Fame Games Radio

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Fame Games serves many objectives. Chief among them is the discovery of exciting new music and giving the artists access to a broader audience, otherwise unavailable to them. But Fame Games doesn't stop there. It also attempts to breathe new life into entertainment radio programming which all too often has become disconnected from its listener base; furthermore, Fame Games has become an exciting new resource for record labels looking for new and improved ways to A&R fresh talent.

The Fame Games A&R process consistently yields the highest quality of new music, and it also serves to uncover real trends among listeners, some of which may be surprising.

One of the greatest (pleasant) surprises has been the consistent support for "real" music. While this may sound like an over-used cliché, it simply means is that invariably it's the song itself and the talent of the artist which trump over slick production. That's not to say that production doesn't count. It most certainly does. But the vast majority of the Fame Games listeners select songs which are "honest" first, and "superbly produced" second.

Since Fame Games airs to a broad international base (with main focus on the US market), and to a hugely diversified demographic, it's only natural that its appeal tends to be in the center, rather than on the fringes. So, while a wide diversity of genres is readily accepted on the show, only those "fringe" songs which have the highest "crossover potential" do really well with the listeners.

In this respect, Fame Games would appear to mostly fit CHR formats, but in reality its appeal if far broader. To everyone's surprise, rock and urban stations often carry the show as willingly as talk radio! This is probably because Fame Games doesn't just manage to discover truly excellent new songs - it's just as likely because of its diversity that so many people now gravitate to it.

And this leads us to observe another most interesting phenomenon. While it's true that "subculture" or "purist" musical styles will always have their ardent followers, the vast majority of listeners have, in fact, much broader tastes. A typical person's "mix tape" may contain a bit of everything. And when you think about it, it's only natural. Back in the 60s and 70s radio played a bit of everything and there was no clear disctinction between styles and genres - at least not in the mind of the listening public.

One of the biggest bonuses on Fame Games is that virtually all the music which does well on the show, while produced by the artists themselves within their own means, is in fact market-ready. The quality of production achieved by many of those "newbies" is sometimes astoundingly good. This means that their productions are not just "radio-ready" or "release-ready" - they're also tested on radio in front of a huge international crossover audience, basing on how it sounds, rather than on how it looks!

Fame Games challenges many "conventional wisdoms" widely held by the radio and records industries. Apart from what we already mentioned, for example, we've discovered a much greater acceptance of "older" artists or "plain looking" artists than the popular mainstream culture would have us believe. Again, it's more about "how it sounds" than "how it looks!" We've also discovered that surprisingly many "rockers" enjoy good quality R&B or hiphop in the privacy of their homes, and "hiphoppers" don't mind a bit of the classics or folk now and then, to spice up their day. As long as they're good songs!

This clear open-mindedness of listeners is what drives this show and what wins it more and more converts; not just among the listeners and radio stations but also, increasingly, among music industry professionals.

Fame Games wouldn't work, if it wasn't for the song elimination system ("A&R system") it employs. As anyone who surfs the net regularly will attest, discovering new music without a "guide" can be daunting - and ultimately hugely disappointing. This is why radio is and will continue being so important to the music discovery process. It's all about intelligent guidance, after all. But it's also about diversity and keeping the listeners' interest and attention. It's about the thrill of discovery.

No single person on the MMI / Fame Games crew has a decisive say about what music makes it to the shows. This decision is always the product of the on-going market research which the Fame Games system provides for. After years of trial and error, what has emerged is an A&R system which is not just "crowd-sourced" but also "expert-sourced" and "special-interest-sourced".

We all know how varied people's opinions can be. Even experts often disagree with one another on all-too-many issues. The Fame Games system attempts to reconcile all these different view-points. So, what are they? Well, naturally, there are "fans." These can be broken down into "new listeners" and "established fans." Each of these groups can be further split into various demographics, age groups, sexes, geographies, etc. Then there are "active participants" or your typical "music reviewers." These too can vary greatly; from well-informed music connoisseurs (i.e. "listener reviewers") to other musicians ("peer reviewers") to professionals ("expert reviewers") who might include A&R reps or radio DJs or journalists, managers, publishers, some retired, some still active... and so on. And then, there are various personal biases which the system must allow for and recognize. And it gets more complex still. Some voters or reviewers may have their own "evil agendas" and not be objective, while others regularly prove that they truly are in it "just for the art." Figuring out who is who and what the individual biases may be is a hugely important part of the Fame Games A&R system. And then... you also have to make that whole system understandable and palatable to your average listener who just wants to be entertained! And... artists must understand it to be fair and impartial too!

While "objectivity" may be more of a philosophical and perhaps an unattainable goal, it's also a question of degree. And to a very high degree, the Fame Games system is consistently proving that with a better than 90% accuracy, it's capable of filtering out some of the best new music in the world from among the thousands of songs submitted to the site.

What is needed now is for the rest of the radio and records industry to recognize it and embrace it. Fame Games is the future.