Why else would people who apply for classic rock programs be forced to play five new songs an hour? Don't people who want to run classic rock programs generally by nature hate new music? Why would they force classic rock snobs to play music they neither like, endorse, or believe in?
The (actual) answer has to do with those record labels. You know, the ones who have squeezed every last drop of life out of the music industry already. You may be familiar with the song "Sounds Like Every Other Song Made By The Other Cobain Wannabes," covers of which have remained at the top of the charts since 1994.* This I blame primarily on the record labels, and now I have an even better reason to do so. The labels send albums to radio stations across the country, expecting the DJs to play the songs. No airtime, no future albums free for the DJs. I see no problem with this, of course, because 99% the music produced in my lifetime has absolutely no redeeming value, and 99% of that remaining one percent was made by bands that had already established themselves prior to my birth.
*and when it's not a cover of SLEOSMBTOCW, it's a rap "song," the title of which is unprintable here.
Anyway, the record labels expect us to play these songs. Somewhere down the line every station manager ever decided to bend over and take it like the effeminate pansy your average new-music lover is. And as a result, bands on these labels have a sense of entitlement. "Our songs don't have to be good. They'll get airtime anyway. That's how this works." News flash, "Stairway to Heaven" was never a single. No DJ in history ever had to play that song. Zeppelin told the label "no, find something else to be a single, because we're not cutting this down."
It's high time somebody told a label "no, find some decent music to send us, because we're not playing this manufactured noise."
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