Today's Classic Hits target demo was listening to Current Hits at what age?

[Thomps2525]

I should mention Radio Disney and the Disney Channel. I dare anyone to listen to the recordings of Miley Cyrus, Debby Ryan, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Bella Thorne, Bridget Mendler, Sabrina Bryan, Zendaya, Amanda Michalka, Tiffany Thornton, Jordan Pruitt and Jasmine Richards and try to tell them apart!

 

[BostonRandy]

Back to the original topic: I started listening to radio on a regular basis when I was 8 in 1972. Back then, there were numerous contemporary music outlets to choose from. In 1981, when I was 17, I tuned in, mostly, to rock, thereby ending my regular listenership of what we now call CHR. Sure, I listened to CHR from time to time, but the disco craze was what turned me away. At 49, I'm the targeted listener for a classic hits station, whether it leans rock or pop.

 

[semoochie]

Disco was over by the end of 1979.

 

[John FL]

I wasn’t excited about CHR until I was a teen. Music was always heard in our home. But in mom’s domain – the kitchen – the big bands played and lots of 40’s and 50’s MOR artists too from that AM tabletop radio. I got used to it and actually got to like it too. I grew up enjoying and appreciating many kinds of music. Even to this day, when the mood strikes, I’ll go way back hearing music that was popular before I was born.

My story isn’t different than most. By the mid/late 60’s I was a teen and it was The Beatles and countless other artists in that wave of creativity that got me hooked and radio was in the center of it all. I actually liked virtually everything that followed throughout the 70’s and into the mid 80’s. To me and it is always about personal preferences, when I got to my mid 30’s I enjoyed oldies and gold-based formats a lot more than whatever was contemporary.

There have been lots of occasions where today’s classic his stations have actually introduced me and sometimes reacquainted with certain 80’s songs I had either forgotten or never heard. Given the mass-appeal nature of the format, particularly the pop-based ones at the workplace, younger end 25-54 are being exposed to songs they might not really know either as they weren’t even alive when a number of them were popular.

In the wrong hands, the format could be a train wreck given the numerous genres and decades of the music. To answer the string question, a lot of emphasis is placed on super-serving that 40 something listener with songs they heard in late teens/thereabouts and also including the biggest hits that have lasted the test of time they heard their parents listen to like my mom situation.

But I also believe, if programmers make wise music choices based on properly executed music tests, favorable enough impressions can be made on that late 30’s something listener to sow the seeds for future active listening. In my book, a really well done classic hits format makes for some very interesting listening and the music offered no doubt plays into a strategy.

And as a side note to Semoochie, disco certainly cooled down by 1980 but there were still some big disco hits that year, although nothing close to what 1979 offered.

 

[semoochie]

I can't think of any. Donna Summer found another direction that year, the Bee Gees "temporarily" retired and the movie, "Can't Stop the Music" absolutely bombed for being completely out of step with the times! "Celebration" was a huge hit in '81 but was not considered disco.

 

[michael hagerty]

I can't think of any. Donna Summer found another direction that year, the Bee Gees "temporarily" retired and the movie, "Can't Stop the Music" absolutely bombed for being completely out of step with the times! "Celebration" was a huge hit in '81 but was not considered disco.

And this is why we have the Billboard archive at Google Books. From the Disco Top 100 Chart in the July 5, 1980 issue (as close to mid-year as I can get). I'll just list the stuff Top 40 played:

1. SOS Band: Take Your Time (Do It Right)
5. Jermaine Jackson: Let's Get Serious
20. Irene Cara: Fame
21. Diana Ross: Upside Down
55. Brothers Johnson: Stomp
56. Spinners: Cupid
69. Gary Numan: Cars
70. Devo: Whip It
81. Lipps, Inc.: Funkytown


I think Gary Numan and Devo might be open to debate, and certainly things were winding down by 1980, but stuff was still happening.

There was still a disco chart in the first week of July, 1981, as well (a bit of a surprise to me), and the stuff that crossed over to Top 40 was:

5. Rick James: Give It To Me Baby
19. Quincy Jones: Ai No Corrida (well, KFRC in San Francisco played it)
30. Stars on 45: Stars on 45
99. Frankie Smith: Double Dutch Bus (again, KFRC)

 

[davideduardo]

Disco was over by the end of 1979.

While there were other tunes, most programmers consider Funky Town to be the last "big" disco hit.

 

[Thomps2525]

There is an interesting discussion of "the last disco hit" and the difference between "disco" and "dance music" at at http://www.discomusic.com/forums/showthread.php/9469-The-Last-Disco-Song

Wearing bell bottoms while you read the comments is optional.

 

[Thomps2525]

On two Disco forums which the RD software will not allow me to post a link to, there is a lengthy discussion of "the last disco hit" and the difference between disco music and modern dance music. Among the songs named are Fresh by Kool & the Gang, Glow by Rick James, Hysteria by Cerrone, Strong Enough by Cher, Cosmic Girl by Jamiroquai, Strike It Up by Black Box, Can't Get You Out Of My Head by Kylie Minogue, and Don't Feel Like Dancing by the Scissors Sisters.

