I can't shut up and follow the party line. It's just not in my genetic code or something. I was cursed from birth with the inclination to think independently. It didn't particularly charm my teachers or endear me to my peer group, especially when I was sneaking downtown to sit-ins, or asking why girls were required to take home-ec, or when I stood up in a class full of the aspiring politically-correct and stated that regardless of what Eldridge Cleaver said in "Soul on Ice," rape is never justified. Never! And the girls in the class who were trying so hard to be hip and political collectively dropped their jaws. I could blame it on the stars. Midwinter babies born in the center of the Sun's trip through Aquarius do seem to veer off of beaten paths and not follow the main direction signs. Or maybe it's just an ugly job that somebody has to do, and since I've lost everything and gotten it back several times already, and the downward part of the curve hasn't killed me yet, there's not that much to lose.

Working musicians and the few radio people who still have jobs could also point out that this is not my main paycheck, so the risk isn't as high. But even when it was my main paycheck, I still couldn't shut up. I was one of the people who sent out an early alarm in a major trade publication's article on the changing face of the format back when everything smoothed out. I said that making this an easy listening format was going to hurt in the long run, because the next generations of listeners would not be interested at all, and when the current crop of listeners hit 55 the format was going to be in trouble because agencies don't buy 55+. Look what happened. A lot of people where whispering the same type of sentiments, but they could, and did, shut up. They were afraid of losing their jobs, ending up on a rumored "do not hire/do not play" list, or being labeled "negative." Or (let's have a big OMG here) somebody might not like them - as Oprah coined it, the “disease to please.”

Musicians shut up, radio people shut up, trade publications shut up or shut down, record companies shut up, music writers shut up (although Jonathan Widran did inject some food for thought into his Jazziz column at the time). Everybody put on blinders and a big smiley face, and look where that got us. One company was able to take control of the radio format and hijack the genre. A small clique made the rules and ran rampant over everybody else. The radio format got stuck in 1987, then 1995, while the years passed it by. The original listeners moved into an unmarketable demographic and new ones did not come in. Stations started jumping ship left and right. Concert promoters and club bookers followed. And it all got blamed on the music!

It wasn't the music. It was the small segment of the music that made it through the filters and ended up on the air – the safest and most nondescript songs on any given album, the ones that qualified as background music that was smooooooth and relaxing. Even when ratings were still strong, sales were starting to erode. That should have been a warning. Industry people would say, “well they took all the interesting and exciting elements out of the music, so who wants to buy a boring album... but don't quote me on that.” They had to shut up.

What if they had been willing to be quoted? What if influential people had been willing to ask “Why is 'too exciting' a bad thing?” or “Why can't we have up-tempo songs, horn sections, and guitar solos?” or “Who says people hate flutes and tenor sax?” or “Is clearing out the vocalists who have not made the adult contemporary charts really necessary?” or the big one “Why does one company get all the control and make all the rules? What are we missing by having any alternative concepts branded as stupid and unprofessional?” And why did listeners silently tolerate it when their favorite station started playing more Celine Dion, Phil Collins, the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, and less Rippingtons, Paul Taylor and Peter White? Because by then everyone had been conditioned to believe that some corporate authority figure knew what was best for them, and they didn't have any voice anyway. After all, by then everyone had become conditioned to shut up.

Let's learn from our mistakes. Shutting up was a big mistake. Telling others to shut up is an equally big mistake. When someone speaks the truth they deserve to be heard. Not always agreed with, but you can disagree with someone without invalidating them or what they say. That's when you step up and say what you think too. We lucked out this time around. The new business model has given musicians, music media and music fans a second chance. There are heavy growing pains yet to go through though. That makes it even more important that we say what we think and feel, keep the exchange of ideas flowing, and share concepts and information with each other. This is how we grow and this is how we build a community to support contemporary instrumental and adult alternative music. It's critical that we don't blow it this time, because there will always be someone lurking around the corner who would like to take control, grab all the power and kick everyone else back behind the curtain. The way to keep that from happening is to connect, share, and above all – when you feel strongly about something DO NOT SHUT UP! If it's bothering you it's probably bothering others too, and if nobody says anything, it will just get worse until it implodes. We dug that hole once and we're just starting to crawl out of it. Let's not trip ourselves up and slide back to the bottom.