and displayed in a new tab or window. (chart courtesy The-Numbers.com)
Looking at ticket sales stats and box office revenues over the past 20 years, the US movie industry is not only seeing nearly half the theatre audience it had in 2005, it is also making roughly half of what it made in 2005, when accounting for inflation. Now, it's not easy to find complete reports, which include streaming movie revenues, which might make the two figures more even, but a 50% cut at the box office from 2001 to 2025 is fairly telling.
Think about it. In just twenty years, the movie theatres have half the viewers and half the revenues they had in 2005.
This chart shows the Movie Industry's box office receipts, year by year (red line) and number of tickets sold per year (blue line) since 1995, which was 30 years ago. As you can see, the number of tickets sold started declining in 2004, took a deep dive during Covid, and is lower than it probably was in the 1980's (off the chart).
Correspondingly, the amount of revenue per ticket increased, starting in 2005. But if you account for inflation (see previous chart), the Industry's ticket revenues started flatlining in 2013, and making less money after that.
(chart courtesy The-Numbers.com)
The numbers indicated that the monster of entertainment we used to call Hollywood -- and Los Angeles -- is fading.
This leaves the question: What went wrong?
It turns out that a combination of factors killed Hollywood. Poor governance by California and LA politicians -- high taxes, prohibitively high permit fees for location shoots. The fires did not help any. The strikes did not help any. California's tax policies moving parts of the industry to places like Texas and Georgia did not help any. Covid definitely did not help any.
On the other hand, the movies coming out of Hollywood haven't exactly been earthshaking. The trend of constant sequels, comic-book remakes, bland plots or non-stop superhero drivel hasn't exactly made people want to go to the theatre to pay $20 for tickets and another $20 for popcorn and a drink. They stay home and stream -- which makes Hollywood less money.
Most of these factors leading to Hollywood's decline are mentioned by the movers and shakers in the videos I have linked here.
Brian Entin's interesting vid on Hollywood turning into a Ghost Town, which includes an interview with Mel Gibson about Hollywood dying.
Mel Gibson, who made his first big movie in Melbourne in 1979 ('Mad Max'), and came to the US after The Road Warrior hit in 1981, has been either starring in movies, or making his own movies, for over 40 years. He knows a bit about Hollywood.
In his view, bad government, Covid, strikes, fires, the incredibly high cost of living in California, the incredibly high cost of doing business in California -- and other factors -- all have combined to turn Hollywood into a ghost town, which is how he describes it.
In an interview with podcaster Brian Entin, Mel Gibson said it was cheaper to fly an entire movie production to Bulgaria for three days, film some scenes there -- and the cost, including housing and transportation -- was less than it would be for shooting the same scene for one day in Los Angeles.
Everything is so expensive in LA, Gibson says. Even the cost of an apple in LA is so much higher than it is in Rome or Bulgaria.
Looking at the footage in Brian Entin's excellent video on the death of Hollywood drives Mel's point home -- Hollywood is indeed becoming a ghost town. Entin shows scenes of empty parking lots. Empty buildings. Soundstages with no activity -- no people.
It's all DEAD.
For those who work in Hollywood, it's a personal disaster. For those of us who grew up on Hollywood movies and music, it's heartbreaking.
But it's the new reality.
And this leads to the question: will it ever come back? My conclusion is that it never will. I now will tell you why.
This is a video by the Film Threat podcast on Hollywood dying. It concentrates on LA's Hollywood job losses. Over 20% job loss in just a year... a year that was supposed to be make-or-break for Hollywood.
The video I discuss below, which was a roundtable of FilmThreat industry experts, did not show up in the Blogger search function. Here is a link that that video.:
THEY ALL TALKED ABOUT EVERYTHING EXCEPT the INTERNET and A.I.
In both of the videos I have linked above, there are two things that none of these movers and shakers have mentioned -- two factors that are systemic, and are killing the audio and video entertainment industry -- and one of those factors will kill it off: the death of physical entertainment media (DVD's, CD's), and AI.
First off, the death of physical media sales -- i.e. VHS tapes, DVD's, cassettes and CD sales -- is an important factor affecting Hollywood, because the death of DVD sales removed a massive revenue stream that propped up the movie and recording industries, and gave music and movie producers more money to work with -- more money to take chances on new artists, new scripts, new song and movie ideas. The billions of dollars that came in from CD sales allowed record companies to invest in new artists. DVD sales did the same for movie companies.
