Mob deals, TV racism, and fights with angry moms. The '80s may have
been a golden age for music, but not for the people who made it.
Cassette tapes were all the rage in the '80s, owing to their portability and the
recent invention of the Sony Walkman and boombox. An affordable dual tape
deck that could record material from one cassette onto another soon launched — and
home recording was born. Mixtapes — in which songs were recorded from albums or off the
radio and assembled into primitive playlists — became a hallmark of '80s youth culture.
But the music industry viewed home recording as a major threat to profits. According to The
Washington Post, record sales were down in 1979, and label executives
were desperate for a scapegoat. Shortly after the advent of the dual tape deck,
the British Phonographic Industry, or BPI — a trade group that represented most of
the United Kingdom's record labels — launched an aggressive ad campaign bearing the slogan:
"Home Taping Is Killing Music — And It's Illegal." The slogan was printed on album sleeves
and cassettes in the early '80s. The BPI pushed for taxes on blank tape sales to recoup losses,
and CBS even sued the creators of tape copying equipment. Both attempts ultimately failed.
On August 1, 1981, MTV launched in North America… and it changed everything. The
network's first music video, The Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star," now seems
kind of prophetic. As the network gained a foothold, music videos became so popular that
other music channels like Much Music and VH1 soon followed. But there was a major problem.
According to Dale Andrews in his book "Digital Overdrive," video had in fact killed the radio
star — or at least completely changed the rules of the game. Before MTV, most artists were heard
but rarely seen. Now, with music videos serving as the ultimate promotional tools, image became just
as important as the music — arguably even more so. Simply making music was not enough. Artists
also had to look attractive or interesting and sometimes even act. Those who mastered the visual
aspect outperformed all others, regardless of musical ability. And there was another problem.
Because music videos were considered advertisements for artists, no one
made any money off of them. In fact, according to singer-songwriter Ian Tamblyn, artists had to pay
for their own music videos, and making one worthy of airplay wasn't cheap. Because music videos
became expected in the '80s, labels would front the artists money to produce them, later recouping
the expense out of their royalties. As the decade progressed, production costs became astronomical.
In 1987, Michael Jackson's "Bad" cost $2.2 million to produce. In the end, only a select few
good-looking, fashionable, rich, or already signed artists were able to keep up with the industry.
In 1982, Phillips and Sony teamed up to release the compact disc, or CD.
Record companies claimed CDs offered superior sound quality and durability when compared to
vinyl. In his book "Entertainment Industry Economics," Harold L. Vogel notes that the quality
of vinyl had become notoriously poor in the late '70s, which contributed to low album sales. Record
companies hoped that the technologically advanced CD would inspire people to buy music again.
But when CDs first launched, they were only for the wealthy. A CD player in 1982 was priced at
$750, which is about $2,100 today. CDs themselves were around $15 each, about $45 today. Despite
CDs being relatively cheap to produce, record companies justified the high price, citing the
audio superiority they provided and the added cost of building new manufacturing facilities. And,
of course, a large percentage of the profit from each CD sale went directly to the record company.
Still, it was hardly much incentive to swap out your entire vinyl collection. But in 1983,
with the launch of more affordable players and the slow decrease of CD prices,
that's exactly what started happening. By 1988,
CDs outsold vinyl. As the '80s drew to a close, vinyl had become a rare sight at record stores.
When MTV first launched, the network played pretty much any video they could get their
hands on… but very few by Black artists. So, in an interview with MTV in 1983,
David Bowie called them out for it. The network fumbled for a response. Among the reasons given
were that MTV focused on rock music, Black music would alienate many viewers, radio segregated
music racially so it was an accepted practice, and Black artists were not making music videos.
A notable example of MTV's color barrier was the network's curious omission of Rick James' "Super
Freak." Despite the song being a top hit in the United States in 1981, MTV was not playing the
music video for it. James declared this "blatant racism" in a 1983 interview, and noted that MTV
had no problem playing music videos for obscure white punk bands who didn't even have a label.
The color barrier came crashing down in 1983 when CBS head Walter Yetnikoff threatened to
withhold videos from his label's other artists — including Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel,
and Cyndi Lauper — to get the network to play Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." MTV
complied, and "Billie Jean" became a huge hit, launching Jackson to stardom. Videos
by Black artists like Prince and Whitney Houston were soon in heavy rotation on MTV.
It turns out that payola — a crime in which commercial radio stations are bribed to play
songs without disclosing they have been paid — wasn't just a thing of the '50s
and '60s. According to the Los Angeles Times, record labels in the mid-'80s regularly hired
independent promoters to influence radio program managers to play certain songs,
spending around $60 to $80 million a year on such endeavors. In exchange for play,
promoters offered everything from cash to cocaine to sex workers.
In 1986, a federal investigation into payola exposed Joe Isgro, whose Los Angeles music
promotion business made $10 million a year in the 1980s. Isgro was indicted in 1989, but the case
was dismissed in 1990. He was later revealed to be a member of the Gambino crime family.
