My new gripe - modified songs!

[Gurm]

My new gripe? Modified songs for radio consumption.

It's one thing to shorten a song, although even that is irritating. For example, "Smooth" by Santana and Rob Thomas. Why did they shorten the solo by like 10 seconds? No clue. The song wasn't real long. Maybe they just thought radio listeners would get bored if the music was good for too long?

Lately, it's been rampant, and MORE irritating.

Apocalyptica's "I Don't Care", with the lead singer of 3 Days Grace... is an awesome song. Powerful, and heavy. There are 4 cellos, 3 of them chugging away raw and distorted. And yet for RADIO PLAY, not only did they change the ****ing LYRICS around but they overdubbed electric guitars. The song does NOT NEED ELECTRIC GUITARS. But maybe they felt that radio listeners in the USA wouldn't listen to a song that DIDN'T have guitars?

Then, let's contrast - flipping through the radio and heard "My Life Would Suck Without You" by Kelly Clarkson. Now, all jokes about listening to Kelly Clarkson aside... why would the song need modifying? Yet there it was with EXTRA synth-bass, and NO GUITARS. Yes, the guitars which drive the song were GONE, replaced with typical dance synth. HUH?

Why? Why do they do this? And why do good artists allow this to happen? This is one of the many reasons why I hate the music industry. And people.

The other day I heard an Enya song with the string section removed and replaced with "nnn-tss" dance techno beats. WHAT THE HELL?

[cjolley]

Blame it on George Martin. He actually did help the Beatles create their sound(s).
Ever since then his lessers have aspired to be the "real" musical artists of the business.

Cast your ears back to the early 70's for a great example.
Fire up youtube and watch Rory Gallagher in concert back then and compare that to the thin gruel of his studio albums.
Sigh...

[Gurm]

Well I guess I'm just irked that I hear something that I like, and the album is nothing like the radio version, or vice-versa. It's like they re-record things for the radio and make them suck.

[cjolley]

Re-record? Too much work and expense.
They just re-mix what they already have.
And add synth to fill in what ever they feel is "missing", or to change the beat.

Of course the marketing geniuses are all up in it also.

[WxDude]

That's why you see singles (if they sell them) with the Radio Edit version. It is rampant.
Magic 106.7 (in Boston for those not in the area) is NOTORIOUS (at least in my mind)
for hacking up songs. Cutting down solos, instrumental sections, etc. And they do a
very BAD job of it. This isn't even a cut down version from the studio, this is the station
cutting the song down.

The other thing that REALLY bugs me is that the stations play the most popular songs at
their normal speed, but once it has been in rotation for a while, they time compress the song
so it takes less time. It wouldn't be so bad if they did it in a fashion that kept the pitch
correct, but they don't. You can tell that it has been sped up.

My guess is that the stations are trying to cram in more commercials, but they advertise they
play 15 songs without commercials. So to get the songs in, they cut/squeeze them to keep
the allotted amount of commercial time but they get to say they play as many songs as they
can. It's all just the same corporate/commercial BS we get from everything.

I listen to the radio only to find out something that I like, and then get the CD from my local
library to enjoy it. Makes for a more enjoyable listening experience. Either that or I listen to
Pandora.

[Fat Tone]

Radio versions are very common. I can understand why they change "don't marry her, f**k me" to "...have me" (although I never could work out why they had to have the f version anyway) but I agree re-mixing is pointless.

"Radio 2" is a national BBC station here, and has pretty much the biggest audience of any station. WHY OH WHY they must so often play a terrible cover version rather than the original I will never understand.

[Fat Tone]

@Wx, I used to use Pandora too, until they started geo-checking my IP

[KRSESQ]

Yeah, in most cases they're editing for commercials. They also remix songs for different audiences, or for what their market researchers tell them the audience wants. And of course they bleep out the "offensive" language. You can blame most of the bleeping on Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction." The rest of it you can blame on good, old-fashioned corporate greed.

Kevin

[Gurm]

Yeah, it's just frustrating. *sigh*

[High_Jumbllama]

I remember getting I think it was an MTV cd and they adjusted the beginning of the song because they did not like the word "ASS". Needs to be labeled as such. This was at a Best Buy and not even Wal-Mart.

[UtwigMU]

I can't stand commercial stations radio, I only listen to di.fm at home/work and my iPod while biking/busing to work. Also the only CD I bought in last couple of years was from a jazz singer I know on her promo concert, she autographed it on the spot.

I go to more concerts though.

[Dr Mordrid]

As far as radio producers are concerned the "perfect" song length is 2:42 and it's up to the station owner/manager if they're going to cut/change/mute content or not. Heard every comment possiboe from my son who does a talk/music/interview program.

[Jammrock]

The thing that annoys me the most about radio music is Marilyn Manson. Sorry, couldn't resist. They played his new track today. It's the same tune he's been playing for every radio song since ...whenever he released that remake that totally sucked but made him famous.

The thing that irks me the most is that alt rock is dead in all but 4-5 markets in the US. And that most rock and supposed alt rock station still play 50% 90's grunge/rock in their playlists. It's very annoying. I barely liked grunge in the 90's, it's dead to me now.

Back to alt rock... the thing that annoys me the most about the death of alt rock stations is that regular rock stations are trying to fill in the space and are doing a poor job. Take for example The Kings of Leon. Alt rock stations have been playing their music forever. The local rock station suddenly discovered this cool new band called The Kings of Leon a month ago, and only because they got picked up by RCA and are rolling in on a tour. Sudden The Kings of Leon are the hot new thing, even though they've been around for about a decade.

And what about the UK rock bands? The only people who play them are the alt rock stations. But who plays them now? No one but the 4-5 alt rock station left in the US. No Franz Ferdinand, Keiser Cheifs (sp?), Louise XIV, Muse, etc. unless you pirate it, buy and pray it's a good one, or find a good alt rock station who streams online. *sigh* I miss my alt rock station.

I've ranted enough...

[Elie]

Guys... radio is in it for the money, play as many songs as possible then throw is a ton of commercials.

What erks me the most about radio is that the radio hosts talk through the first minute of the song or until the singer starts singing, this pisses me off soo much that I stopped listening to the radio.

People who own Satelite radio said it's worth the extra money because there are no hosts talking and the quality is well...better.

I listen to CD's period, I got a 6 pack in the car and change CD's often.

[Dr Mordrid]

I can remember when I was a kid we had a tremendous selection of stations: WXYZ, WKNR (Keener 13)), CKLW (Windsor Ontario's powerhouse rock station) and a slew of blues and soul stations.- something for every mood and occaision. Now all we have are lame stations as described above with 20'something talk teams who couldn't hold up their end of a conversation with Erik (age 11). Sad.....