Jack White of the White Stripes phoned a Chicago DJ last week to complain after the DJ played a leaked copy of the band’s entire forthcoming album on air.
The offending DJ, Q101’s Electra, wrote about the incident on her blog.
“White called Q101’s main offices from Spain … looking specifically for me, to yell at me for leaking the album and, in part, being ‘messed up for the entire [music] business,’” she wrote.
The incident inspired further discussion on the slowness of music labels and broadcast radio to adapt to the Internet, a conversation that has persisted since the days of Napster.
Q101 music director Spike had written previously on his blog about arguing with Nine Inch Nails’ label after playing a song that the band itself had leaked on the Internet for promotional purposes. The post is worth reading. It explains how the hands of radio are tied as record labels prevent stations from having the relevance and respect they once did.
He has written again about his position in response to the White Stripes incident:
The days of us actually getting something before you, the consumer does, are pretty much over. Instead of being big brother, we’re just one of you now. We get it when you do. We’re your buddy who knows a lot about music, and spends all day trying to find out about it. But we’re also your buddy who listens to you when you tell us you have something. We share things with you when we get them, because that’s what friends do. We’re a part of your life because we’re like you, and because we’re finding things the same way you are. Our favorite songs are your favorite songs, not the ones that we and a big record label are deciding that you like. We don’t decide anything anymore, not if we’re doing our jobs right. You decide, and we follow.
We can’t pretend that internet leaks do not exist, or we cease to be relevant to you. If that means that some of our relationships within the industry suffer, so be it, because our relationship with you (the listener) will prosper. That’s the relationship that we care most about.
My mission is to figure out how radio can be relevant once again. I’ve heard the complaint that radio doesn’t give people what they really want too many times to not believe it. We need to redefine our role. We need to carve out our place in people’s lives once again. To do that, we need change. I’m not telling anyone else how to run their business. Any record label, band, manager or restaurant can choose to run their business in the way that they see fit. For my business though, I’ve realized that the world has changed, and I want to change with it.
To me, running radio like we ran it 10 years ago is as ridiculous as wearing huge JNCO jeans or going out and getting a tribal tattoo. At first, it’s pretty funny to see it, then you just look like an asshole, then everyone forgets about you. I don’t want to be forgotten.
Electra, the Q101 DJ, calls the new White Stripes album “really, really, unbelievably brilliant and awesome.” Radio people have a passion for music, as Spike and Electra have demonstrated. A record label with an interest in success might want to work with radio and allow it to be the promotional tool it once was.
The new White Stripes album Icky Thump will be released June 19 — 20 days after its unauthorized radio debut. A Google search now offers hundreds of links to download “radio rips” of the new album using torrent software.
