It's a whole new ball game!

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by Future Raptor Ace

hate to break this to you bud, but I have a lot of friends who go to SUNY Stony Brook and even they dont listen to their school radio station. College radio stations are barley listened too by their students, yet alone the outside community so even if they did play Alizee it wouldn't really get us anywhere.

You're probably right. It was a tremendous waste of time the last time I tried something like this. Why should this time be any different?

[wasabi622]

Originally Posted by Future Raptor Ace

hate to break this to you bud, but I have a lot of friends who go to SUNY Stony Brook and even they dont listen to their school radio station. College radio stations are barley listened too by their students, yet alone the outside community so even if they did play Alizee it wouldn't really get us anywhere.

You're right on about college radio stations.. heck, I didn't know we even had one!

Though bothering other stations like 101.9, B96, or 103.5Kiss FM haven't really gotten anywhere either.. they're all too busy playing mainstream music.

[lefty12357]

I think some artists in the past got their start by being played first on College radio. I don't know how well that's working recently. I've mentioned this before, but there's a radio station in my area called The Current that is part of Minnesota Public Radio. They program the music locally, they have played Yelle singing in French (she was a regular on their playlist) and are known for being open minded. Every Saturday night is request night and I have requested Alizée, but to no avail. I even sent them a Psych CD along with translations of all the lyrics. Still no luck.

Most radio stations around the country have been bought up by a few big companies and they are almost impossible to influence. This is definitely a hard nut to crack because the American media is extremely narrow minded, in my opinion. They are not interested in promoting music or doing anything for the art's sake. These people have absolutely no imagination. It's all about money. I wish I had the answer or knew how to proceed from here.

[Scruffydog777]

It's kind of depressing to see more discouranging posts than encouraging. I think I know how Ed Harris fealt in the movie the Abyss, when he was trying to revive Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and everyone around him was telling him she was gone. One good thing about a station like this, where it's run by students and faculty, there's probably a high turnover rate in the people who work there. There must be some different people there than there were the last time I tried. What if only one of them would turn into an Alizée fan if he checks out this song. It's a slim chance, but I'll keep trying. It just wont be tonight.

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[Deepwaters]

The solution would seem to be to use new media rather than old. Internet radio stations catering to an audience for indie music, maybe? I wouldn't know where to look for that, but I'll bet it's out there.

On the whole, I agree with Scruffy that this is a new ballgame and the prospects are better than ever. We just have to find the right avenues for publicity.

[djwise]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

It's kind of depressing to see more discouranging posts than encouraging. I think I know how Ed Harris fealt in the movie the Abyss, when he was trying to revive Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and everyone around him was telling him she was gone. One good thing about a station like this, where it's run by students and faculty, there's probably a high turnover rate in the people who work there. There must be some different people there than there were the last time I tried. What if only one of them would turn into an Alizée fan if he checks out this song. It's a slim chance, but I'll keep trying. It just wont be tonight.

As somebody who works in a college radio station, to not try and get them to play the song would be foolish because the college radio station is your best bet. And I don't know what's up with the college radio stations y'all have up there, but the ones here in North Carolina are listened to quite a lot, by both students and regular people. I, myself, will try and pass the song around to other DJ's at my radio station and see if they wish to play it. But keep pushing it, constantly. You got my support in doing this. =]

[user472884]

If it's any consolation.... if I were a host of a popular radio show/podcast you guys know what would be the intros/outros.

In all seriousness, I'd be shocked if Les Collines doesn't get played on the radio...

Freaking, driving to school through the snow this morning listening to some random-ass frequency, they played a Swedish song... WTF

[lefty12357]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

It's kind of depressing to see more discouranging posts than encouraging. I think I know how Ed Harris fealt in the movie the Abyss, when he was trying to revive Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and everyone around him was telling him she was gone. One good thing about a station like this, where it's run by students and faculty, there's probably a high turnover rate in the people who work there. There must be some different people there than there were the last time I tried. What if only one of them would turn into an Alizée fan if he checks out this song. It's a slim chance, but I'll keep trying. It just wont be tonight.

