“We tend to throw out the most meaningful and most revolutionary if we ask people about their preferences." Malcolm Gladwell

Everybody's scared. I was reading an interview with an artist whose whole career had been built on individuality and originality. Even as I was reading it one of his early songs popped up on my iPod. That song was from a live CD that was groundbreaking on a multitude of levels and put the artist's name on the map for just that reason. It still brought on a buzz.  Now this one is talking about the importance of playing it safe, sticking to the music that "people want to hear." Even while fans in the front rows yell requests for the songs that don't get played on the radio. In another conversation, an artist who has never defaulted to generic talks about other musicians expressing their admiration for his gutsiness and revealing a deep fear of going there themselves. Yet when these artists do "go there," which often happens in live performances, they are welcomed with enthusiastic response, standing ovations, and long lines at the autograph table.

There is a disconnect here. Even when artists see a crowd go wild right in front of their eyes, they deny what is right in front of them and retreat back to a formula based on what they have been told "people want to hear." Who are these "people"? Did they really get a vote, or were they being asked only questions that let toward a preconceived conclusion. Pushing the big words aside it comes down to this: We just aren't that dumb! When people hear music that is not based on the assumption that we are that dumb they latch onto it like some magical thing has just been left at their front door. But musicians are afraid to create it, radio stations are afraid to play it, and record companies are afraid to release it. After a lifetime of relying on that system there is the fear of losing airplay and an equal fear exploring the whole realm of ways to get heard that go beyond airplay. Fear. Debilitating, stifling, repressive, and so entrenched in the corporate music and radio culture that an artist who thinks they have to survive in that particular realm can become so scared of their own instincts that they don't even sound like themselves anymore. They start playing for one guy at radio and another guy at the record company who is second guessing the guy at radio, while the fans keep their money in their pockets and their bodies at home instead of buying music and going to concerts because they hear nothing compelling enough to make them want to step out.

Where did this fear of music come from? It certainly wasn't in effect during the high flying days that gave us the music that is being recycled into the current safety zone. We get tribute after tribute to artists who made a name for themselves in the eclectic 70s when you could hear funk, jazz, pop, rock, jazzy pop, funky rock, and just about any hybrid a person could think of. At that point in time the idea of duplicating the sounds of a previous era was unheard of. Even commercial radio was buzzed on new sounds. Grover, P-Funk, and Ramsey Lewis jazzin' with Earth Wind and Fire coexisted with Carly Simon, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan and even the dreaded Neil Diamond and Bread. When the staff at a radio station met to choose the new music for the week there was an air of excitement as they played the new releases, both singles and album cuts, and thought of the excitement they would create for the listeners. Then music research happened. It was fun at first. You called up a random selection of listeners, played segments of songs, and asked them to rate them or say what they thought of them. Early in the game it wasn't formal. It was just one more way to find out what your listeners were thinking. As time went by it turned into a science, then an industry, and number crunchers invented exotic formulas for using the results and ranking songs. Soon the number crunching was all that mattered. It totally displaced the observation of living, breathing human beings.

That's when fear of music set in. What if people changed the station when a song started playing? What if the reason they did that was because they didn't already know the song? The best defense would be to play only songs that would not cause people to push that button - songs that they were already extremely familiar with or songs that sounded just like those familiar songs. By the late 80s radio people were second guessing the instincts that had served them well in the past and actually apologizing for being music fans. We jokingly called ourselves "MJA's," Music Junkie Airheads. Since that label would kill your career the music fans became the worst overcompensators, we were the ones who latched on to the numbers and denied our own inclinations with the loudest voices. The listeners just got numb. They quit paying attention to what was playing and let it fade into a background sound, white noise good only for displacing silence. This apathy kept them from hitting the button, though, so it was fine. Once that mindset was entrenched there was no turning back.

The next step was convincing record companies and musicians that all the listeners wanted was unnoticeable sameness and anything beyond that would result in mass revulsion. Armed with stacks of statistics that verified that assumption the radio industry forced the music business to step in line and give them what they wanted. At first the individualistic artists just towed the line but didn't buy it, the same way we radio people had. Then as more data came in and some very persuasive fast talkers pushed it home on Power Point pie charts they began to actually believe that the listeners are that dumb. Or just numb enough to robotically buy whatever they were told they should like. The saddest thing is the shutdown that has followed. A music junkie friend and I were talking and I asked him if he had heard several CDs that I did think were exciting. He hadn't listened. He just wasn't that excited about listening anymore and was actually afraid of the inevitable disappointment. So the gems were stuck with the generic in a big bin of lowered expectations. I've been there too, almost afraid of hearing a new release by a favorite artist. Would it be all bland moody riffs with some Motown thrown in for the sake of familiarity? I would have missed Ken Navarro, Sharon Robinson, Steve Oliver, and Metro or thrown the tasty new Koz single aside because it had the title of an old Eagles song. So I defiantly plod on through the stacks and the websites. Take what is good and leave the rest.

This is where we are now. In the midst of Fear of Music. Wanting something that brings on goosebumps, a sense of identification, or just that momentum that makes you want to drive too fast or high-five someone else in the crowd but tentative in the face of numerous disappointments. Here are our favorite artists, facing that thin line between the industry affirmed safety zone and the chance to put stars in our eyes again. And now it is no longer in the hands of "the industry." It's been passed on to you, the fan. The way to encourage musicians to get back into their own creative space is to support and encourage them when they do that. To find the music, share the music, and show up. Learn how to use the Internet to find music if you haven't gotten that far yet. Learn about social networking, YouTube, and blogging. Use your voice! You don't have to be deemed a "professional" by some unknown power in order to write a review, post on a blog, or even start a website. You just have to show up and put your two cents in. You don't have to jump in the deep end either. Just find one or two artists that you really enjoy and do one or two things a month to spread the word and share their music. Shake a few people you know or don't know out of their own fear of music by turning them on to some irresistible stuff. If you are invited to participate in "music research," instead of following along and taking what they give you ask the real questions. Why can't we rate better songs? Why can't we hear less of what you are feeding us here and more of what we like? Know that the good stuff is out there and ask for it! Demand that the right questions get asked.

We've backpedaled as far as we can into this fearful place. It's time to shake it off and do our part to create a space where artists don't have to be afraid that their audience will go away if they don't take the safest, most boring turn. They should never be put in a position to believe that, and we need to do everything we can to let it be known that that is not what we want. All it takes is one thrilling song, one thrilling concert, to make you want to shout out to the powers-that-be that we really, truly, are not that dumb!.