Re: The never-ending Kate/Tori debate (Now with virtually NO Kate content!!!)

[heisjohn@juno.com]

I wrote:
>> So now we know that great marketing ALONE can produce top-selling
>> material.  Can you think of an example where a "great" song went to 
>the
>> top of the charts with NO marketing??
>>

Raven Tompkins replied:
>Since when does whether or not a song goes to the top of the charts
>have anything to do with with whether or not it's a "good" song?

I don't know.  And I never said or implied that any chart-toppers were
"good"; only that great marketing (alone) can get them there.

>I don't agree at all that marketing is everything. I'm sure if Kate
>Bush were marketed exactly the same way that Alanis Morisette was the
>results would be different. For the most part, mass marketed chart
>topping songs have a sort of lowest common denominator appeal. They
>sound alot like most everything else on the radio, they're lyrically
>simplistic and they don't challenge the listener. It's music for
>the masses.

Which is exactly why you get to hear it in the first place.  Record
companies are businesses, plain and simple.  The product they sell is
ONLY that which they believe you will buy -- just a tiny fraction of what
is actually submitted to them.  Again, it's Marketing 101...

> Kinda like the way that McDonalds has undoubtably
>sold more coffee than your favorite neightborhood coffee shop, but
>very few of would say that McDonalds coffee is better. It's simply
>more accessible.

Nice analogy, but I'd bet I can buy a gallon of McCoffee, carry it down
to the local yuppie bean grinder, put it in their cups, sell it to the
folks at the counter... AND WATCH THEM RAVE ABOUT IT!!!  Just like with
Tori!  WEA simply repackaged a product that didn't sell in the States and
sent her off to try her luck with a "more discriminating" European
audience.

>I'd bet a bunch of money that no matter how you wanted to market
>Ani DiFranco, she'll never make a top 40 chart.

HA!  As fate would have it, she's one of this week's featured "artists"
at the local Best Buy!  I may just have to take you up on that one :) 

John