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Old 07-13-2013, 01:43 PM
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Unfortunately, most radio stations in the US are owned by a handful of big companies who do the programming. It's very hard to get an "outsider" song played because they don't use vinyl or CDs. Many stations couldn't play it even if you mailed a CD to them since everything in on hard drives and comes from the labels they work with and is pre-programmed. When a song is added to the rotation, another song must come out of the rotation. It's not likely they will bump, lets say a Taylor Swift song, to let in a French language song by an artist who isn't well known in the US. In any case, it's doubtful your local affiliate station has the power to alter the playlist. The one thing to remember is the station makes its money from advertizing and the rates are dependent on how many listeners they have, so they are going to play music that appeals to their listeners. On the face of it, according to the radio company's perspective, playing an Alizée song would not be in their best interests.

There are smaller stations out there that may have more flexibility with their playlists, but even many of these stations use a programming service who picks their songs based on local market research. Some stations have a "local music hour" or some such thing and will play music by request from local bands. But there again, Alizée isn't a local band. There is a large radio station in my area who will play requests, but the request must already be on their playlist (on their hard drives). They have a massive library, but no Alizée, and they won't add her to their library. Again, they see no broad interest in her.

Then you have college stations and some publicly owned stations. These might be your best bet in getting something played. I would target your efforts there. Unfortunately, the US system has become very corporate and very closed. It's not like it was prior to the 70's and 80's.

I have a local public radio music station that I've mentioned here before. They do their own programming and they take requests on Saturday evenings. I repeatedly requested Alizée, but no luck. So I sent them a letter and CDs figuring if they had her on hand they would play her the next time I requested her. It didn't work though, because she is not on their playlist, therefore she is not on their hard drives. I then submitted several requests to have her added to their playlist, but again, no luck. It really pissed me off because they have played French music. Yelle is on their playlist. I'm sure that is because her label got it put on the list, since Yelle performs in the US. It seems much of the US radio is structured in a "top down" rather than a "bottom up" fashion. If you have local college or public radio that plays music, it's still worth a shot targeting them. If it's a public station, maybe you can sell them on the idea that playing Alizée would offer some cultural diversity to their playlist. Keep in mind though, that many college stations are not into playing pop music. I actually think UEDS would have had a better chance of getting played on college radio.

The last thing is the dance clubs. If you can get the DJ at your local dance club to play Alizée, maybe people will get into it and then request Alizée songs on the radio stations. If enough requests came in, maybe she would get on the playlists somewhere. The downside of this is that most requests are funneled through a central location, so to make an impact, you'd have to have requests coming in from all over the country. I don't think we have enough members to hit up a ton of dance clubs. Maybe if there were enough requests in the right market, it could work. But without Alizée's label pushing the stations to play her, it's doubtful she will get on the air. Hell, Alizée's label can't seem to even get her much airplay in France! Granted though, it seems a resistance to Alizée has been built up in the French radio markets.

One other thing I participated in was the Disc-drop that was done in the Psyche era. A number of fans made sample CDs of Alizée's music and dropped them in public places. I left mine in parks and malls. Along with the CD was a short letter which referred them to this site, asking them to become a member and report where they found the CD. Not one person reported in. As far as I can tell, the idea was a failure. I think for it to work, thousands of discs would have to be dropped. We probably dropped a few hundred.

Sorry for the long post, and sorry if it sounds negative. My purpose is just to point out where our efforts probably won't bear fruit so we can look for other opportunities that might have a chance to work, and not waste our efforts on areas where we have little chance of success.

It's sort like a catch-22; it's hard to get Alizée to come to the US without some interest established, and it's hard to establish some interest if she doesn't first come to the US.
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