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Sunday, April 20, 2003

Zagat Survey Lets Fans Call the Tune

By Leanne Potts
Of the Journal
    You, too, can be a music critic. Zagat (pronounced za-GAT, not zaggit), the company that brings you ratings guides to restaurants and hotels, is publishing its first-ever music guide and it wants you, Mr. Armchair Music Expert, to pick which albums rank as the best of all time.
    That's right. You decide whether Lawrence Welk's 1961 album "Calcutta" deserves to be named one of the best lounge albums ever. Or whether "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" ranks as one of the top blues albums of all eternity.
    It's a music geek's dream.
    Wanna vote? Go to www.zagat.com. Pick a genre in which you have expertise (or at least opinions; critics tend to have more of the latter than the former).
    A list of nominees pops up. Pick the three albums you believe are the genre's best, then rate them on overall quality, songwriting, musicianship and production quality.
    Write-ins are allowed, and there is a space where you write your comments about an album, too.
    Being a Zagat critic takes time; there are 556 albums listed in the rock genre alone. You can only pick three.
    Talk about tough. I picked 22 the first pass through the rock ballot, then spent an eternity editing my choices down to three.
    My picks:
    1. Beatles, "Revolver."
    2. The Police, "Zenyatta Mondatta." (A write-in vote.)
    3. R.E.M., "Murmur." (A write-in vote.)
    Oh, the people I had to leave off. No U2. No Kinks or Sex Pistols or Nirvana.
    In the country category:
    1. Hank Williams, "The Ultimate Collection."
    2. Lucinda Williams, "Sweet Old World." (A write-in vote.)
    3. Waylon Jennings, "Dreaming My Dreams."
    Sorry George, Tammy and Patsy.
    There are more than 2,000 albums listed on the entire survey, ranging from Billie Holiday's "Lady Sings the Blues" to Madonna's "Music."
    Your reward for your work as a critic: A free copy of the book when it is published in September.
    For this reason, you will have to register at Zagat's site.
    Uh-oh, say the spam-leery.
    Zagat spokeswoman Michelle Lehmann says voting in the survey will not result in an e-mail box full of ads about how to make your private parts the size of Montana. "We just have to know where to send the free book," she said.
    A KINDER, GENTLER COMPANY: Clear Channel, the nation's largest concert promoter and the largest owner of radio stations, is worried you don't like them.
    That's why the San Antonio-based firm — which owns 19 radio stations in New Mexico and operates Journal Pavilion — has begun offering $10 tickets to some of its concerts. And that's why the company announced last week it would sever its ties with music promoters paid by record companies to pitch songs to Clear Channel stations.
    Critics said Clear Channel's practice of accepting fees from promoters in exchange for station playlists and for meetings with station programmers smelled like payola. (Payola was the name given to a scandal in the 1950s in which record companies paid deejays to play their records on the air. The practice was outlawed in 1960.)
    Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, introduced legislation this year to end promoters' payments to stations.
    Clear Channel has maintained that the money it got from promoters (estimated by industry analysts to be from $20,000 to $300,000 per station) never influenced the playlists at its 1,200 U.S. radio stations.
    Company President Mark Mayes said in a statement that Clear Channel was ditching the promoters simply because it looked bad. "We ... want to avoid even the suggestion that (pay for play) takes place within our company," he said.
    Clear Channel's move won't affect the music you hear on its stations, said Houston-based radio consultant Guy Zapoleon. "Nothing will change," he said. "Now stations will just go directly to the labels, and the labels with the best relationships will get the most airplay for their songs."
    Clear Channel is hoping its house-cleaning will change your feelings, though.
    "Clear Channel is working on being a kinder, gentler big company," said Cindy Schloss, regional vice president of Clear Channel New Mexico. "We've been blamed for a lot of corporate bad stuff."
   

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    Leanne Potts can be reached at lpotts@abqjournal.com.