According to Fredric Dannen in his book "Hit Men," major record labels worked regularly with
a group of music industry mobster middlemen known as The Network in the '80s. When they
needed to ensure a song was played on the radio, or that another song was not played,
they contacted members of The Network to make it happen. Following all the bad press,
record labels quickly off-loaded all of their independent promoters.
By the mid to late '80s, record companies were making enormous profits,
and album sales were increasing each year. Yet, for some reason,
artists were still making the same as they were before — which wasn't much, comparatively.
CDs, which sold at a huge profit margin, were a big part of the industry's growth. But the
majority of this money went to the record label, with most artists being awarded less
than 5% of every CD sale. To make matters worse, labels also charged artists for the use of new
technology while reducing their royalties by 20%, according to Steve Knopper in his book "Appetite
for Self-Destruction." Despite CDs costing about $8 more than a vinyl record, artists
made around 81 cents per CD sale. And then, of course, there were the hefty advances labels
provided for promotional music videos, which often had to be recouped before artists saw a dime.
When it was all said and done, royalty rates stayed around 10% for most artists. Only the
decade's biggest stars made over 35%. But a few '80s artists successfully fought back
against this perceived injustice. Once Madonna discovered that much of her profit came from
songwriting royalties, she ensured that she was listed as a co-writer on every song she
sang. Still, even Madonna didn’t make 20% in royalties until the early 90’s.
Music in the 1980s was largely overseen by only six major labels. Together,
they controlled 80% of the music industry, determining what was mainstream based on sales
of their artists. For much of the decade, the main product was electronic pop music. But pop
was far from the only type of music being produced in the '80s. Many artists making
different music didn't fit with the mainstream and were confined to the underground scene.
Underground artists gained followings through touring, college radio stations, and mentions in
fanzines. They would often sign with independent labels, whose goals were promoting creativity
rather than commercial success. Many indie artists played physical instruments as a
way of rebelling against the synthesizers and digital sounds that dominated the mainstream.
Many underground artists were overlooked by major labels in the '80s. Their music became known as
a new genre: alternative rock. Its very name suggested opposition to the mainstream. Yet,
oddly enough, many of these artists would later become mainstream in the '90s — in fact,
grunge grew out of the underground '80s scene.
Trouble started brewing in the mid-'80s when Tipper Gore, the wife of politician Al Gore,
heard her 11-year-old daughter listening to Prince's "Darling Nikki," which references
female masturbation. Susan Baker, the wife of the White House chief of staff, had a similar
revelation when she heard her 7-year-old daughter singing Madonna's "Like a Virgin."
The concerned mothers formed a group called the Parents Music Resource Center,
or PMRC. They started a moral campaign, contacting the Record
Industry Association of America — the RIAA — and seeking censorship of music they deemed
objectionable and harmful to children. The RIAA initially shot the attempts down,
citing the First Amendment. Eventually, they agreed to consider adding a warning label to
albums that contained explicit songs, and the movement escalated to a 1985 Senate hearing.
At the hearing, the PMRC presented a list of unacceptable songs they deemed the "Filthy 15."
Standing in defense of freedom of speech were an unlikely trio of musical artists: John Denver,
Frank Zappa, and Dee Snider. Denver likened such censorship to the Nazi book burnings,
and Zappa called the committee, quote, "the wives of Big Brother." Oddly enough, Snider,
the frontman of Twisted Sister, gave the most eloquent testimony. Introducing himself as a
drug-free Christian father, he explained to the Senate that song lyrics were subjective.
"There is no authority who has the right or the necessary insight to make these judgments."
Nonetheless, the Parental Advisory Label was approved and went into effect in 1990.
A measly 10% of albums released each year turn a profit, as per the RIAA. To offset such large
losses, record labels churned out as many songs as possible, hoping that a few would become
hits. In his book "The Billboard Book of Gold and Platinum Records," Adam White points out that the
RIAA also pushed the cassette single heavily in 1987 and later in the decade would lowered
the certification sales criteria so more hit singles could be classified as gold or platinum.
This created excitement and shifted the listener's focus to the single, a trend that continues today.
According to Harold L. Vogel in "Entertainment Industry Economics," labels focused on finding
many new acts as the upfront costs were much lower. Once the label found a hit,
there was little incentive to keep investing in the artist unless they could immediately
replicate the experience. Thus, a culture of mass-producing one-hit wonders was born.
Consider the career of Madonna. In 1982, her first deal with Warner Brothers Records was based purely
on singles and was not a full contract. She was simply offered an advance of $15,000 per single.
Luckily, it worked out for her, but the same cannot be said of most '80s acts,
who had one big song and then faded away. In a list VH1 compiled of the "100 Greatest One-Hit
Wonders of the 1980s," you'll find the likes of "Come on Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners, "The
Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats, and "I Melt With You" by Modern English — songs that defined
the '80s and are still loved today, but whose creators became carnage in the decade's excess.