 

[John FL]

LA Radio Rewound, I enjoyed reading the article regarding disco/dance. IMHO, music like just about everything else evolves. Attitudes and labels change. There are certainly lines of demarcation in radio and it’s very pronounced especially in today’s classic hits formats.

I can listen to Donna Summer’s 1989 “This Time I Know It’s For Real” or K.C.’s 1984 “Give It Up” and had those songs charted in the late 1970’s they would have been labeled disco hits and they would not have sounded out of place then either. Cher’s late 90’s hit “Believe” sounds like a late 70’s tune. Labels. In the 80’s there were “clubs” where people had a good time, danced, drank, and heard some good music. These places were once called discotheques and later simply discos in the decade prior.

Especially in the early 80’s and a lot probably depended on the market, but I noticed CHR did go with songs that may not have charted high nationally but if they proved popular in the clubs and if appropriate for radio, they were given a shot. A good number of songs I liked from that period are probably labeled as funk or perhaps even today’s Adult R&B.

One song in particular comes to mind and that was Shalamar’s 1982 “A Night To Remember.” That song got tremendous reaction in the South Florida clubs. Interestingly, that song never cracked Billboard’s Top 40 but it was #1 on the CHR I listened to for 4 consecutive weeks and it turned out to be the #1 song of the year on that station (WHYI/Y-100). It sounds like a disco type tune to me and an internet search calls it post disco among other labels. Honestly, I think people care more about the sound and how good a song is and not wanting to put a label on it.

Around that time there were songs such as “Genius of Love,” and “Mama Used To Say,” and “You Should Hear How She Talks About You,” “Gloria,” and “Abracadabra,” and “Major Tom (Coming Home) and virtually anything Mellencamp and even Hall & Oates that earned lots of club and radio airplay to name just a very few. Sometimes labels don’t really apply as different genres were represented there.

There was also the phenomenon of “Freestyle” – another label -that began with Shannon’s 1984 “Let The Music Play” and who could forget the great stuff from Expose? Probably that area is more appropriate to be labeled “dance” but really I don’t care what it’s called. Maybe the word “disco” became obsolete by 1980 but I don’t think upbeat, feel good music will ever go out of style for at least those of us who like that sort of thing.

As far as classic hits formats go, regular programming is seeing a decline in rhythmic oriented tunes no matter if it’s the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s. But Saturday nights is quite another thing. Disco probably has the same connotation as oldies and so radio calls that feature something else. Again, labels mean little to me and honestly I believe for the average listener as well. There’s some great stuff that’s getting dusted off and given a spin. After all, a variety based classic hits station is all about sounding like a retro Top 40. What is being featured on Saturday night programming reflects feel good music - that's a label I can live with. Hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane...LOL...

 

[firepoint525]

Disco was over by the end of 1979.

Disco was definitely not "over" by the end of 1979, although it was sort of on the "downswing" by then. Interesting to note that "Funkytown," which was #1 in June of 1980, had a 1979 copyright on it! Something obviously delayed that one becoming a hit. Yeah, I would consider it the last "disco" hit, but certainly not the last one with a disco beat.

I remember hearing "Stars on 45" in 1981 and wondering, "how did they ever put the Beatles to a disco beat?" At the time, I thought that they actually WERE the Beatles, and I knew that merely speeding up Beatles records would only make them sound "chipmunkish."

I would also consider "Everything She Wants" by Wham! (#1 in 1985) to be straight-ahead, straight-up, unadulterated disco, but no one in 1985 DARED to call it that!

And when the Stock-Aitken-Waterman team came out, nearly everything that they produced had a disco beat. Probably their best-known client was Rick Astley. One dj in west Tennessee back in the late '80s even referred to his music as disco. (They also produced the previously mentioned "This Time I Know It's For Real" by Donna Summer.)

 

[firepoint525]

69. Gary Numan: Cars
70. Devo: Whip It
I think Gary Numan and Devo might be open to debate, and certainly things were winding down by 1980, but stuff was still happening.

If Gary Numan and Devo could be considered "disco," then obviously there was a shortage of "disco" material out there to put on the charts by then. I am wondering if maybe the only criteria for having a "disco" hit by then was having your song on a 12" single. Or having airplay on a "disco" station. (I don't know if Gary Numan or Devo ever had their songs on a 12-incher, but it seemed like the '80s were definitely the decade of the 12" single, although that certainly started in the '70s.)

I'm wondering if there even ever really were any truly so-called "disco" stations back then. Outside of Miami, probably not.

 

[firepoint525]

Back to the original topic: I started listening to radio on a regular basis when I was 8 in 1972. Back then, there were numerous contemporary music outlets to choose from. In 1981, when I was 17, I tuned in, mostly, to rock, thereby ending my regular listenership of what we now call CHR. Sure, I listened to CHR from time to time, but the disco craze was what turned me away. At 49, I'm the targeted listener for a classic hits station, whether it leans rock or pop.

