The Infinite Dial

It's interesting how many of the big money deals in the music industry--including the one reported this morning between Madonna and concert promoter Live Nation--involve artists who have pretty much lost their footing at mainstream current-based radio in the U.S. Whether it's the issuing of David Bowie bonds in 1997 or ZZ Top's multi-album deal with RCA in 1992--six years after their final hit--there's something about the veterans that induces mad optimism. The Wall Street Journal quotes industry observers as saying that Madonna would have to sell 15 million copies of each of the next three albums. And while Madonna's talent for self-reinvention is legend, 15 million copies is no longer easy for any artist, particularly one whose last true U.S. Top 40 radio hits were 2001-02 (and that's assuming you count "Don't Tell Me" and "Die Another Day").

Then again, as other observers have noted, that's not where Live Nation is likely expecting to really make its money back. The deal is an acknowledgement that Madonna, like Prince, Bruce Springsteen and other contemporaries, is more vital now as a touring act. And with labels now making deals that include participation in touring, there's no reason a concert promoter wouldn't want to be in the label business. As with Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell's Starbucks deals, a lot of the non-traditional deals are actually codifications of what was happening anyway: veteran artists reaching their audiences through methods other than airplay at current-based radio.

There was, you'll recall, a minor controversy last year when Madonna's "Confessions on a Dance Floor" album -- by general consensus, her best in years -- didn't yield any Top 40 hits in this country. That led to a fan petition claiming that Clear Channel stations were "boycotting" Madonna because of her political views. So there's some irony in any deal with Live Nation, which was spun off from CC several years ago.

Of course, the real reason that "Confessions" didn't get traction in the U.S., is that Madonna had waited a few years too many to do what many were waiting for her to do -- go back to being the "old Madonna." Look at any artist who loses their foothold at Top 40 and you'll usually find a long stretch of so-so singles that did become hits by the dint of their popularity--in her case, about 70% of what came between "Vogue" and "Ray Of Light." And while a truly great record will often will out, there does come a certain point where veterans have a really hard time getting back to Top 40, if only because they used up their goodwill earlier.

So on this week's Top 40 charts, the most consistent hitmakers represented are Pink, Nickelback, and Avril Lavigne--all of whom had their breakthroughs less than 10 years ago. Matchbox Twenty, Jennifer Lopez, Backstreet Boys and, of course, Britney Spears fight week-to-week to keep their momentum. The Eagles and Bruce Springsteen may have their best singles in years, but it's hard to ever imagine them on Top 40. There are a lot less multi-decade comebacks these days. Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons were hitmakers in the '60s, came back in 1975 after more than a few fallow years, and ended up on Top 40 again in 1994 thanks to the "December 1963" remix. Even with "Jersey Boys" and a new heavily publicized Valli album, that is unimaginable now, even if another remix just put the Four Seasons back on the charts in the U.K.

As a result, this has become a business of workarounds, whether it's the large-scale ones (Starbucks, Live Nation, Radiohead) or the smaller scale commercial tie-ins that foist Feist and Ingrid Michaelson into the mass consciousness and on to the sales charts without radio play, There are still true radio stars who also sell records--Justin Timberlake, Kanye West--but fewer and fewer. The music business is now experiencing Paul Simon's "days of miracle and wonder" (said here with all the irony that he attached to that line), and there will now be paradigm-shattering announcements on a weekly basis. But if Madonna and Live Nation come up with the record that gets her back on the radio, that will be paradigm-shattering too.