The movie industry, like the music industry, openly embraced streaming, without ensuring that DVD or video download SALES would be included in the contracts for licensing. Instead of ensuring that the video-file equivalent of the DVD would be a vital part of movie consumption, the movie industry agreed to the online streaming model, where there is no sale, and the revenues are based on declining box office receipts and abysmally low streaming revenues.
From what I've read, some movie companies rush their products to the streaming services, which undercuts any theatre revenues or whatever remaining DVD sales there may be -- killing off, or choking off two revenue streams.
The music industry did the same thing in 2001 when it embraced MP3 singles as being the only revenue model, and later on the music industry also embraced streaming, letting the revenues dwindle further in the process. They allowed the CD and the MP3 album to be killed off, replacing it with streamed 'album-equivalent-units', which bring in much less revenue.
This lack of sales of the movie or album has stifled creativity, because there is less revenue to invest in new artists or movie products.
Here is an example of how physical album sales helped propel a genre to dominance: Nirvana in 1991.
Nirvana only became massive because of the Nevermind album, which was an example of a record company taking a chance on a small-city (i.e. Seattle) alternative band, a band that as late as 1990 only alt rock and punk rock fans knew about. Once Geffen Records dumped money into recording and production, there was a sellable product, with all this money behind it to push it to radio and MTV.
The money that was used to front the recording, album cover, CD manufacturing; the video production costs, the merch, and the promotion posters and cardboard, record store promotion kiosks -- it all came from other artists' hit album sales.
Other albums that the recording company had in its roster had provided the revenues that were used to record, produce, and promote Nevermind to be the smash hit that it came to be.
Today there are no album sales. Streaming revenues are incredibly low. A million selling CD single in 2001 brought in over $5 million in revenue. A million plays of a single song on streaming platforms today will bring in $4000.
In 2001, a million selling CD album brought in about $18 million. Today, an "Album-Equivalent-Unit' getting one million plays will bring in about $48,000.
Get the picture? There is a lot less money in streaming -- both in music streaming, and in movie streaming. The death of physical media sales killed off a LOT of revenue, not only for the music industry, but the movie industry also. Actor and filmmaker Matt Damon discussed this in an interview several years ago. He said that in the 2000's, a movie producer could take a chance, because if the movie stiffed in the movie theatres, they could always count on DVD sales, and DVD rentals (which brought in more than streaming).
Damon insisted that killing the DVD killed off a lot of revenue, and was one reason that movies are so cookie cutter today -- the studios have less money available to take chances.
So the death of physical media sales (DVD's, CD's) has drastically affected Hollywood. One of the media experts in the second video I linked does talk about how the internet, and Tik-Tok, has changed media consumption, and that is a similar problem for Hollywood, being that the more hours you're watching clips on Tik-Tok, that's less time you're watching Hollywood productions.
But amazingly, none of these experts mentioned the death of the DVD as being one major factor in Hollywood's decline.
A.I. -- THE FINAL NAIL IN HOLLYWOOD'S COFFIN
AI is the 900-pound gorilla in the room that neither Mel Gibson, nor the experts in the second video address when discussing what is happening to Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general. Only one of the experts in the second video alluded to AI being in the future, in passing, where he mentioned that people may soon be able to use prompts to order up their own AI movie, on their phone or laptop.
The reality is that AI is not just going to be a trend. It is going to replace all other forms of audio and visual entertainment. Anyone who has seen the rapid improvement in AI video over the past two years can see that it's not going to go away. It's only going to get better in quality. Right now, the best AI out there can create high quality 10 minute clips. Soon enough -- maybe 5 years or so -- it will be able to create movie-length videos that you won't be able to tell from the movies Hollywood is producing now.
Right now AI is only starting to kill off other entertainment forms. In 20 years it will have finished the job. In the rest of this article I will tell you why.
First, let's look at how things used to be. Then we'll look at how they are now.
It used to be that actors, writers, and musicians would go to Los Angeles to try to make it big. When I still had my rock and roll dreams in the 80's and 90's, Los Angeles was always the place I figured I'd have to go to make it.
