You Can Influence The Music

One of the mysteries of the music business (and while we'd like to ignore the fact, this is a commercial business) is why certain songs succeed and others fail. There have been many stories about the power of radio consultants to dictate the playlists of radio stations over the likes and dislikes of the actual listeners. And while there are many sites that have you pick your favorite songs in order to develop a weekly chart, this month we'll look at a couple of sites that seek input from listeners in order to influence the music that is sold in stores and played on radio stations.

RateTheMusic.Com was conceived by three radio consultants to relay listener's feelings, likes and dislikes about music to radio stations and record labels. Surfers to this site have the option of signing up for one of thirteen different genres, including Country. RateTheMusic.Com will then periodically send registered users an e-mail message with a PIN and a specific web address that can be used to complete a rating survey.

The survey asks you to rate 30 different songs, most of which should be familiar to the average listener. If a title doesn't jog your memory, links to short audio clips of 15-20 seconds are included in both RealAudio and MP3 formats. (The latest G2 RealPlayer will handle both formats.) While that length is adequate as a memory aid, it's not quite long enough to make up your mind if you're unfamiliar with a particular title. I also had trouble getting the RealAudio clips to play the first time, but several attempts to play the clip eventually ended in success. There are three basic questions for each song. The first asks if you are familiar with the particular song. The second asks you to rate that song with the following scale: favorite, like it, so-so, dislike some, and dislike a lot. The last question asks if you're tired of hearing the song. At the end of the survey, you can supply the e-mail addresses and first names of friends who might be interested in participating the surveys.

After completing the survey, you're taken to the RateTheMusic web site. The Order CDs section contains links to various online music retailers. The links were slightly out of date since it contained a link to MusicBlvd.Com, which combined with CDNow some months ago. The Cool Links section contains other links to a variety of entertainment industry sites, including radio stations and record labels. Unfortunately this link to the Radio Stations didn't work; use the one off of the main menu instead. The Top 10 section contains a short chart for each of the various genres covered by the survey. And unfortunately the New Releases section contained no information on Country albums.

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