This week on The Disclaimer, WMSE's weekly culture chat with Ryan Schleicher, Milwaukee Record co-founder Matt Wild and I, we turn our attention to a radio practice that has us scratching our heads. If you've listened to V100.7 at all over the last couple of months, it's a near certainty that you've heard a song called "Ballin" by Bibi Bourelly. It's a crappy song, but given that nonstop airplay you could be mistaken for assuming it's a hit. It's not. The song is being promoted through a iHeartRadio (i.e. Clear Channel) program called "On The Verge," which lets the company's brand managers single out the upcoming artists they'd like to see happen. In the past it's helped acts like Tinashe and (especially) Iggy Azalea, but judging by the lackluster response to "Ballin," it isn't doing much for Bourelly. So why after all these weeks is the station still force feeding us an unpopular song? We go long on the trouble with commercial radio and why the whole "On The Verge" model makes us uncomfortable.
Then we turn our attention to the latest Milwaukee-centric Change.org petition: a hyperbolic call for Summerfest to remove its benches. You may or may not be able to guess which side of the bench argument we come down on, but you'll certainly be able to guess our thoughts in general on Change.org petitions. And I end the show by sharing a somewhat related story about a time I saw the Black Eyed Peas (sorry not sorry) at Summerfest a long time ago.
You can stream the episode, and that Bibi Bourelly song I don't care for, below. As always, feel free to share your own Black Eyed Peas story on our Facebook page, and to subscribe to The Disclaimer on iTunes.