Why Los Angeles? Because all of the movie studios, TV studios, and recording studios were there. After all, it's HOLLYWOOD, and all the entertainment industries interconnect there.
And because of LA being so big, so diverse, and such a media center -- after all, it's the number two city in the United States -- it is a natural magnet for movie and music star wannabes. And with the great weather, and the beaches, and the sunshine -- it's naturally a place everyone wants to go.
Of course, music and movies often go hand in hand, as do music and TV. And all the entertainment forms converge together in Hollywood. Music stars used to make music videos -- often, those videos were made by people who were from the movie industry. As late as the 2010's, many music videos looked like full-on Hollywood productions.
This is because they actually were full-on Hollywood productions. Here is an example, which I've used in an earlier article 2 years ago -- Selena Gomez's video for her excellent pop song A Year Without Rain (2010), which looks like a Hollywood movie production.
The video for Selena Gomez's 2010 Top 40 pop hit A Year Without Rain. Look at the direction; the widescreen, high resolution; the breathtaking cinematography; look at how perfect everything is. Not only is it a great song -- but there was a lot of money put into this video. ...Money that the music industry lacks today.
As you can tell, the cinematography is perfect. Selena's hair is perfect. Her makeup is perfect. Every movement of her dress is perfect. The sweeping vista shots in the widescreen video look like big-movie cinematography. It's all that way by design.
It has Hollywood written all over it. There was a LOT of money expended to make the video, and the pop track wasn't even a top ten hit. It was a great song, but didn't top the charts.
But look at all the money that went into that video!
Today, most of a video like that would be AI. In fact, in maybe ten years the entirety of such a video -- including the singer, music production and songwriting -- will all be AI.
This is how far we've progressed in just 15 years. From awesome pop hits, sung by real singers, written by real songwriters, and played by real musicians, to everything being done by a computer app.
What does this mean for Hollywood? It means 'it's dead, Jim.'
One reason that Hollywood was such an important place was because it was a LOCATION where everyone involved in music, movies, TV, and other audio-visual entertainment lived or travelled to get albums recorded, videos filmed, movies produced. To record an album, you could do it in Seattle, but the big production albums were finished and mastered in Los Angeles -- because that's where the big name producers were based. That was where the record companies were based. That's where the videos were made for most rock and pop hits.
With AI, none of that is needed. It all can be done via the internet, and in the future, it will all be done on your phone, on your AI app.
At the same time, we've seen the Tik-Tok effect, where there are no big singing stars anymore, and there are really no big movie stars anymore -- the internet has democratized and nichefied audio and video entertainment so much that the days of the mass media star are drawing to a close.
And AI will kill that off, too. Just give it time.
A.I. WILL ALSO REPLACE THE AUTHOR
I'll close this article off with a more personal take. As many of you may know, I've written books and published them on Amazon. Consequently, I frequent some forums for eBook authors, and a couple subreddits (on Reddit) where eBook authors hang out.
The vast majority of them are willingly blinded to the disaster that is coming down the pike. They really think that AI will have no effect whatsoever on the eBook publishing business.
"Readers will always want to read books by real human authors," they invariably say. "AI writing is trash, no one will read it," they invariably say. "Books are different from video and music," they invariably say.
They are blind, blind, blind.
First off, I have read some of the AI produced fiction recently. Sure, some of it is trashy writing. AI is nothing like Melville, Dickens or Shelley in its ability to turn out literature -- not yet. It hasn't even reached Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Robert Ruark or George Orwell level of writing skills yet.
But at the same time, most modern fiction is pulp fiction, or a variety of it, and I can't see where AI fiction is much different from any drugstore pulp novel writing. Are there glitches and some issues with the stories? Sure. But any glitches will undoubtedly be smoothed out and fixed as the AI-writing models are streamlined. Another issue is that the average eBook fiction author today reads fiction differently from the way the average consumer reads it. I've seen a lot of top selling books that weren't anything close to what I'd call literary in nature.
But they sell. And so will AI fiction, eventually.
Also, these AI detractors aren't keeping track of the trend in book consumption. Younger demos do not read books the same way that GenXer's, older Millennials, and Boomers did. They read less books, and buy fewer books than their older counterparts did.
