#890 – The Expat Files: English Radio, Cultural Status, and the Decline of Music

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came out to play and now I wonder Hello there all you ex-pat wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started You know today. I'm kind of glad I don't have a sponsor or sponsors for the show or they're called Patro sinadores in Spanish. In other words, if you have someone paying the bills for your program, you know annoying Advertisers pushing tide coca-cola Trojans Alka Seltzer. Well, as you probably figured out

[00:50] We don't have any advertisers so they can't tell me what to do and they can't censor me either That means I'm not beholden to anyone except you guys out there. If you don't like it, you don't listen, right? And in a way that's really good, especially considering today's show, which I know is gonna piss off certain large brain dead sectors of society Sectors of society. I might add I don't particularly give a rat's ass about so in a few minutes I am gonna read an email that'll get the ball rolling Oh and you might find this interesting before I started doing the expat file show been doing this show about eight years now I worked in radio as a host in various Latin American radio stations and markets My shows in Latin America started around the year 2000 and you know for some years. I was a morning gringo guy

[01:35] So here's how it went down here in Latin America before the internet really kicked in that was around 2005 Every major market and there were at least 20 of them had a popular radio station with a show that had a gringo host In many cases that was me now a Latin media market is Usually based around a big capital city like Mexico City Panama City Bogota San Jose Costa Rica Guatemala City They all had generally one radio station with a gringo guy in the morning serving the rush hour traffic on the way to work or school by the way in the 1990s Latin radio stations tried to have an English speaking program in the morning using a Latino disc jockey or host that was Bilingual that could speak English, but that did not work at all They absolutely did not know how to do rapid-fire halfway intelligent first world gringo radio in the end

[02:26] They gave up and started hiring real live gringos like me So then you might wonder who would listen to such a program Well all the gringo management running franchises like Costco McDonald's Wendy's various banks and pharmaceutical companies All the big gringo transnationals here in Latin America have a couple of gringos on staff too And they love their English radio as do all the British American Australian and Canadian Embassy people Not to mention you've got all those children of the rich the top five percenters going to private bilingual high schools and universities Too there are nuts about real English language radio and English language music, too Then you've got those thousands and thousands of gringo wannabes Mostly Latinos with a little money upper middle class and wealthy Latinos who occasionally go to my jammy shopping, man

[03:16] I tell you they want to be like gringos in the worst way They subscribe to US cable TV and English and they'd listen to English language radio programs like mine It's kind of a social mobility bragging rights moving on up thing to put a bumper sticker of an English language radio station on your car In fact, they'd even go so far as to put US sports teams stickers and decals on their cars, too Like Raiders Bulls Yankees dolphins It's funny you see stickers like that on people's cars if they don't know anything about the team nor do they watch the team It's really not about the team It's about showing your neighbors and friends that you have a connection to the United States through that team somehow Even though you don't though that's supposed to make you cool get it good cuz I don't So anyway at those radio stations the token gringo had the drive-by spots

[04:05] That would be from six in the morning to eight and then from five at night to seven I worked both spots at various stations Yep back then if you happen to be in a big city in Latin America You just might have heard my annoying Midwestern twang, but I wasn't just a regular DJ My shows were basically freeform BS sessions with lots of callers And usually the bosses in the station managers would tell me I had to play one song of my choice every 15 minutes The rest was just me blathering taking phone calls Having quizzes and giving away free stuff provided by my sponsors my Patro Senadores now if you take apart that word Patro Senador you'll see it's got the English word patron in it So that's what they were my patrons and because mine was almost always the only show completely in English

[04:52] My listeners were obviously expats gringos and Latinos who spoke English and those particular groups always tend to be in the higher Economic demographic and the sponsors knew that so I had the best sponsors Let's put it this way the chicken bust crowd did not listen to my show Now I have to say the great majority of people listening were gringo wannabes and for most of them their greatest desire was to visit The Magic Kingdom Disney World and of course the unofficial capital of Latin America my jammy Hey, I poop you not Crazier yet is that I had a ton of listeners who'd been up in the states illegally and got caught and deported and once back in The home country licking their wounds and knowing a little bit of English They craved all things English because they missed living in the US

