Old-Timey Jukeboxes

September 17, 2004 3:13 PM

Why isn't there new music in so many jukeboxes? Why not go to drink and listen to new music?

Do bands just not license their music to jukebox owners, in connection with live revenue?

posted by the fire you left me to media & arts (10 comments total)

As long as the clientele continue to feed quarters (or dollars) to the jukebox, the owners (of the jukebox and/or the venue in which it is placed) have no incentive to add new music.

Did I misunderstand your question?
posted by Kwantsar at 3:57 PM on September 17, 2004

find bars with digital jukeboxes...they're updated more frequently.
posted by amberglow at 3:58 PM on September 17, 2004

New stuff becomes unpopular if it's not replaced often. Who wants to hear "Hey Ya" now? So it requires a lot of upkeep to keep new music in a jukebox. OTOH you can keep "Take My Breath Away" in there for years and it will get steady play. And the people running the jukebox prefer that.
posted by smackfu at 4:16 PM on September 17, 2004

Who wants to get drunk to new music? Old favorites are comforting and great for drunken sing-alongs.
posted by nathan_teske at 4:37 PM on September 17, 2004

Old songs tend to have sentimental attachments that make people want to drink more.

"I danced to this with my first girlfreind, man. She broke my fucking heart...gimme 'nuther double bourbon..."
posted by jonmc at 5:07 PM on September 17, 2004

I'm kinda surprised as well. You'd think that there would be a company that would give a bar a jukebox and come around and update the music in it every week. The bar would get a cut of the quarters (not to mention a free jukebox for the customers to enjoy) and the jukebox company would get the rest of the quarters plus marketing dollar from labels seeking to promote new records.

But then, the jukeboxes of the world would be as shitty as the radio. Most of the bars I know, the radio is on until someone plays something on the jukebox. The badness of radio is the incentive to shell out some quarters.
posted by scarabic at 5:27 PM on September 17, 2004

jon and nathan have it.

Although I have been in some music-oriented places over years that had new stuff.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:05 PM on September 17, 2004

Besides, we all know there hasn't been a good song written since 'Rocky Raccoon' on the White Album. New music sucks.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:05 AM on September 18, 2004

the market dictates. People who want to hear new music are probably out at the venues where those bands are actually playing, or if you mean poppy stuff, they'll just turn on the radio.

There was a bar in the east village that had a good jukebox for a while with reasonably new alt pop stuff, and we used to specifically go there for their jukebox, but that's a niche market typa thing.
posted by mdn at 12:27 PM on September 18, 2004

That's kind of an exception to the rule, mdn. Bars exist for one main purpose: to sell booze. When you put new stuff on the jukebox, you're taking the chance that it might suck. And sucky music dosen't encourage people to hang out and drink.

And generally, when I go to a bar I wanna be comfortable and unwind, not be challenged, so that ties in as well.
posted by jonmc at 2:48 PM on September 18, 2004