Younger people are also much more open to new technology, and especially more open to new entertainment technology. That includes AI fiction writing, as well as AI videos, AI produced music, and the like.
If you are an eBook author and you think AI isn't going to eventually replace you, you are being willfully ignorant, friend. It's going to take over everything, and it's just a matter of time.
There will always be human written books, just as there will always be real music made by real people on real instruments. There will always be real people taking real photos on real cameras.
They just won't be making much, if any, money doing it.
BREAKING RUST: THE FUTURE IS NOW
Just recently, a new wrinkle in the AI factor has surfaced: a mysterious AI country singer named Breaking Rust topped the Country Digital Song Sales chart on Billboard. It's had 4 million streams on Spotify and 11 million streams on YouTube (according to CBS News).
Sounds like Gospel tinged Country to me. Not too different in tone from Lil Nas X's 'Old Town Road', which was a smash just before Corona hit. 'Walk My Walk' has had 4 million streams on Spotify. That means it's made the creators (whoever they are) somewhere around $16,000.
If you listen toBreaking Rust,it sounds just like modern day country -- the words, of course are cliche. So are the words in most modern country songs -- I hear a lot of country while scanning the AM band at night, and the lyrics are almost non-stop cliches. The Breaking Rust singer sounds like a soulful white guy, or a black American gospel singer with a country-tinged accent.
Now, the fact that this track topped the MP3 Download Sales chart isn't necessarily a harbinger for the end of all musicians. But it shows exactly what AI is capable of doing. And if you listen to the track, it's not much different from what you might hear on the radio today, production and content-wise.
This is the future folks. We're already in it.
MY ONLY VISIT TO HOLLYWOOD
After viewing the first two videos I linked above, and writing this article, I have to admit that it's very saddening what has happened to Hollywood, and the entertainment industry in general.
I only have been to Hollywood once. It was during a road trip I took, by car, with a former girlfriend. We drove from Seattle to New Orleans and back. The furthest east we made it was Pass Christian, Mississippi, where my ex and I waded in the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. I clearly recall the heat of the sun, the calming feel of the warm water, and hearing and seeing the flying fishes flip away in front of us as we were nearly waist deep in the water. It is one of my fondest memories. I was truly happy.
On the way back home from New Orleans, we went through Los Angeles. That night, we stopped in Hollywood. Sunset and Vine. I got out of the car, and walked up and down the block, and we both got a can of soda at a corner market.
So this is Hollywood, I thought to myself. On one hand, Sunset Boulevard reminded me of First Avenue in Seattle, a key thoroughfare that used to be a combination of Skid Row and culture central -- it ran from the touristy Pioneer Square district, pass several adult video arcades and pawn shops and music stores, to the famous Pike Place Market. Sunset reminded me slightly of this combination of run down and upscale.
On the other hand, my heart was pounding, because I was there -- at the center of the universe -- Sunset and Vine!
We drove west on Sunset, before heading north, and back to Interstate 5, so we could make our way back home.
Looking south from Sunset as we were driving towards the hills, you could see this vast panorama of lights to the south of us -- Beverly Hills, and the western part of LA that is the 'Los Angeles' that always makes it in the movies. In fact, the view reminded me of the sweeping vista one can see in the 2000's movie Crash, which features LA, with all of its diversity, glamour, and its hope, and also its underbelly. There is a sweeping vista in that movie that looked identical to the grand view I saw driving west on Sunset.
It was my only foray into Hollywood, but one I'll never forget.
Hollywood is that magical place that now is facing a declining future. Hollywood the neighborhood will always exist. I'm sure that there will always be entertainment in some form happening there, and being produced there.
But the glamour days are over. AI is going to kill it all off.
I'll be glad if that doesn't happen that way, but I don't think I'm wrong. AI is changing everything, folks, and we're in for a wild ride.
My last thoughts are a bit historical, I suppose. Hollywood as we still know it is only about 100 years old. The movie industry, which had been previously based out of New Jersey, moved west to Los Angeles in the 1920's -- just 100 years ago. 100 years is a long time for a single location like Hollywood to be the center of the entertainment universe.
It was a good run.
IN OTHER LIFE....