[05:38] They wanted to snatch every little bit of it. They could including listening to my show Oh and get this little did I know but I found out in good time It was actually considered a status symbol to have your radio tuned to an English speaking station Even if you barely understood what was going on or didn't get the jokes or the stateside references at all You'll notice that phenomena a lot when you go into a professional office physicians dentists lawyers accountants in upscale stores and upscale Shopping malls to even way way off the gringo tourist trail where really there are very few English speakers around Now you might remember not so long ago I was talking on a show about how many many times I'd get into an uber a regular cabin The driver would have his radio tuned to an English music classic rock station And even though most drivers don't know enough English to be able to understand the words in any of those songs

[06:27] It doesn't seem to be all about the music but more a weird kind of marketing That's especially true with airport taxis in a way They're trying to demonstrate that they're cosmopolitan kind of hip with the trip ready for gringo prime time in other words Maybe that'll encourage a gringo sized tip and I mentioned how in the last few years a particular Station's been syndicated out of LA. It's called kiss FM all the DJ's are gringo all the music is classic rock though It is completely canned and pre-recorded and really to my mind, then I'm a fairly competent judge of music I played in many bands and done a lot of gigs Anyway, in my opinion that famous syndicated kiss FM radio station. That's all over the big markets here in Latin America They play some real classic rock schmaltz and crap. There is a difference

[07:13] You know, there's good classic rock and crap classic rock. If you don't believe it Here's a little test to measure your own taste in so-called classic rock music Alright, you ready? Tell me which side of the classic rock spectrum from solid gold to soft mushy poop. You'd place the following artists Kenny G Michael Bolton air supply and Barry Manlow. Wait a minute quiet. Just a second I can hear some toilets flushing right now But I digress as usual. Where are we? Oh, yeah, we were talking about that ubiquitous canned Syndicated radio station kiss FM and what it's done to Latin America So in effect because of syndicated programs like that Latin American radio markets don't need gringos like me live anymore So anyway as mentioned my shows were always kind of like the morning and evening

[08:03] Flagship shows because all the really cool sponsors wanted to advertise on my show Sponsors knew damn well that an English-speaking audience was a higher demographic and they could afford to buy their stuff and man Did I have some great sponsors? I had a name for my group of sponsors. I call them the Triple H Club They were a radio guys dream get this Harley Davidson Hooters and Heineken Triple H and the perks were fantastic every time Harley Davidson sponsored a run I'd be there to MC events concerts send-offs and parties and they had a ton of them Oh, and I'd also MC Hooters and Heineken events tough job, but someone had to do it Oh, and I almost forgot gold Jim was my sponsor, too And every time they'd open up a new gold gym in Latin America Lou Ferrigno would come by because he was their celebrity poster boy

[08:51] We got to hang a bit, but don't think I'm name-dropping here if I wanted to do that I'd drop a name of someone people actually remember Now I know you have to be pretty old to remember Lou Ferrigno He was the first Hulk on TV, but what most people don't know is the guy's deaf or nearly deaf Oh, he can speak all right, but he can't hear what he's saying So he gets the words out, but they're not very smooth or cadenced Great guy though. So then why am I telling you all this extraneous garbage? Well because a lot of times in people's emails they tag on a PS saying something like Johnny Come on Tell us a little bit more about your extraneous adventures in Latin America And you know being the lone gringo radio guy in so many Latin markets was a real experience and having those particular sponsors That sort of instantly shoved me into a position where I was rubbing elbows with the upper middle class and rich Latino crowd

[09:42] So I learned very quickly how classist racist and sexist that segment the upper five to ten percent of the population really is Now in regards to racism, don't get me wrong I'm not talking about the same kind of racism that exists up in the states It's a different kind of racism down here You might not believe this but the racism thing up in the states pales in comparison To what it's like in the middle upper middle and wealthy classes here in Latin America down here There's very little racism against blacks But a hell of a lot against indigenous people the thing is if you've got the so-called Indio blood indigenous blood the Mayan Aztec Toltec and Inca blood you find they stick to their own marry their own are most likely poor living in poor neighborhoods and doing all the poop jobs Unfortunately, if you're an indigenous person in Latin America, you got one hell of a glass ceiling