I don't mean to sound so discouraging. But I honestly don't know how to break through the wall. I would definitely keep after that radio station. I tweet Alizée updates to the radio station I mentioned, sending them links to her web site and the new songs. I will keep it up until they block me. And when they do that, I'll cancel my membership.

As far as alternative avenues go, such as internet radio, I'm not sure if we can make further advancement with that route in the USA, but it's definitely worth a shot. The only reason I say that is that Alizée has already had an incredible amount of internet exposure for a number of years, and yet has only garnered a small number of CD buying fans in the USA. I have to believe that a large number of Americans have run across her videos. Maybe people are just too lazy to make the effort to find where her music is being sold. Or maybe they need to hear her on mainstream radio, because someone "official" has to endorse Alizée and tell the sheep what is OK to like and to buy. Or, (hopefully not) maybe her music just doesn't appeal to very many Americans.

I don't want people to give up. But we seem to need some new ideas and strategies or some media insiders to help us get on the right path. But until that happens I'd go with the college stations and the internet stations like Deep suggested. And I might send a CD to my local newspaper and see if they will review it.

[Chuck]

Originally Posted by Future Raptor Ace

hate to break this to you bud, but I have a lot of friends who go to SUNY Stony Brook and even they dont listen to their school radio station. College radio stations are barley listened too by their students, yet alone the outside community so even if they did play Alizee it wouldn't really get us anywhere.

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

You're probably right. It was a tremendous waste of time the last time I tried something like this. Why should this time be any different?

SCRUFF'S IDEA IS GOOD. Deep and Lefty say so, n'that's good enuf for me. (Besides, I love "The Abyss".) Lots of us have been thinking something like this, but just wondering which station to target. This WUSB Scruffy mentions sounds like a great place to start!

...I mean, sure, F.R.A. says college students don't "barley" () listen to college radio. But a lot of other people DO. And if this one reaches NYC, then that may be just where we want to be.

Furthermore, I think that the ChartsInFrance "assault" proved that if we unite, we might make an impact... Best of all, "Limelight" or "Les Collines" might be just cool enough and techno enough for this WUSB to actually give a try.

But if we learned anything else recently, it's that we need planning. And some degree of coordination - if we all e-mail them 5 times on the same day, and then nothing after that, we'll be pretty obvious and thus our petitioning will be pretty easy to dismiss.

So let's discuss! For at least a few more days. Figure this out first. Then...

[Ruroshen]

Originally Posted by Chuck

But if we learned anything else recently, it's that we need planning. And some degree of coordination - if we all e-mail them 5 times on the same day, and then nothing after that, we'll be pretty obvious and thus our petitioning will be pretty easy to dismiss.

The key is to approach it the same way we've attacked all the web contests Alizée's been up for. Because people will POUNCE on those things like her life depends on it.

Seriously. People will set timers, sit at their computers en masse for hours or days on end, and even go to some unscrupulous lengths to press a little button over and over to bombard a site with votes and propel her ahead of others.

But for some reason, getting those same people organized and enthused about an email-writing campaign that might actually have an impact is like herding kittens.

I think it's because the voting thing is a) virtually effortless, if time-consuming and b) instantly gratifying, in that (in most cases) you can see right away how your vote is helping Lili to catch up, overtake, and then dominate. The goal is clearly defined, and the result is right up there for everyone to see. (Granted, this wasn't the case in the MTVLA thing, which MANY people turned out for regardless, although it might also explain why we lost.)

So I think the trick is to make whatever we do a) require very little effort and b) at least as exciting as voting in one of these contests.

Maybe the trick is to set a goal? Send X number of requests to station Y by the end of the week/month/whatever? Or divide the participants up into teams, see which team can get the most requests submitted in X amount of time? Set up a widget with progress bars or whatnot to make it visual...

Anyway, that's me just tossing stuff out off the top of my head. Your mileage may vary.