Petra: Recording 21st album this year?

[Kaiser]

BillD,
You continue to be a thorn, where it hurts. You continue to post anti-Petra
remarks and opinions. Once again please stay away, you will be doing us all a favor!

[Shell]

I give up. Go ahead and think what you want, I'm not going to waste any more time trying to reason with you.

I am puzzled, though, about why you would want to bother making posts here if you're so convinced we're all such a bunch of losers and you don't like Petra. Seems to me you'd have better things to do with your time.

[Kirkman]

Shouldn't the shame be the ones who lied and requested to hear a song on a station they knew they didn't get? Shouldn't the shame be on the person who made that request and asked fans to lie for petra? The station director did nothing wrong, he just passed along a request that showed just how far petra fans were willing to go, to the point of telling lies, for petra.

Errr... I don't recall seeing the message you are referring to, but I think you're going a little too far when you accuse fans of "telling lies for Petra."

I'll concede that fans should probably limit their requests to only stations they listen to themselves.

But I don't see how a fan who calls a station in another area and asks "Would you play 'Send Revival' from Petra's new album?" has told a lie about anything.

[Michael]

And to add to what Kirkman said... just because a station is "in another area" doesn't mean that I don't listen to it. So many stations are on the Internet these days that it's easy to spend an hour listening to a station in Miami, then switch to one in Phoenix for a half hour, then another one in Oregon for a while, and then wherever. I make a point of never calling a station I'm not already a fan of... but honestly, usually the stations I do listen to (and call or email) are the ones right here where I live.

I'm lucky to have a station in my home town (although they refuse to play Petra); most people don't HAVE local Christian Rock stations and HAVE to listen over the Internet, or else settle for CDs only. I'd say it's fair enough for them to ask the stations they listen to on the Internet to play music they enjoy.

[BillDD]

A list was given of the radio stations they wanted called, most did not have internet radio. As a matter of fact, further down the discussion the same person who made the request told fans to make sure what city the station was in they were calling, in case the dj asked them where they lived.


But whatever, my point is that because of this shady person radio stations didn't take ANY petra requests seriously. And I am willing to bet it plays a part in radio not playing any petra now.

[LexingtonPethead]

Well, whatever the reason... I am SICK AND TIRED of Christian Adult Contemporary radio stations not playing any of Petra's previous AC releases.

After all, it really wasn't that long ago that Petra was getting solid airplay, and a lot of their AC material is still very much in style and far more satisfying to listen to than most of what is played today.

In fact, I no longer listen to Christian AC radio at all. Air1 has a repeater station in my area, which I do listen to from time to time and also help support financially.

But every time I listen to Air1, I dwell on the fact that I will never hear Jekyll & Hyde, which eventually causes me to go back to playing my CDs.

It really is difficult for me to explain my level of frustration with this. I feel blessed to have a broadcast Christian Rock station in my area, but I can't hear J&H on it.

[Michael]

That post was made by James Riley of Inpop Records, and he does not post here regularly... really at all, unless Petra has a new project in the works. So here is a list of the inaccurate statements BillDD has made in this thread:

"The person who made the request still posts here, it can't be that different"
"Radio play for Revival was killed when someone posted a request on this zone to call radio stations that fans didn't even get and request Petra, fans were asked to call, even if it was long distance." (fans were never specifically asked by James to call stations long distance)
"A list was given of the radio stations they wanted called, most did not have internet radio." (The original message says "Many of them stream online but some do not," so presumably to James' knowledge a majority of them did have online streams)
"As a matter of fact, further down the discussion the same person who made the request told fans to make sure what city the station was in they were calling, in case the dj asked them where they lived." (I don't see this in the original thread, although I can't get to the second page of posts.)

You can look at an archived copy of the original message at this link:

Rock Station Request Message

...when a band has such a hold on fans that they are willing to lie for them, what does that tell you?

