Vol. 18: Inside the Music Machine - Part 1

There was a period of my life when I was convinced I belonged in the music industry.

I simply couldn't imagine doing anything else.

Music had already become such a huge part of my life that working anywhere near it felt like the perfect career.

So when I was still in high school and came across a classified ad in the newspaper that promised the opportunity to “work in the music industry,” I didn’t hesitate.

I don’t remember the exact wording, but I remember enough.

It mentioned things like music distribution and artist promotion.

That was all I needed to see.

After a phone interview, I was told I got the job.

I thought I had found my break.

On my first day, I arrived at an office somewhere in Toronto’s west end and immediately knew something felt... different.

A crowd of people, most around my age, were gathered around a woman leading what felt more like a motivational seminar than an office meeting.

“What did we come here to do today?”

“SELL!” everyone shouted back.

The week’s top salesperson was called to the front of the room, congratulated, and asked to share the secrets of his success.

After the meeting, I was introduced to my crew leader, pointed toward a pile of hockey bags in the corner, and told, “Grab one of those. You’re with Steve today.”

Inside were hundreds of CDs.

Within an hour, I found myself walking from business to business across Toronto trying to convince mechanics, restaurants owners and car dealerships to buy as many CDs as possible.

It turned out I wasn’t getting into the music business.

I was basically a walking version of Columbia House.

Every morning I drove my Plymouth Horizon hatchback from Markham into Toronto, spending 45 minutes to an hour on the 401 each way. Between the gas, the commission-only pay structure, and walking around the city all day in the middle of summer wearing dress pants and dress shoes, it didn’t take long to realize I was losing money.

After my first tiny paycheque, I quit.

My dream of working in the music industry didn’t die that day, although I’m willing to bet it killed the dream for more than a few others who answered that same newspaper ad.

It simply taught me to be more selective.

Warner Music Canada came next.

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The Front Door

A few years later, I landed a college co-op placement at Warner Music Canada.

My job was not glamorous.

I spent a lot of time filing promotional material and organizing boxes of CDs in the back room.

But I didn’t care.

I was fascinated just being inside the building.

The free CDs were a bonus.

So was the possibility that one day a Warner artist might walk through the front door.

After graduating, I moved to the PR side of the business and worked at a Toronto firm called Rock-it Promotions.

One of my main jobs there was something called radio tracking.

That meant sending media kits for artists and bands we represented to Music Directors at radio stations across Canada, then following up by phone and email, week after week, trying to convince them to play the song.

Most of the time, getting someone to answer the phone was hard enough.

Getting them to return a call was harder.

Convincing them to add a song into light rotation felt like a small miracle.

I still remember how excited I would get when that happened.

Some of the artists I was tasked with promoting were acts like Andy Stochansky and Little Man Hands.

At the time, I wasn’t thinking about chart methodology, radio influence, corporate programming, or how the music business measures popularity.

I was just a young guy trying to get someone to play the song.

For a while, I genuinely believed I had found the career I had been looking for.

The backstage passes were exciting.

The complimentary concert tickets were fun.

Meeting artists was unforgettable.

But eventually, reality set in.

I wanted a career that could support the kind of life I hoped to build.

From what I could see, most of the people making that kind of living in the music industry weren’t the ones at the bottom trying to break in.

So, like many people do in their twenties, I changed direction.

I left the music industry behind.

Or at least I thought I had.

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A Question I Never Thought To Ask

All these years later, I found myself looking at the Billboard Hot 100 and asking a question I probably should have asked back then.

What does Billboard actually measure?

At first, that sounds obvious.

Billboard measures popularity.

That is the whole point of a chart, isn’t it?

The most popular song goes to No. 1. The next most popular song goes to No. 2.

Simple.

Except it isn’t that simple.

The Billboard Hot 100 is not a pure measurement of what people intentionally choose to play.

It is a weighted blend of three different things:

• Streaming
• Sales
• Radio airplay

That formula made perfect sense when Billboard launched the Hot 100 in 1958.

Back then, if you wanted to hear a song, your options were limited.

You could buy the record.

Or you could hear it on the radio.

Sales measured active purchasing behaviour.

Radio measured cultural reach.

Together, those signals gave the industry a reasonable picture of which songs were breaking through.

But music consumption has changed dramatically.

Today, millions of listeners can search for the exact song they want to hear at the exact moment they want to hear it.

Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and other platforms have turned listening into something highly measurable.

Every stream is a choice.

Every replay is a choice.

Every search is a choice.

That doesn’t mean streaming is perfect.

Fanbases can organize. Algorithms can influence behaviour. Playlists can shape discovery. Bots and manipulation are real concerns.

But streaming still captures something radio does not.

Intent.

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Active Choice vs. Passive Exposure

This is where the whole thing started to bother me.

When I search for a song and press play, I have made a decision.

When a song comes on while I am driving, someone else has made that decision for me.