In other life, it's been going normally. I'm still sorting out some finances left over from my mother's passing, and I'm still riding my bike at night, playing guitar and working on my bagpipes, so I can play them for the family at Thanksgiving. The temperatures have been moderate for November, which is refreshing. When I ride my bike at night, it feels like Spring.
I just got some new, plastic/synthetic Surefire brand chanter reeds for my bagpipes, and they work really well. There are four different strengths, and I ordered one of each, to figure out which strength reed works the best.
I also have a new cat. She's a grey tabby, 8-9 years old. I'm the third owner. The former owner couldn't keep her anymore. She was almost headed to be euthanized. She is now in my upstairs bathroom, which is heated -- and it's her own space.
She still isn't sure of me. Hisses a lot -- it's because she's scared. Cats don't like change. I'm using food as a weapon -- getting her to get to know me, because I'm the human putting the food in the dish. She still hisses a bit, but is meowing more and hissing less.
I don't have any pics because both my phone and camera's memories are full and I need to clear them to take more pics. She looks a bit like my Fluffamuffins did, my little grey cat that died just over a year and a half ago. Here is a pic of Fluffy as a reminder of what she looked like.:
Fluffy, a.k.a. Fluffamuffins, when a kitten, in 2011. My new cat looks incredibly like her.
As you can tell, I was working on my Superadio some time before or after I took this pic. Fluffy just made herself at home on the table.
I think I'll call the new cat Princess, because she's a shelter cat that's on her third (or fourth?) owner since she was at a Lompoc, California animal shelter in 2017.
My flag flies again on Memorial Day. Grey skies, moderate temperatures, hey -- it must be the end of May!
As I start this article, it is around 65F out, and it's lightly raining outside. It's mid-morning here. The neighborhood's rhododendron farmers (folks who have a few rhodie plants out in their yards) have done well -- there are less of them than in previous years, but their bushes are blooming, finally. And yes, you heard that correctly -- there are less of them than before.
There used to be a street in my neighborhood where maybe half of the homes had awesome rhodies, and I have posted pics of those as recently as 2018 or 2019 here on my blog.
Here is a couple of those photographs. All the bushes in the next two pictures no longer exist, sadly.:
One pic I took in May, 2015, and which I posted on a blog article here back then. All of these beautiful rhodie bushes are now gone. They were torn out some time last year. :-(
I took this picture in April, 2015, and posted it in my blog that month. In fact, it was April 15th. The rhododendrons started flowering a month earlier than they did this year. All of these beautiful rhododendron bushes were torn out maybe two years ago.
This is a rhododendron that was full of awesome blooms this year. I took this pic in May, and this bush is in one of the few yards where the owners kept all their rhodies intact. :-)
Here is a mixed rhododendron, on a moderately warm, grey morning in May. There were a lot of bumblebees checking out the flowers, but unfortunately none of the pics I took of them came out well. The little guys would either hide inside a bloom, or fly away just before I could get them in focus. This is the one yard left in my neighborhood that has all of its rhododendrons intact.
But over the past two years or so, a lot of those beautiful, tall rhododendron bushes were torn out by more than one neighbor, for unknown reasons. I don't know why anyone would tear out a rhododendron bush, but they apparently do. There used to be about four or five yards in my neighborhood that had 4-6 rhododendrons, and they were always a beautiful thing to see every mid-April. Now there is just one neighbor who has about four or five bushes -- the other neighbors who had multiple rhodies had them removed.
On a personal level, I'm still dealing with the aftermath of tax season, and I'm still recuperating from an illness I got a week and a half ago. And no sooner than I got my car back from the shop after a serious repair to the leaky gas line / dying gas pumps / clogged gas filter, etc., a tire went completely flat. As they say -- when it rains, it pours. My fiction writing has halted, due to the recent illness and a serious case of writer's block. Maybe I need to drink more coffee? I still play my guitars -- both 12 string and electric, but it's mainly to keep the ability going, and relearn a few acoustic songs I wrote in 2011-2013.
My cat is doing O.K., although she still demands that I watch her eat.
What was left of the Great Aurora by the time I photographed it. I missed seeing the colors, but I did see these haunting looking rays projecting upwards and outwards from the North, at the time I took this picture on my Nikon L32, around 3:30 a.m.. I wish the rays of light would have shown up in the photo. Oh well.
