MUSIC-BIZ DOLDRUMS WORRY INDUSTRY INSIDERS.

Byline: Steve Morse Boston Globe

What's ailing the music industry? Suddenly, the word ``crisis'' is popping up everywhere from Time magazine to The New York Times. CD sales are down. So are concert ticket sales. Consumer loyalty is fading. Record companies are laying off employees. Several national record chains are foundering. And we're supposed to be in the middle of a robust economy.

There will still be a 2 percent increase in record sales this year, but the industry is accustomed to double-digit annual growth. At the same time, the concert business is reeling from a lack of headliners, though admittedly many top names - from U2 to Billy Joel, Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones - did not tour this year.

The word ``crisis'' may be sensational, but there are serious problems - and much of the blame for consumer apathy appears to fall on the industry itself. There are too many records being released, too many novelty acts, too many confusing radio formats, too little respect for established stars and not enough development of new bands beyond a sell-now-or-get-out-of-here approach.

``I'm nervous about my next album,'' says Juliana Hatfield, a pop/alternative singer whose next disc is due in March. ``I don't know what will happen to it. It's kind of crazy out there right now.''

Crazy, indeed. For every best-seller like Alanis Morissette, there are dozens of acts whose sales have faltered. These range from Hootie & the Blowfish (whose latest disc, ``Fairweather Johnson,'' has sold 2 million copies in the United States, 7 million fewer than its predecessor) to R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Bob Seger, Sponge, Gin Blossoms, George Michael, Spin Doctors, Sheryl Crow, Bryan Adams, Crash Test Dummies, Candlebox, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Phil Collins. And, already, the Artist Formerly Known as Prince has seen his ``Emancipation'' release plunge from No. 11 to No. 38 in one week in Billboard.

``All I can say about this year is: `Bring on the next one,' '' says Cary Baker, a vice president with Discovery Records and former executive with Capitol. ``As an industry, we need to address the problems and figure out what it will take to get the consumer back.''

While pop fans are famous for short attention spans, they're not being helped by an industry that seems to have an even shorter one. ``I remember when record labels used to talk about your third or fourth album. Now they talk about your third or fourth month,'' says Boston rocker Peter Wolf, who has been through the wars as a member of the J. Geils Band and now has a solo career. (Billboard magazine reported this week that some labels are trying longer-term promotion; witness the success of the rock band No Doubt, whose album came out last year. But this is not yet a trend.)

``People are looking at the accounting rather than the content,'' says Wolf. ``I also remember when record companies would fight over getting a Miles Davis because he was a prestigious addition to their roster. But a lot of that has been lost. Basically, it's just come down to sales.''

The loyalty between artists and record companies has eroded to the point where it's on a par with the loyalty between pro athletes and their teams. Even worse is the declining loyalty between radio stations and artists. With so many stations being bought, resold and moved around, the result is a fragmented marketplace where even Bruce Springsteen can declare, ``I'm now on the outside.''

A major problem may be the civil war now being fought on radio. It's a case of ``modern rock vs. classic rock'' in many cities. And besides insulting listeners who like to hear a mix of both on one station (as used to be the case), the rift has taken its toll on record sales. Modern rock was thought to be a savior when Nirvana and Pearl Jam came along, but it's since been hurt by faceless acts of diminishing quality. More than 2,000 modern-rock albums came out this year, according to retailers, compared with 750 just a few years ago. But many of these seemed like clones of one another.

``There are hundreds of bands with the same sound,'' says Jodi Goodman, a booking agent for Cambridge's Don Law Co. ``The industry is making too many records in too short a time, so there's a lot of mediocrity. And the kids are numb from it.''

The 70 minutes of music that can fit on CDs also means a lot of filler is used today, compared to the days of vinyl albums, which averaged a tight, higher-quality 40 minutes. There are few great recordings anymore, and paying $15 to $16 for a filler-heavy CD is a turnoff.

There's also an absurd focus on novelty acts at modern-rock radio and at MTV, hence one-hit wonders abound. Take Cake's ``The Distance,'' Nada Surf's ``Popular'' and Geggy Tah's ``Whoever You Are.'' Cool songs, but will these bands hang around long enough to become arena headliners? Not likely.

``We're constantly getting only one good song from bands,'' says Boston radio programmer Oedipus of WBCN (104.1 FM), speaking to Rolling Stone recently. But he defends novelty at the expense of long-term development: ``It's not radio's responsibility to develop careers. Our job is to entertain our audience, which generates ratings, which generates revenues.''

Meanwhile, many ``classic rock'' acts continue to struggle on radio and in retail, though they're doing better at the box office. There are fewer classic rock formats nationwide, thus the latest albums by Seger, Rush, AC/DC and ZZ Top (despite the recent ``Rhythmeen'' being the band's best album in years), have been met with lower airplay and sales. It's as if the industry took some of its biggest moneymakers and threw them out the window.

``Many of our fans didn't even know our record was out,'' AC/DC's Angus Young says of his group's latest, ``Ballbreaker.''

Since many of these acts were the bulwark of the record industry for years, it's another sign of industry shortsightedness that they aren't better integrated into today's picture. And there's a scary prognosis for upcoming discs by the likes of Aerosmith, which issues its next album in March. Where will it get played?

By then, though, the scene may be changing. There's a new radio format emerging on the West Coast called ``active rock,'' said to be a hipper version of the old ``album-oriented rock'' style. It's a guitar-driven format that includes young and old acts. Also, MTV executives have recently been quoted as saying they'll broaden their playlist from modern rock and rap to other genres, including more pop and world music.

Clearly, something has to be done. Three major record chains are in bankruptcy (Camelot Music, Wherehouse Entertainment and Peaches Entertainment) and more losses are likely if the industry cannot ignite consumers soon. The Internet is becoming a more popular sales vehicle, which threatens the existence of traditional record stores. But that's another story.

Some artists feel that, rather than just pinning the blame on the industry, another solution is simply to make better music. Garth Brooks looks at the success of Morissette, who sold 13 million copies of ``Jagged Little Pill,'' and gets fired up.

``Alanis Morissette is setting the pace, so let's pick it up,'' says Brooks. ``Let's all compete. Let's all work harder to get better music out there, because the people have spoken. They're going to move 10 (million) to 15 million copies of a record. And if they do, the rest of us have no alibis, no reasons why we didn't. So let's just pull the belt up, toughen up, get your nose down there and realize that whoever it is who's setting the pace, we go after them.

``If the industry is down, so be it. But it's not like somebody isn't doing it out there.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) Hootie & the Blowfish have only sold 2 million copies of their ``Fairweather Johnson'' disc, 7 million fewer than its predecessor.

(2) Pearl Jam helped usher in the ``modern rock'' format, but even their sales are faltering.