Bruce Springsteen is having a difficult time getting his number one album played on the radio.
Magic, which was released four weeks ago, has surpassed the 500,000 sales figure for a gold record. Nonetheless, media giant Clear Channel has refused to play cuts from the album on any of its stations.
Fox News (yes I know) entertainment reporter Roger Freedman believes Clear Channel is sending a message that it thinks Springsteen, 58, is too old for radio.
...That notion is completely absurd, and typical of the many decisions Clear Channel has done that have hurt the recording industry many times more than downloading has in the past ten years. It is certainly what helped create satellite radio, where Springsteen is a stape and has his own channel on Sirius.
According to Fox, Springsteen isn't the only artist shunned by the industry.
There is no sign that major radio stations are playing albums by John Fogerty or Annie Lennox either. The same stattions that should be playing Santana's new singles with Chad Kroeger or Tina Turner are avoiding them too.
Like Springsteen, these older artists have been relegated to something called Triple A format — either college radio or obscure stations with limited signals like WFUV in Bronx, NY — that are immune from the Clear Channel virus of pre-programming and where the number of plays per song is a fraction of what is on commercial radio.
Freedman reports that stations can still play "classic" Springsteen cuts like "Born in the USA," "Born to Run," and othes, but no cuts from Magic.
DISCLOSURE: Fox featured a video of Springsteen's "Radio Nowhere" for the intro for Game 2 of the American League Championship between Boston and Cleveland. The song was also used, albeit the instrumental opening, as background music as Fox cut to a commerical between innings in Game 4 of the World Series.
DISCOSURE 2: I own "Magic," and it has been getting constant replay in my car since it came out. I am also a Jersey boy like the Boss and have seen many a Sprignsteen concert.
Why would an industry which claims to be suffering exclude an artist with a top-selling album from the radio?
I have two words for you: Dixie Chicks.
In early 2003, Clear Channel punished the Dixie Chicks for expressing their opposition to to the war in Iraq. The group was derided by wing nuts, but also praised for taking a stand on principle that would hurt them financially.
Clear Channel has deep ties to the Bush Adminstration and the Republican Party. IMO, they do not want Springsteen on the air where some impressionable reader might agree with the Boss about the state of our nation.
Springsteen generally used to avoid politics completely prior to 2004 when he campaigned with John Kerry. He did object in 1984 to the use of "Born in the USA" for a Reelect Ronald Reagan commecial, but for the most part, he did not publically endorse a candidate before 2004.
IMO, Springsteen always was the champion of the poor and hard-working Americans, who have been shat on during the reign that we call the Bush Adminstration. These people are the ones that play by the rules but got shafted by Enron and other greedy corporations.
Two things changed Springsteen: 9/11 and the Bush Adminstration. His last album, "The Rising," came out in 2002 and it was Bruce's response to the attacks on the World Trade Center, which he could see in the distance from his New Jersey home.
I saw last summer's Seeger Sessions tour and thought that was the best thing he has ever done. That in itself, to paraphrase Vincent Vega, is a bold f--in' statement. Springsteen had embraced his inner progressive voice and has not looked back.
In this way he is following the traditions of Seeger and othe folk singers that influenced the Civil Rights and anti-war movement.
It is in this way, that Clear Channel feels that Springsteen is such a threat that it won't play the number one album in the country. Clear Channel can afford to lose a few bucks to prove a point.
You don't have to. You can go buy Magic and create your own internets radio progam. Boycott Clear Channel and refuse to know tow to Corporate lackeys doing the bidding of the nefarious Bush Adminstation.
Clear Channel is doing something very dangerous. It has censored Springsteen. True, Clear Channel has some right to determine what it wants to play, but it is also doing so on the airwaves that are theoretically owned by the American people.
IMO, the ban on Magic will fail, because banning something tends to manufacture or increase interest in whatever is banned.
The decision will not harm Springsteen as he travels across the country on a sold-out tour. He will, in the words of Neil Young, "Keep on rocking in the free world." Clear Channel, much like its allies in the Bush Adminstration, is not in the reality-based community.