An interesting examination for someone - how and why did such a brilliant idea fall apart?

I remember discovering it as I came out of prison 7 years ago; a terrific way of finding new talent, I thought.
And, after listening to thousands of demos, I came across No Tomorrow by Orson. It was picked up by the rest of the industry and went to No1.

But then My Space (long before Murdoch bought it) grew even bigger; the Search facility was bad; and You Tube came along (far better Search facility - still the best of all sites - and video as well as sound). Facebook launched (a social network - I don't like it; joined on Day One, as I do with most sites - know thy enemy). And Twitter (ditto). Some others (Bebo?) weren't quite so successful.

But My Space really fell apart. Why?

1. From a social networking perspective it collapsed because of Facebook. I don't like Facebook either JK, on a personal level I think its almost as ridiculous as twitter. I couldn't image having a personal Facebook page and being inundated by everyone I've ever known. Which would happen.

However, it's almost mandatory from a business point of view (for an artist) in the music business now.
As a producer it's irrelevant for me.

2. From a music perspective it collapsed I suppose because it allowed anyone to post very bad music (by the tens of millions in fact)and then the millions of non-professionals and non-talents and kids lost interest abandoned it, and just went to Youtube along with Facebook.

I think it showed that the percentage of musicians on Myspace that were really trying to do music as a living as professionals with guidance and a team surrounding them, was indeed a low percentage of the whole.

Correct GG - and it backs up my desire for a filter - much derided here.

Sadly few of us - be they in music or simply fans - have either the time or inclination to wade through millions of bits of music. At best we select our specialist taste area - country, rap, classical - but still there are hundreds of thousands. Too many - we give up.

A filter - as the Tip Sheet tried to be (we started when Radio One stopped being mass appeal) - is essential. And, best of all, one that gives us music and visuals as we did on No Limits. But our filter there was incredibly strict; I included great out-of-print sounds by dead people (God how the majors hated us - where were artistes? Albums? Everything that makes profits?).

But filters DO create profits. So do dead people (the late Eva Cassidy was one of our Tip Sheet crusades).

I miss being a vital part of the music industry. Still, Alex Day is glad I'm still around!

Myspace, Facebook and Youtube are no different in terms of allowing "poor" or "bad" musicians to upload
music onto the internet. So why is Youtube a hit and Myspace not?
Myspace collapsed because of the following reasons (and not in any particular order)

Rupert Murdoch buying it.
The ridiculous graphics and autoplaying of music.
Facebook being a lot cleaner and simple to use.
Youtube was easier to use and watch illegal content.
Myspace music forcing Myspace to clean up their act.

Myspace today is a very good free and legal music site with arguably more music than Spotify.
The player works better now than before and Myspace is far from being dead and buried.

Music has fragmented so much that it is impossible to ever get mass appeal. Why do you think r&b, hip-hop and
dance music is dominating the charts? Because as a genre and subculture these niches are bigger and revolve
around clubs which all have DJs who by the way act as filters JK. Other genres of music which rely on
artists with fanbases will struggle outside of this network hence Alex will probably never cross over into mass
appeal until he gets Snoop Dogg or one of the other rentamob rappers or producers on board.

The reason I hate filters is because they are so easy to corrupt (with money of course) and it is always one person's
taste/opinion that dictates. In the post Youtube world why would you need filters anyway?
Let everyone find their own way to get their head above the parapet, whether that means using bots to gain advantage (see my other thread)
advertising on Youtube, TV as in Cowell etc. Let's get rid of the illusion that only the best ride to the top and
make it a marketing free for all, after all that is how it works in any other industry.

We all love the idea of anybody being able to emerge but the reality is - most people have neither the time nor the inclination to wade through millions of bad tracks to find one good one. So they lose interest.

Someone has to do it for them. If you knew the amount of great music I've turned kids like Alex and Tommy onto - and watch the joy on their faces as they hear it, sitting in my car or my house.

They were not aware that such fabulous sounds existed. Nor that such depth of pleasure could come from great music - having assumed that the average crap fed to them by traditional media and big corporations was the best there is.