SOLAR FLARES & THE GREAT AURORA
On the radio side of things, the night-time, long distance radio conditions have been mediocre, with a few notable exceptions. As always, even when overall SW conditions are mediocre, there are some surprises.
As most MW and SW DXers know, we had a massive Solar Flare about two weeks ago, on May 10th -- the biggest one in 20 years -- and it wiped out all of the SW bands, turning them to quiet hiss. The night of the biggest Flare (and the Aurora, which I could just see early in the a.m.) produced just one SW station out of Mexico, that I could barely hear on two of my radios (my XHDATA D-328 + wire, and Panasonic RF-B45 + wire), so I know it wasn't some sort of overload image. Besides, the MW band was mediocre, so no MW stations would be strong enough to overload SW -- and they don't play Mexicano folk music, which I did hear on 6185 kHz, fading in an out in the grainy, Auroral static.
So here's to Mexico's Radio Educacion: you were the only station on SW heard in my part of the world during the 'killer' Solar Flare. PS, your music and programming is cool.
Since the Solar Flare of May 10th subsided it's still mostly poor to fair DX conditions on the MW and SW bands, so even though I tune them to see what's out there, it's not like I'm hearing a ton of new and interesting stuff.
The MW band in general has been sounding like poor summer evening conditions since the flare, although I did hear a Las Vegas station really well a couple nights ago, KMZQ, on 670. It was the loudest and most consistent signal I'd ever heard from that station. Other nights? It's nothing but staticky hiss in KBOI Boise's extremely tight 'null' spot on 670. And for those not acquainted with 'nulling' a station, it's what one does on the AM band to reduce one station's signal to nothing, so you can hear a second or third station in its place. It's a trick I discovered on my Sanyo M9926 Boombox in 1983 or so. I had read about it previously, but hadn't actually tried it.
Even a simple AM-FM-SW radio like this XHDATA is probably capable of FM DXing, as this radio pulls in FM almost better than most of my other FM portables, thanks to an excellent DSP chip inside.
This XHDATA D-328 pulls in a few fringe region FM stations really well at my location, just off the whip antenna. No real FM DX on any radio, yet, though. A lot of FM DX depends on location, location, location.
On the FM side of things, I haven't really done any attempts at FM DXing, although in other parts of the US there are guys who have started doing it. Spring and Summer are apparently the best times to hear Ionospheric E-Layer skip on the FM band, which is a bit more sporadic than the D- and F-layer skip that we MW and SW DXer's experience. Some of the catches FM DXer's get in other parts of the country are fairly spectacular, considering.... One WA state FM DXer has heard most of the Western US states on FM. Any time I've tuned around it's locals, fringe stations, or nothing. Sometimes Tropospheric 'ducting' will bring in Canadian stations from Victoria fairly well -- well, two of them. One time I heard a station out of The Dalles, Oregon -- I can't remember which one. It had to be either really good Tropospheric ducting, or perhaps some E-skip, as The Dalles is over 200 miles away and there are a lot of mountains in the way. That station is my best catch on FM, on my GE Superadio 1, a long long time ago.
I suppose I should try a lot more at the FM DX hobby. Some day, maybe....
I've also entertained the notion of eventually becoming a ham radio operator, although I don't presently have the finances to get a decent rig. If I do eventually take that step, it will be some years away, when finances permit. I already know that it would be a simple, bare-bones operation. One simple rig, a code key, and one simple antenna. Make the best out of whatever you've got.
But I have other, more pressing tasks to deal with before I even consider something like that.
My mystery bush -- some sort of Wild Rose, I think -- that blooms around this time every year. A friend of my father's planted it next to our birch tree one year a long time ago, and it's bloomed every year, ever since.
Despite the mediocre SW and MW conditions, things did improve over the past week or so, and there always are a few gems that appear even when SW and MW conditions are mediocre. The DSP in the DSP radios can help, but I've also done a lot of listening to two of my analog portables, my Panasonic RF-B45 and Radio Shack 200629, and the readability of the weak SW stations is still pretty good -- usually more than enough to ID the station.