[10:28] The other problem is that people with indigenous blood just can't blend in because they're so easily identified They're shorter darker and well Obviously indigenous whereas the rest of the so-called Latino population have various shades and percentages of European blood Some of them so much so that they look European or gringo Especially in countries like Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, and Argentina where earlier in the 19th and 20th centuries Europeans were incentivized to come over and man they came In fact, some of the towns in the boonies of Argentina could easily be mistaken for little Swiss German and Austrian villages I know it sounds strange, but I've been there you have to see it to believe it All right time to offend some people with the following email. Oh, and he told me not to use his name

[11:14] I can see why he says dear Johnny. I understand you are something of a musician yourself I've noticed you don't talk much about it on your show I'd like to hear some more about it, but it is your show after all though I think it's time for another go at it, especially talking about ragathon music As far as i'm concerned Johnny music people listen to these days is a dead corpse But the kids don't know it and ragathon music leads the way All right me Johnny here Let's stop for a second and explain what ragathon is for the uninitiated It is the latino dumbed down version of rap and hip-hop if that's possible It's extremely popular here in latin america. It's taken over as number one music genre You can hear it blasting out of speakers in every club disco even restaurants

[12:02] And it's the number one music latinas love to dance to so you can count on the fact that as much as you may Dislike it it's not going away. In fact, it's so big. It spawned its own tv channels music video industry And gigantic heavily sponsored tours. So that's basically what ragathon music is Now as to what it sounds like I don't want to sound like some old fart by saying it all sounds the same But it all sounds the same and the lyrics well, remember I speak spanish so I can actually understand the lyrics Now i'm dead serious when I say there isn't a fourth grader alive with a serious head injury Who couldn't write a ragathon hit and get a grammy. Yep, they get grammys too. All right that in a nutshell is ragathon music I won't bud in anymore. I'm going to read the rest of this. He says johnny I am a music producer a real music producer if I told you the people I worked with you probably wouldn't believe it

[12:54] Let me just say i've got a file here in my studio with one million eight hundred thousand MIDI files Along with all the chord progressions and drum beats. I've got 800 000 MIDI drum patterns right in front of me from every genre of music possible He says I can prove it if you just go to www We are the music makers.com all one word Then he says now johnny what I and many other so-called computer musicians do that's what it's come to We're computer musicians now Is steal entire sections of songs apply some synthesizers and some good drum samples and presto We have a lively track that no one in the world would ever know Was created completely without any musicians in the studio. Just regurgitations and snippets from other people's songs

[13:41] You won't believe how common this practice is in fact, if you don't do it, you'll never get airplay It's no different from sampling audio. You're just sampling a MIDI track then he says a MIDI track M-I-D-I or interface. It's just a computer digital interface with as many music or rhythm tracks on it as you want He says today. I just call it disposable music because it's not the way real music was made back in the day In other words, it's just the opposite of what you might call timeless classic music Whatever your definition of classic music is could be symphonic the old masters classic rock classic soul and motown or even classic country That's stuff by my definition an old school producer slash audio engineers definition Is real music played by real musicians by really talented people

[14:30] Then he says in the mid 70s something unforeseen happened aids That is what in my opinion killed disco Motown and rock but it also brought us back into at least for a small period of time a short era that produced really good Music again, but that post 70s creative peak was very short-lived less than 10 years Then out of the blue something called rap and hip-hop music was born And now looking back it really should have been stillborn or aborted Then he says us old school producers and recording engineers are all in agreement on one thing Rap and hip-hop music was a boon to every ignorant no talent wannabe blood encrypt living in ghetto land And that contagion soon spread to latin america where they call it reggaeton

[15:17] And the shame of it is in latin america formerly land of beautiful salsa mambo rumba bachata And those big horn and percussion conga bands who could do such cool ass latin rhythm beats that no one up in the united states Could ever touch Sadly reggaeton killed them all now johnny everyone in the producing and technical area of recording these days knows You don't need any musical talent at all to succeed beyond your wildest dreams Just luck attitude usually a bad one and theatrics Because today the true musical artist is the computer The fact is johnny when one of these no talents comes into the studio We keep our mouths shut because we need the job 99% of the so-called new talent within a year or two will be back into oblivion