While I certainly shed no tears over the "death" of disco, I would say that its departure at least briefly left a void on the airwaves. 1981 was probably the blandest year for music, at least of my teenage years. It was the year that "Elvira" and "Believe It or Not" dominated the airwaves that summer. "Bette Davis Eyes" somehow managed to stay #1 for two months! Country crossovers "ruled the roost" that year, with Kenny Rogers and several others scoring big hits about that time.

Harry Wayne Casey (KC of the Sunshine Band) once said in an interview that a word ("disco") died, but that danceable music lived on. I would say that he was right. And it is interesting to note that the Gibb brothers continued to make a living as writers and producers for other performers, despite the fact that their own music went cold on the charts. Their sound was certainly on everything that they wrote and produced. Made me wonder if maybe people were not paying attention to the writing and production credits on the music that they were buying!

 

[oldies76]

If Gary Numan and Devo could be considered "disco," then obviously there was a shortage of "disco" material out there to put on the charts by then. I am wondering if maybe the only criteria for having a "disco" hit by then was having your song on a 12" single. Or having airplay on a "disco" station. (I don't know if Gary Numan or Devo ever had their songs on a 12-incher, but it seemed like the '80s were definitely the decade of the 12" single, although that certainly started in the '70s.)

Devo had "Disco Dancer" issued on 12" vinyl along with "Baby Doll", both issued as singles in 1988.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmC-JPD0oa0

 

[davideduardo]

I'm wondering if there even ever really were any truly so-called "disco" stations back then. Outside of Miami, probably not.

WDOY 96.5 San Juan, PR (now market 15) was disco/damce through about 1985.

 

[semoochie]

OK, "Cars" is new wave. I maintain that the "dance" tunes that came later, were influenced by "disco" but weren't the same. For one thing(and I know I'm going to regret mentioning this), "disco" tended to accent all four beats in a measure, as opposed to the second and fourth. Whatever happened after 1979, it wasn't actually called "disco".

 

[CTListener]

While I certainly shed no tears over the "death" of disco, I would say that its departure at least briefly left a void on the airwaves. 1981 was probably the blandest year for music, at least of my teenage years. It was the year that "Elvira" and "Believe It or Not" dominated the airwaves that summer. "Bette Davis Eyes" somehow managed to stay #1 for two months! Country crossovers "ruled the roost" that year, with Kenny Rogers and several others scoring big hits about that time.

It was almost as if the success of "Jessie's Girl" gave radio the word that it was OK to rock (somewhat) again. A little thing called MTV also debuted in 1981, changing Top 40 radio forever.

 

[firepoint525]

It was almost as if the success of "Jessie's Girl" gave radio the word that it was OK to rock (somewhat) again. A little thing called MTV also debuted in 1981, changing Top 40 radio forever.

Try calling classic hits radio, and seeing if you can get them to play anything by Rick Springfield OTHER than "Jesse's Girl." Right, didn't think so.

Some ACs might still play "Don't Talk to Strangers," but that is about it.

 

[firepoint525]

OK, "Cars" is new wave. I maintain that the "dance" tunes that came later, were influenced by "disco" but weren't the same. For one thing(and I know I'm going to regret mentioning this), "disco" tended to accent all four beats in a measure, as opposed to the second and fourth. Whatever happened after 1979, it wasn't actually called "disco".

To some extent, the disco CULTURE went away about 1979, and the first real indication of this was when "My Sharona" by the Knack broke the seemingly endless chain of disco #1s. But by "disco culture," I mean Studio 54, bell bottoms, leisure suits, pretty much everything that you saw depicted in Saturday Night Fever. I watch that movie and it seems foreign to me now, even though I lived through that era.

When the disco era ended, the Gibb brothers, and the Chic team of Edwards and Rodgers had to continue on as writers and producers, because their own hits had stopped coming. They never hid their writing and production work, but had to filter their material through other performers in order to get it played on radio anymore. Tastes had changed.

I'm wondering if maybe Neil Bogart of Casablanca sat on "Funkytown" for about six months before releasing it, to give all the other disco records out there (many of which were also on his label) time to run their course before releasing "Funkytown." I have never seen any indication (other than its 1979 copyright) that it was released any earlier, and maybe tanked, before being reissued, and given another chance. Because that one was DEFINITELY a disco record, and it was released (when it finally became a hit, anyway) in 1980.

 

[oldies76]

Disco may have ended in late 1979, but many other songs were released in 1980 and 1981 as a carryover to the disco era. Songs like:

She's a Bad Mama Jama (1981)
Ladies Night (1980)
Love Come Down (1982)
Stomp (1981)
Celebration (1981)
And the Beat Goes On (1980)
Take Your Time (1980)
Rapture, single version (1981)
Rock With You (1979-80)

and so forth....