The ham bands have been a wash, before, and after the Solar Flares. 160M, 80M and the bands above 20M have been mostly dead with few exceptions. 20 meters has had a few DX stations present on different afternoons and evenings, but it hasn't exactly been slammed with signals.
30M sometimes has a CW QSO, but the past few nights the 'beacon' to the EU, the RTTY station at Pinneberg, Germany (10100 kHz), has been MIA. The other beacon, NAU, RTTY in Puerto Rico (10155 kHz), has been in at varying strengths.
In the past weekend (May 25-26), SW conditions did pick up. I heard several Japanese hams on the 41 and 20 Meter band during a ham CW contest, and I also heard a German ham and a few American guys talking about stuff. I also heard Reach Beyond Australia, broadcasting to a small population of people in the hills between India and Burma, in a language I'd never heard before (Nga La -- maybe 40,000 speakers total). That was cool. Reach Beyond Australia transmits from the old Radio Australia transmitters in Kunnunura, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. Like Radio Australia, they use the cackle of the Kookaburra bird in their ID's. Pretty cool.
The DX-350A radio -- like a lot of smaller portables -- sometimes can overload on really strong SW signals. At the same time, just using the whip antenna sometimes just isn't enough to bring in a lot of stations on the SW bands. Clipping a wire to the whip antenna can help, but it can also overload the radio's front end amplifier transistors.
Placing resistors in between the wire antenna and whip antenna can help with this. The resistors lower the signal levels just enough to keep the radio from overloading.
I'm using two resistors here because I didn't have a small enough value one. 200-500 or 1000 ohms or so would probably be just right -- both of these resistors were over 33K ohms. Clipping them in parallel like this dropped the resistance to around 19K ohms. It got the job done -- it worked!
USING A WIRE ANTENNA WITH MY REALISTIC DX-350A
& NO OVERLOAD!
After a while of not using them, I fired up my Realistic DX-350 and DX-350A earlier this past week, trying my indoor, 25 ft. wire antenna by clipping it to the whip. Normally, the 350A would overload with a wire antenna, but this time I had my drop-down resistors that I rigged up to experiment with, and the results were pretty satisfactory. It's pretty easy to rig up an antenna drop down resistor -- all you need is an alligator clip. Being that most alligator clips have set screws, there is no soldering necessary. Run one resistor lead through the 'handle' of the alligator clip, loop the lead around the set screw, and screw it down, and make a small loop or hook with the other resistor lead to give your wire antenna's alligator clip something to clip onto.
It worked really well. My 350A, as I mentioned, will often overload on SW if you use an external wire antenna. Sometimes you'll get lots of extra hiss and FM transmitter hash (one of the two major FM transmitter locations is about 5 miles N of me, and it can slam the 31 and 25 Meter bands with hash in a couple places).
With the drop-down resistor, the overload was eliminated. I had to use both of my resistors in parallel because the only ones I had in my parts box were pretty high value -- 47K ohm and 33K ohm. Ideal resistance would be 250 ohms to 1-2K ohms or so. But with both of my resistors in parallel, I got roughly 19K Ohms, which wasn't bad. It got the job done.
PANDORA: WHERE 2010's E.D.M. POP LIVES STILL
As I've stated here on this blog in the past, for some reason the pop music of the early 2010's really appealed to me, and -- to be honest -- it still does. I wrote a blog about this over a year ago, where I was commenting on the general state of music at the time -- and to be blunt, the general state of popular CHR and rock music hasn't really improved. There are a few bright spots here and there, but overall, it seems about as dull as the grey weather outside.
And the pop music of 2012 was so upbeat, so emotion-tinged, so technically concise, so well produced and put together, and often technically edgy -- but it was also so easy to listen to and enjoy. And, face it -- much of it was PARTY MUSIC. Nowadays, the pop music isn't really party music. Neither is the rock music. Country music has its party moments, but it's not really my cup of tea.
The autotune which was popular in the 2010's was overused, but it gave the singers a nearly super-human quality to their voice. They sounded more AI than AI, but in a good way. Every note perfect. It seemed to fit the high tech tenor and delivery of the computer-driven EDM music that backed the singers.
2010's pop is miles from Rose Tattoo, of course (and Rose Tattoo is my favorite artist anymore), but it's still good. The pop music today is nowhere near as fun.
