Word: bizkit
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Last winter the southern California rap-metal quintet Limp Bizkit was just another scuffling young band that had probably spent too much time listening to its Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine albums. This summer Bizkit is basking in the kind of major exposure any new group would trade its nose rings for: a slot on the Ozzfest concert tour, an appearance on MTV's Spring Break, airplay on tastemaking KROQ radio in Los Angeles and a debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Y'All, that cracked the Billboard...
...Limp Bizkit is attracting less attention for its music than for one way the group made its breakthrough. In April its label, Flip/Interscope, signed an unprecedented contract with radio station kufo of Portland, Ore., agreeing to pay $5,000 in exchange for 50 plays of Bizkit's single Counterfeit. "Pay-for-play," as this kind of arrangement is called, is a controversial new twist on the old, discredited practice known as payola: instead of letting songs rise or falter on their merits in the tough record marketplace, some labels are improving the odds by paying radio stations cash to play...
...these tactics pay off? On the evidence so far, it's doubtful. While pay-for-play can give singles a push, its impact on album sales--where record companies make their real money--seems limited. Limp Bizkit's album, after getting an initial boost from pay-for-play, has sunk to the bottom quarter of the Billboard 200. Whatever success the band has had owes more to its many live performances...