Frank Zappa nailed it on the head here:
“One thing that did happen during the 60’s was that some music of an unusual or experimental nature did get recorded and did get released. Now look at who the executives were in those companies at those times – not hip young guys. These were cigar chomping old guys who looked at the product that came in and said, “I dunno. Who knows what it is? Record it. Stick it out. If it sells, all right!”
We were better off with those guys than we are now with the supposedly hip young executives who are making the decisions about what people should see and hear in the marketplace. The young guys are more conservative and more dangerous to the artform than the old guys with the cigars ever were.
And you know how these young guys got in there? The old guy with the cigar, one day goes – “Yeah, I took a chance. It went out and we sold a few million units. All right. I dunno. I dunno what it is. But we need to do more of them. I need some advice. Let’s get a hippy in here...” So they hire a hippy. They bring in the guy with long hair. Now, they’re not going to trust him to do anything except carry coffee and bring the mail in. It starts from there. He carried the coffee four times so they figured they could trust him. “Let’s give him a real job.” He becomes and A and R man (artists and repertoire) . From there, moving up and up and up... Next thing you know, he’s got his feet on the desk and he’s saying, “Well, we can’t take a chance on this – because its simply not what the kids want – and I know.”
One of the best live performers ever. The touring bands he put together were always first rate musicians AND performers.
Some of those old suits were mobsters. Deadly serious mobsters. They got the “hits” by more than just payola.
But those became the “hits” we know today. I don’t subscribe to the nostalgia, “top 100”, standard for what deserves to be enshrined.
The mob was entrenched in big-music into the 1970s.
But it’s like Vegas, the corporate suits who took over after the mob are less violent, but no more ethical.