That does not mean radio is meaningless.

Radio still has reach.

It still introduces people to songs.

It still matters, especially for certain formats, demographics and markets.

But streaming and radio are not measuring the same behaviour.

That difference matters.

Because when radio airplay becomes part of a chart formula, the decisions made by radio programmers, corporate programming teams and promotion departments become part of the mathematical definition of popularity.

In other words, the question is not just:

What are people listening to?

It is also:

Who decided what they were going to hear?

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Radio Is Not Just “The Public”

Before researching this piece, I think a part of me still imagined radio the way I did when I was younger.

A station.

A Program Director.

A Music Director.

A few DJs.

Maybe some local taste.

Maybe some gut instinct.

That version of radio still exists in some places, especially in smaller or independent markets.

But modern commercial radio is much more structured than that.

Songs do not simply float into rotation because the public demands them.

They are serviced, pitched, scheduled, tested, tracked and promoted.

A song might be digitally delivered to radio with a clean edit, metadata and a targeted format strategy.

A label may set an official “add date,” which is the moment they begin pushing stations to place the song into rotation.

Promotion teams may spend weeks trying to build enough early support for the song to become “Most Added,” creating momentum across the industry.

Once a song is added, the work is not over.

It may start in light rotation, playing only a handful of times per week.

From there, promoters keep pushing, hoping to move it into heavier rotation, where the song can be heard multiple times a day.

That process is not accidental.

It is a campaign.

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The Word “Add”

When I was doing radio tracking, one word mattered more than almost any other.

Add.

If a Music Director agreed to add a song, that meant the track was being placed into the station’s rotation system.

It did not mean the song was suddenly a hit.

It did not mean listeners loved it.

It did not even mean the song would last more than a few weeks.

But it meant the song had entered the machine.

And once a song enters the machine, other things can start happening.

It can collect spins.

It can build audience impressions.

It can appear on tracking charts.

It can be used as proof that the song is gaining traction.

And eventually, all of that can affect how the rest of the industry perceives the record.

That is what I did not fully understand back then.

I thought I was simply trying to get songs played.

I didn’t realize I was watching one small part of a much larger system that helps determine what gets counted as popular.

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So What Is Billboard Measuring?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Billboard is not measuring one thing.

It is measuring a blend of different forms of attention.

Streaming tells us what people actively chose.

Sales tell us what people were willing to pay for.

Radio tells us what was broadcast to large audiences.

Those are all useful signals.

But they are not identical signals.

And when we combine them into one ranking, we create a chart that feels simple but is actually complicated.

A No. 1 song may be the song people streamed the most.

Or it may be the song radio supported most heavily.

Or it may be the song with the best combination of streaming, sales and airplay.

That does not make the chart fraudulent.

But it does mean we should be careful about what we think a No. 1 song represents.

Those are not the same thing.

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Why This Matters Now

This question matters more today than it did when the Hot 100 was created.

In 1958, radio was one of the only ways to measure mass listening behaviour.

If a song was being played everywhere, it probably was part of the culture.

But in the streaming era, we can see listener choice more clearly than ever before.

That raises a difficult question.

If millions of people are actively choosing one song, but another song receives more radio exposure, which one is more popular?

The answer depends on what we mean by popular.

If popular means chosen, streaming has a strong claim.

If popular means heard, radio still matters.

If popular means culturally unavoidable, maybe both matter.

But once radio remains in the formula, we have to ask another question.

Who decides what gets played on radio?

That is where this investigation really begins.

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Back To The Phone

I keep thinking about those days at Rock-it Promotions.

Me, sitting at a desk, calling Music Directors across Canada, trying to get someone to care about the artists we were working.

Some days, nobody answered.

Some days, I left messages that were never returned.

And every once in a while, someone would listen.

Maybe they would add the song into light rotation.

Maybe they would give it a chance.

At the time, I saw that as a win.

And it was.

But now, all these years later, I find myself wondering something I never thought to ask back then.

Who was influencing those decisions before I ever picked up the phone?

Was it local taste?

Corporate strategy?

Audience research?

Label pressure?

Promotion budgets?

Relationships?

Data?

Probably some combination of all of it.

And that is what makes this so fascinating.

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Next Week: Who Decides What Gets Played?

This is the first part of a new Dad’s Music Muse series I’m calling Inside the Music Machine.

Part 1 started with Billboard because charts are where many of us see popularity measured.

But charts are only the final scoreboard.

Next week, I want to go deeper into the game itself.

Who decides what gets played on commercial radio?

What does a Program Director actually do?

What is an “add date”?

How do record labels promote singles to radio?

What role do independent promoters play?

And how much influence do a relatively small number of decision-makers have over the songs millions of listeners eventually hear?

I don’t know exactly where this series will lead.

But I know the question that started it.

When we say a song is popular, who exactly got to decide?

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