[16:03] In fact what they call music isn't music at all It's only speaking and rhyming to other people's electronic beats. Otherwise known as sampling Which in my day was called stealing Basically plagiarism and back then you could go to jail for it or get a hefty fine Nowadays the money flows the other way Then he says in all my many years in the music industry i've seen elvis Take rockabilly to something called rock and roll then witness the british invasion with the beetles and the rolling stones Then progressive rock with emerson lake and palmer. Yes and moody blues Then punk rock which I predicted would soon fade away and it did But johnny never in my life and i've seen every phase of rock and roll rhythm and blues and country Have I witnessed something so negative and degrading as the incursion of rap hip-hop and ragga ton

[16:52] Though I have to give ragga ton some credit because even though it's more pointless and inane than american rap and hip-hop That is to say the lyrics are generally not caustic just infantile in that way. It probably does less social damage So then johnny, what do you think us old school producers and recording engineers talk about when we're sitting around having a few beers Well, when no one's listening that can influence our paychecks. We talk about how the incursion of rap ragga ton and hip-hop Single-handedly destroyed every single thing that makes music a thing of lasting beauty and joy And if you want a simple snapshot of everything that's wrong in society today Just take some of the most popular phrases and best selling lyrics in rap music namely F you the n-word and bitch

[17:37] Count them up the next time you hear a rap song just make a mental note every time you hear f you the n-word or bitch Shakespeare would be proud truthfully People who constantly smout that stuff are uneducated uninteresting jobless cretins living instagram fairy tale ghetto lives And these folks are the superstars of the recording industry right now in my opinion and the opinion of my older colleagues In the music business rap music and ragga tone are blueprints for societal disaster It's the act of normalizing the inner city drug explosion Mindless violence self-hatred and the complete victory of commerce over creativity How much more proof do we really need well consider this? How many songs from the 60s and 70s have stood the test of time?

[18:27] Like 50 years. Let's say that's a pretty good longevity test How many songs from those eras are considered classics answer? A metric ton with whole radio stations in every market devoted to just that stuff Why because songs from those eras are timeless and people still listen to them today and not just old school guys like me Young kids are amazed by their qualities and great hooks, too Moreover people in the future will be listening to these songs years and years from now and enjoy them as much as people did Back in the day when they first came out now ask yourself How many songs can you remember from 10 years ago from five years ago even three years ago? the macarena maybe or how bizarre or moves like jagger

[19:16] Maybe will people even remember those songs 50 years from now in 50 years probably none It's not even a fair fight The real problem is that songs of today are written to hit the sweet spot that provides a few empty calories of enjoyment For the moment make a few bucks and then disappear down the ghetto nursery rhyme sewer hole I like that and that's why to those of us who witnessed the real thing back in the day We 100 believe that the music of today is complete and utter Yes, you can accuse us of being a bunch of old fogeys saying those kids of today and their music That's crap. Remember we're old fogeys that were in the music business. We were up to our elbows in it We were not spectators at the risk of repeating myself

[20:02] I will repeat that the music of yesteryear really was a thousand percent better than any of the music today There just is no comparison In fact that behind the closed doors consensus amongst us producers and engineers Is to say that music of today is not really music at all. It's just a callous representation of music a soulless vapid vacuous black hole of infinite shite masquerading as music no subtlety no soul no heart No, nothing just a bunch of under educated little egos shouting. Look at me Look at my pointless hand movements. Look at my tattoos My horrific dental appliances my bling my eskalade and my self-mutilation techniques The message is all you need to understand about life is that it's all about sex drugs money and being cool

[20:52] And johnny there's another huge factor here. People just don't talk about Music that became classic long ago was written and performed by people who grew up before the age of television let alone the internet Musicians and singers from that era actually spent vast amounts of time studying how to play Learning from other great musicians and reading great literature poetry and biographies that provided inspiration for meaningful lyrics That would sweep you away. The key here is meaningful lyrics That by all accounts is a lost art these people we're talking about were educated not maybe in the traditional sense with music degrees But some did have as opposed to today's typical pop star who's grossly ignorant of the world and talentless by comparison

[21:38] And there's something else johnny. The public has never considered ever since the days of milli vanilli We've got electronic voice changers and modulators in every studio now They're dirt cheap and they can make anyone sound powerful and edgy even make a drunk sound on key and sober Why do you think when you go to a live show these days? There's so much theatrics bomb throwing fireworks and vegas style magic It's all part of an illusion to distract the audience from the usual thin Live sound of the singer as compared to the super steroid injected sounds we can get in the studio though even on stage They're using sound modulators that can clean up even the thin sounding singer with paper bags for lungs Yes As it turns out in the past 20 years or so you don't even have to be on key in the studio anymore or on stage