Where is Pitbull when we need him around?
On local FM radio today the 2010's hits that were so cool to hear -- Katy Perry's Part Of Me, Cobra Starship's You Make Me Feel, Calvin Harris's Feel So Close, Taio Cruz's Dynamite, Ollie Murs' Heart Skips A Beat, and the like -- get rare airplay, and some of them get NO airplay because they didn't pass the radio company's beloved "research". 2010's pop hits also are too new for Classic Hits and too old for Recurrents. It may take ten more years for a 2010's heavy pop format to show up on FM. And some songs that were so cool back then -- anyone remember the Gym Class Heroes? Or Andy Grammer? -- would never make it to a 2010's Radio format because everything on radio is researched to a crisp.
Well, rest assured, yours truly has discovered the appeal of streaming. My Android phone came with Pandora installed. I never used it until this weekend, when I decided to give the service a spin. I mean -- it's on my phone, so why not try it? So I did. Instantly, I was taken back to 2011-2012, when I discovered Pop Music again.
Within minutes I heard the Chainsmokers w/ Daya in Don't Let Me Down, Nick Jonas's Jealous, Taio Cruz's Break Your Heart, Nico & Vinz's Am I Wrong, and Ke$ha's Tik Tok, Nicky Minaj's Starships, One Republic's Counting Stars -- you get the idea. A lot of them I hadn't really heard before, like Flo Rida's Wild Ones. I'd heard a couple of his other hits but not that one. And I heard Pitbull within the first half hour -- on an Usher song. And Adele's classic, well-written hit Set Fire To The Rain played -- all within the first 45 minutes.
Here's a link to the 2010's Pop Channel on Pandora, for those interested.:
I can see clearly now, how Radio is being replaced, and redefined.
Do I like it? Not necessarily. After all, I'm still a radio guy. I've always listened to radio, DX'ed radio, and I worked in the business for 20 years. You don't work in a business for 20 years and not have some feelings for its future.
But when I can tap an icon on my phone and hear my favorite, 2010's hits, one after another, do I like it? Well, yeah, I do like it. I see the appeal.
On the airwaves, an all-2010's pop channel probably wouldn't get good enough ratings to get a radio station agency buys. That's why there are no 2010's pop-heavy FM radio stations. But on a streaming platform, ratings isn't so much a concern that all music is researched to death. Online streaming platforms are a totally different animal.
Even the 'curated' music channels, like Pandora's 2010's Pop channel has a feature where you can give a song a thumbs up or thumbs down, so the algorithm will alter the music it sends to you. So it's like listening to a 2010's Pop radio station, where you can send in requests and they actually alter their playlist for you.
I realise that for a lot of you this is already second nature -- as millions use Pandora, Spotify, and other streaming platforms. But I see now why people are into this.
Streaming platforms like Pandora have sizeable -- and growing -- chunks of the listening public for a reason.
I have heard the future, and the future is now.
Here's the Gym Class Heroes, by the way. The Fighter. Excellent song, released in late 2011. I heard it on local pop station KBKS 106.1 FM in early 2012. Wish I could find my CD copy of it. Better yet: I wish there were more songs being released like this today.:
In 2011 Andy Grammer said "Keep Your Head Up". I first heard this track on Radio Disney in 2012. Keeping your head up -- it's still a good idea.:
Yep, with inflation the way it is nowadays, we definitely have to keep our heads up, don't we.
I used to sing that Keep Your Head Up in karaoke at Uncle Mo's Pub in Renton back in the mid to late 2010's, sometimes closing the karaoke show with it. It's a good feeling song to sing.
As I pointed out in my second-to-last posting here, I was sick for a week. I'm mostly recuperated. This last Monday was Memorial Day. At first I wasn't sure whether I wanted to put my flag(s) out, which generally was my custom. Partly because it was going to rain, and partly because I didn't know if I wanted to risk my flags getting messed with or stolen. I was certain that one of my flags was stolen last year. I even wrote a post about it. I had literally thought it was stolen. But it turned out that someone had shoved it into the hedge, and I found it a while after I had written up the blog post.
I finally decided to go halfway, this year: I put out one flag, my newest one. And I kept an eye on it.