It tells you that the fans are very loyal to the band, and that radio stations are so resistant to the band's music that fans feel like they need to take drastic measures. I wager that kind of loyalty is more than you can expect for 99% of the bands existing at any given time. I wonder how many of the top 20 CCM rock bands charting right now will even exist in 10 or 5 years, much less have fans willing to make long-distance phone calls for them? Doesn't that say SOMETHING about the marketability of the music?

I'm not saying at all that it is right to pose as a local listener of a station and try to talk them into playing your song, because I agree that that's dishonest. But I don't see any harm in targeting your requests to stations that will make a difference. That's not a lie... that's strategy. And heck, for those stations that DO have online streams, there's every chance that they could have gained more online listeners (if that's what they want) from James' list.

[Shell]

It's probably not wise to be so blindly loyal to a band (or to anyone for that matter) you'd do drastic stuff. They are big boys. I don't think there's anything wrong with requesting a song, though, and I think it is sad more radio stations won't play Petra songs.

Whatever the case, a band isn't responsible for the behavior of their fans, and fans aren't responsible for the behavior of a few individuals. We're all responsible for our own behavior.

[Petrapraise]

BillDD,

I'm still curious...are you a Petra fan? If so, what are your favorite song(s) or CD's?

[BillDD]

LOL, look at my posts and you will see where you are wrong. What I was talking about was NOT about J and H, but about Revival, that discussion is about J and H. If you are going to try and make me look wrong, at least find a discussion about the right album. Did you even read the posts I made?

So here is a list of the inaccurate statements BillDD has made in this thread:

"The person who made the request still posts here, it can't be that different"
"Radio play for Revival was killed when someone posted a request on this zone to call radio stations that fans didn't even get and request Petra, fans were asked to call, even if it was long distance." (fans were never specifically asked by James to call stations long distance)

See? It says revival, NOT J and H.

[Michael]

Well, shut my mouth, BillDD, but you're right. I guess I assumed you were talking about something recent... to fans here that's ancient history. I don't know if a message from that far back is even retrievable, so if you actually have a copy you can post it's hard for anyone to refute your claims about what was said way back almost three years ago. In 'Net time that's like three ice ages ago.

[Pethead1]

When did it become a lie to call a raido station and ask them to play a song?

[spottacus]

I remember the post in question. I don't remember who made it, but I agree that it was wrong.

The issue was that the person posted a list of stations and phone numbers, with instructions to call as many as possible, even if we didn't listen to them.

That's dishonest because the implication to the station is that its listeners are requesting something that they aren't.

So I agree that was wrong, but I don't know what value there is in bringing it up again more than two years after the fact. That shows an inability to get on with life.

[Petrafan4life79]

The only song off the J&H album I hear playing on the radio is Til Everything I Do. Whatever happened to Jekyll and Hyde? Although, I do hear plenty of Petra's older songs.

[Michael]

Well, I dug and dug for the original message on The Internet Archive, but I was unable to resurrect the actual message although I do think I may have found a page with a list of topics with that one on it. But I hope what BillDD said about stations not playing Petra because of that post is incorrect, because I like to think that the people in Christian radio are there at least partly because they consider it a ministry to people in their area, or at least because they enjoy Christian music themselves and want to make it available to others. If BillDD's statements are 100% true, that means that the program managers in question are so small and petty that they are willing to (1) penalize a band that puts out high-quality ministry-oriented music, and (2) deny their listeners access to that music, just because of what one person posted on the Internet 2 years ago (Revival released on November 22 2001, if my information is correct, so that would have probably been around the time of the post... late 2001 or early/mid 2002). Actually I prefer to subscribe to the theory that someone in Petra's camp did something at some point to alienate those program directors; it's still petty to hold a grudge, but at least that would be a grudge against Petra and not against this message board. I mean, come on, I doubt we've ever had a total of more than a couple dozen posters here at one time; right now we've got less than 200 accounts created, 50 of which have never posted at all and eighty more of which have posted less than ten times. There are only 16 people who have posted more than 50 times. Refusing to play a song because of what a handful of people who aren't even in the band said on the Internet about a different album... I hope that's not the truth. If it is, BillDD, please carry this message to those people from me personally, not from every Pethead in creation: my personal message is GROW UP.