And you think the FILTER will do what you are doing?
There are many of us with better music tastes than the bozos that will be running the FILTERS.
They will not be sending the best music. Your argument is flawed JK. We don't need A filter, we
have hundreds of filters now which is much better. I find out about music from my friends on Facebook
and I mean Facebook friends and not just my personal friends. I do not watch or listen to radio or
if there were a so called god of the airwaves filtering things I would not even listen to them.
Have you never been to a record shop going through the new releases looking for what was good?
If you love music you will seek it out. Sadly most people don't so they don't bother and why should they
anyway?

Jaded and Bored said..."Music has fragmented so much that it is impossible to ever get mass appeal".


GG says;

Adele has just sold 21 million albums and counting. Adele was filtered and not by yobs. Adele did not pay years of dues as well. Filtered at 17 or 18, and handled (or not handled more like it) the right way in the spirit of Martin Mills.

I can understand some of what you are saying Jaded and Bored because I have to deal with major label nitwits on a regular basis, yet at least part of your argument is also flawed.

Yes I agree Adele crossed over and appealed to a lot of people. BUI AND A BIG BUT!
This happened in THE post FILTERED world. The kind of filter JK is talking about is not
what you are talking about and you are confusing good a&r with filters.

JK wants ONE radio station that will tell everyone what to listen to such as what Radio One
used to be (according to JK). This idea is anathema to me. The main reason is that in the heydays
of Radio One they did NOT filter the best music but they filtered what they liked and what their mates
in the majors were paying them with nice lunches and holidays and the like. The good old fashioned way
which JK fondly talks about. You old farts seem to forget why Radio One became irrelevant.

They did not playlist black music
They did not play dance music until it was all over the charts that they had to.
Man who broke all the dance hits? DJs and hundreds of them. Kiss FM, Choice FM, Galaxy and a host of pirates.

In the internet era millions of people ignore Radio One and radio in general. I would even dispute
that Adele broke as a result of the filters. No she did not. People who genuinely liked her shared her music
with their friends on social media sites. This is life now. This is reality. Trying to hark back to the good
old days of the FILTERS is ridiculous beyond belief. IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. The masses have too much
power to be talked down to by radio.

You guys should try and read a few of Lefsetz letters and understand how the industry can work post filters.
By the way the FILTERS refused to playlist Alex Day.

FILTERS work if they are good (if they are bad nobody listens to radio/watches TV/buys A&R etc)... Radio One worked when, like Top of the Pops, it based its programming on the truly popular - and allowed specialist DJs to FILTER the best dance, indie etc.

Club DJs DID filter the music - it was through one of those FILTERS I found our first UK Records hit by Terry Dactyl.

ADELE WAS filtered - I watched Richard Russell do it.

Charts FILTERED tracks by genuine sales (until I invented Hype - without realising the repercussions).

I'm not saying abolish the non filtered services which enable those who want to to mine for great music. I'm saying create a popular filter radio station/TV show/label which picks the best, gets massively popular by picking the RIGHT sounds and making the RIGHT music, and then shows those who don't have the time to trawl through the releases the very best music.

The very notion of the segregation of music which Radio One were notorious for means that FILTERS
are often bad especially when there is a monopoly of them which Radio One was for a long time.
Try asking your soul/r&b artists what they felt about Radio One and they will not be very positive.

The point is it has NEVER just been about music with Radio One. Arguably it should be the most democratic
of stations but has never been and will never be. We need competition not monopolies and your idea of a filter
will be a monopoly. In any case it matters precious little what you and I think, the masses have voted with
their feet and you will never get a filter like what you are asking for. Them days are long gone.

