New wrinkle but same old song on radio

Re: “Critic’s Notebook: The Public, Not Payola, Rules the Air,” by Robert Hilburn, July 29: I was senior VP of promotion at Columbia Records, Capitol Records and Hollywood Records, and a promotion person for 25 years. Yours is the best article I have read about the Eliot Spitzer affair. A $100-million campaign to make a song a hit record won’t work if the song isn’t a hit record. Only the public can make a hit.

John A. Fagot Jr.

Los Angeles

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I’m a 35-year music industry veteran. You’re spot on when you say “don’t hold your breath” in regards to a slew of “real” music getting back on the airwaves.

Independent labels are already making statements that the playing field has been leveled now and they see this Sony BMG settlement as the dawn of a new era for them to expose their artists on radio. Sadly, they are delusional if they believe this. With independent promotion now under the spotlight more than ever before, independent promoters will be shut out more at radio and used less by big labels. Who then will be the voice of independent artists/labels on radio?

If anyone believes radio is going to invest in hiring music directors to sort through the hundreds of choices they can make weekly, they are wrong.

Steve Meyer

Las Vegas

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Perhaps Hilburn can explain why virtually every songwriter and music publisher in Nashville is of the same mind-set that if they attempt to produce something meaningful or politically provocative rather than standard ho-hum bubblegum, it won’t get past Door One, let alone be heard on the radio.

I have never met anyone in the industry who doesn’t believe that many “popular” songs are paid dearly for to be heard on the radio, either directly with cash or, usually, with so-called gifts far too numerous and nauseating to list -- nobody believes otherwise.

Richard Aberdeen

Nashville

Aberdeen is the owner of Freedom Tracks Music.