[22:29] Screw talent though even with the latest greatest electronic sound modulators sometimes still some groups and so-called artists Sound terrible on stage So think about that next time you tune in to a music grammys award show and snoop dog another uneducated no talent street thug who won the lottery Hands an award to a soon to be has been and calls him or her a genius In fact i'd be willing to bet if you listed all the grammy winners for the past 25 years Three quarters of them are broke again back in the ghetto Yes, and you've probably figured this out already even in the studio people like me engineers producers arrangers and studio musicians Have to keep our mouths shut. We have to be pc in the studio If one day a recording engineer producer arranger, whatever happens to mention the truth

[23:18] That the latest greatest ghetto discoveries are no talent prick or is just lucky or plain sucks Guess what the people there usually no talent hangers on in the entourage Will call you racist or sexist and actually try to get you fired or pulled off the project Even though it's precisely your job to make him or her sound professional In fact, that's why they hired you because you can tweak the electronics to make a pig's oink into a Kanye contender But don't you dare tell the truth that the kid trimming bushes out front could probably lay down a better track Okay, one final word about reggaeton It is a huge industry now employing thousands along with millions of hideously tattooed Multiply pierced self mutilating wannabe followers But I have to admit ladies of all stripes absolutely love dancing and bumping and grinding to it

[24:10] Which is admittedly why cavemen and women invented music in the first place But when you hear that phrase lowest common denominator or keep it simple stupid Raggaeton really took the ball and ran with that though. Admittedly the lyrics in raggaeton music aren't nearly as racist Sexist or anti-authority than rap music because it's really not about the lyrics for reggaeton arrows In fact some of their songs drawn on for 5 10 even 15 minutes using only a tiny handful of actual words What I mean to say is they're not into the spontaneous inane and insane lyrics like rappers are Truth is half of them couldn't construct a sentence that would get past a fourth grade grammar teacher Nor could most pass a urine test So once again for the ladies it boils down to dancing and for the boys

[24:56] It's all about sex cars money drugs and getting over on the cops Now for me johnny and my old school music industry buddies The really really sad part of all this is that we remember when music lyrics used to involve a bit of poetry Not all of course But in the ones that live on in fact in some songs lyrics could stand alone as a well thought out story But nowadays if you separate the lyrics from the so-called music even an anthropologist Couldn't tell if coco the gorilla or a real-life human wrote the song There's another angle. You know my industry music lawyer brother-in-law tells me all the time that 95% of rappers and reggaeton arrows who've had a number one song or even multiple hits are dead broke bankrupt or Just dead by the time they're 35

[25:43] He says there are dozens and dozens of them in the hollywood hills or in south beach, miami Six payments behind on the porch sitting on their gold plated jacuzzis and matching toilet seats with zero talent to do anything else But flip burgers and order crystalline champagne Not to disparage any of god's creatures He also said that few of these guys even rate a cashier's job since their tats and piercings would scare the customers Well, that's it johnny. I bet you thought you could rant Been listening to your program a long time and that was just something I had to get off my chest The saddest thing is there are so few of us old school recording studio guys left That remember what music played by really talented people was like we're the baby boom generation and we're dying off And some of us are actually looking forward to it signed donny k

[26:32] Hmm could that be Boy, he has a ps. It says johnny You can use any all none or part of this and edit as you wish wow Donny k you said it all. I can't add a single thing except Maybe just this little point being in radio and working for latin american radio stations And sometimes being the least talented guy in a couple of very good touring rock bands I have met on various occasions many of these regga thoneros Though i've yet to have met a humble one You know what they're all thinking to a man next up my jammy. I'm not kidding Once they've made it in latin america and have had kind of a success Everyone has a dream to relocate my jammy the new epicenter of the latin music industry How'd that happen? Can anyone out there explain to me why the epicenter of latin music is not in mexico or brazil or columbia?

[27:23] Even porta rico or any of the 20 latin american countries. It's in my jammy Is it just me who's thinking there's something wrong with that picture? You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b. Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com No spamos