Adele was A&R'd well. I don't consider a&ring to be filtering because that is a completely different thing.
It is part of artist development by those with a vested interest and investment. It makes good business. BUT
this is another contention of mine with your generation of music industry professionals. We believe that artist
should grow up and learn their chops and not have to rely on other people to develop them. They need to mature
to the level of people like Prince who pretty much had the final say early on in his career. Yes, give advice
but sign artists who have their own minds and let them live or die by it. That's my view, but since a lot of
artists can't tie their own shoelaces let alone effectively pick material then the a&r dept need to be proactive.
Having said that a lot of them are just as bad as the artists and in THAT respect we welcome wise old heads such
as yours. A necessary evil I think but that is just because young people are so musically poor it is a joke.
The ideal marriage is the sort that Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson had. It was a mutual respect. But that is
not filters. That is a&r.

Let's be honest here. Filters are always going to be around BUT not a top down filter (which I hate) but more
of the sort that people have always enjoyed especially with genre based music such as hip-hop, dance, r&b where
it was basically about the music. Those that went to record shops each week to browse the new releases and play
them on the in store turntable and then bought what they liked went and made mixtapes and circulated it amongst
friends. Now we have the same but using social media and not a top down authoritative and corrupt system.

It is because you created HYPE that filters can't be trusted. It is a no brainer to buy off the 10-50 Radio One
producers when they were the ONLY filter in town, which is what happened. But as soon as the public found an
alternative (such as Napster) it all collapsed for the almighty filters and for the record companies. There are
far too many people to buy off now so it is pretty much dead and buried.

What we have instead is a better and fairer system. I would advocate that there should be a ban on radio playlists
and the airwaves should be pretty much advertising. At least this way wit is more transparent that the airwaves
have been bought rather than the pretence that we have an independent panel that chooses music freely (yeah right).
Alex Day should have been on the A list of every station after achieving the highest new entry and for being a
"one man operation" (which of course he is NOT JK) but no they bloody well won't. Why? because he is Alex Day Records
not Sony, Universal or Warners. I hate this aspect of the industry and am very glad it is going to crash. Get out
now people because this plane is doomed!

Youtube by the way and Facebook is a filter but one operated by thousands of tastemakers. Now yes it is a bit of a
nightmare because you have to find these anonymous influencers but at least this way they are reacting genuinely to
the music and not because you paid them off.
Now yes my other post talks about the gaming of Youtube to get to the front but again this is caused by the stupidity
of Youtube and other sites who have opened themselves up to corruption. If there is going to be a saviour of the
industry who will become the head boy of the FILTERS then I would want Google to do it. At least Google's whole business
model is based on the levelling of the marketing field. You don't have to spend stupid money to get to the top and
Google has 2 approaches. The organic and democratic filter (rankings, SEO etc) which is pretty hard to corrupt as they
keep shifting goalposts often to thwart the cheats and then there is the pay as you go option of Adwords so you can just
buy your way to the front.

Let me summarise. I hate the notion of the top down filters (which you advocate) because they are and will always be corrupt.
The system we have now where there are hundreds and thousands of filters is better because it will be too expensive to corrupt.
Let it be about you advertising to these people and let them then get excited and do the rest. This is how it works when
there are no corrupt filters that the majors or those with lots of money can buy off. The internet is a great liberator.
You would not be able to do what you did with Alex Day without it.

JK PLEASE FIX THIS WEBSITE I NEARLY LOST THIS LONG POST BECAUSE OF THE ANTI SPAM BUG.

Ah J&B the Spam filter is specifically designed to stop posts from people who DON'T UNDERSTAND... I'm not advocating an exclusive FILTER - I'm wanting a filter that becomes popular (and powerful) because it correctly finds and plays (in the case of radio) great music that lots of people are delighted to have discovered.

If the music is crap - nobody listens. What's the problem?
If it's great - millions listen and get to know/buy/rave about...

Likewise all other filters.

A&R filters out the no talents and hones and perfects the talents.

If they are wrong they (eventually) lose their jobs.
If they are good the help find and develop great talent.
It's called filtering.

Don't scrap the others. I love You Tube - hate Facebook and Twitter - but wouldn't advocate banning any of them.

All I'm advocating is a good FILTER in our radio/TV/labels/Tipsheets that finds and promotes great music so we - the public - don't have to wade through piles of crap to find it.