Unlike conventional pay-for-play deals, spot buys like the one that propelled Avril Lavigne into the Top 10 aren’t meant to introduce listeners to songs; they’re meant to game the playlist system. It’s a salient feature of modern media that being thought to be popular can make you more popular. Best-selling books and records are discounted more than slow-selling ones and are positioned more prominently. Songs in Billboard’s Top 10 automatically end up being spun more. And if you invest lots of money in creating an illusion of popularity—by, say, buying hours of airplay on the radio—you may end up making yourself more popular. In the process, what real listeners want matters less than it ever did. In “Payola Blues,” Neil Young sang to Alan Freed, “The things they’re doing today / Will make a saint out of you.” He didn’t know the half of it.
