Songs You Remember And Like But Never Get Played

[firepoint525]

Let me get this straight, Firepoint, you did hear "Disco Duck" on Hippie or were you saying you heard it on another radio station outside of the Nashville market that played it, and other songs that Hippie does not play? Sorry, just don't want to misunderstand your point. Hehe. Hippie is about 2,000 songs, a large playlist for this day and age on a classic hits/oldies station. I was not aware of that song being on the playlist, but it is from 1976 and was a novelty song like "Jaws" and "Rubber Biscuit." People actually really like hearing those weird, one hit wonder type songs. Same is true with Paul Mauriat's "Love is Blue" and Mason Williams "Classical Gas." I know those were discussed on here as no plays, but when you put them musically into context, people respond and a large number of people remember where they were when they heard it. Louis Armstrong gets great response. Hippie is not totally conventional and not corporate by comparison. I am sure just as many people run from the songs and flip. Truth is, if you do flip to another station in most markets, how much better is the song playing? When Hippie kicked off, the playlist was about 600 songs, IIRC. Maybe 800. And RQQ was sounding pretty decent for a while, while they let Mac mess with it. Then the usual cease and desist and it started to fall apart. Then boom! Outta here! The curse of a signal is true!

Yeah, I heard "Disco Duck" over Kool 103 in Jackson, TN. www.kool103.com It is a 50,000-watt FM station that can be heard from (at least) Dyersburg all the way to the Tennessee River. I say "at least" Dyersburg because that is as far west as we went on Sunday. I also heard "After the Lovin'" by Englebert Humperdinck (a guilty pleasure fave of mine) and we even heard some Elvis songs that we don't hear here ("hear hear"). Wife loved that. She is a big Elvis fan. We heard "American Trilogy" and "If I Can Dream." Station did not break up until we crossed the Tennessee River back into Middle Tennessee!

Yeah, all the titles that you mentioned above, I have indeed heard on Hippie, save for "Disco Duck," but I have even heard that one during retro AT40 countdowns. They even played Melanie on Sunday night vinyl a few weeks back. I am not really a fan of hers, but I listened to it out of curiosity. But that's okay, on another occasion, they tracked Hotel California for the masses!

You are spot on about RQQ. Their worst incarnation was when they were "The Tower," oops make that "the NEW Tower"! Only thing "NEW" about it was the stupid name. Most interesting incarnation of RQQ was when they veered heavily into AAA territory. They played (among other things) "Rock & Roll" by Eric Hutchison. I remembered hearing that one over Lightning 100 about 2008, so it was probably still a recurrent when RQQ played it. But since I had already heard it over Lightning 100, it did not make much sense for RQQ to play it, particularly if they were still trying to be "classic rock."

 

[firepoint525]

Read the rest of my post. Adults are the ones driving the growth in contemporary country music. They're saying they never listened to country before, but now they do. And they watch TV shows like Nashville. Why listen to 40 year old songs when there is new music that has even better lyrical content and musicianship?
You think everyone is just like you, and I'm here to tell you they're not.

I watch Nashville, and believe you me, it is NOT for the "music." Most of it is pure crap, regardless of whatever particular label you want to put on it. Wife likes the show and the soundtrack, and I believe she has even downloaded it. About the only reason why I watch Nashville is because I live here, and I recognize many locales in the show, like the stone steps to Percy Warner Park, where the wife and I were married.

My sister (RIP), when she aged out of top 40, did indeed move on to whatever passed for "country" music beginning in the '90s. She had a Faith Hill CD, lots of Garth Brooks, and many others. I told her, "what you listen to isn't really "country" music." Her response: "yeah, I know."

When I aged out of top 40, I went first to AC, then gradually to oldies. I could hear then-current songs on AC without the hair bands, at least at that time I could. Then I just gradually gravitated over to oldies, so that I could continue listening to the type of music that I grew up with.

 

[firepoint525]

Avid talked about his phantom oldies station that played Disco Duck - he knows how long they have been on but doesn't know the call letters. He also readily admits that Cumulus tried the format many different ways but finally gave up. There is only one reason Cumulus walked away and that is because it didn't work after long periods of time and many tweaks. The decision was all about money and the format you crave didn't and won't deliver.

Actually, that was me, and I have mentioned the station. See above. They have been oldies for AT LEAST five years. About the only drawback to this station is that they are a Vols affiliate, so you know that for SIX HOURS every Saturday afternoon in the fall, it will be nothing but college football. Might as well play "Hotel California" for six hours straight. I won't be listening either way. I find it amusing that anyone suggests that three minutes of "Disco Duck" is a tuneout factor, but not SIX HOURS of college football!

You have selective memory about the Cumulus station, and DEFINITELY do not know all of the facts. They had about the world's THINNEST playlist, and would play the SAME SONG as many as FOUR TIMES STRAIGHT! Oh, yeah, it was about money, all right. But it was NOT about not making enough from it. It was about NOT putting enough into it to run it properly. They tried to run it on a shoestring budget, and it (predictably) failed. Hopefully, K-Love is doing better with that frequency now. Cumulus did not do well with that station because they tried to turn too many artists (including ABBA) into "de facto" one-hit wonders, and the audience's intelligence was insulted. Seriously, don't pee on my leg and tell me that it is raining. Even if you liked the format (which apparently you don't), you, too, would be hitting the dial after a day or two of that. It was probably their lowest performing station, but that was due as much to THEM as to anything else. Yeah, the format won't ever be #1, and their other stations probably WERE doing better, but they did not help their cause with their half-hearted attempt at classic hits. Get all the facts before you start criticizing. (By the way, they also struggled with that station under OTHER formats, too. They just did not know what to do with it.)

 

[firepoint525]

Music didn't just suddenly change one January 1, 1981 when the 80's began. It didn't suddenly change on January 1, 1971 when the 70's began. The list of hit songs played on December 31, 1980, the last day of the 1970's, was the exact same list of hit songs played the next day. All of the new artists of the 1980's were working on honing their music in the 1970's. Attempting to pigeonhole music based on arbitrary transitions from the year ending in "0" to the year beginning in "1" makes no sense at all.

Nineteen eighty was not nineteen seventy anything. It was 1980. Disco died that year, save for "Funkytown," but was already on life support by the end of 1979. It is better to say that years ending in "0" are sort of "transitional" years (definitely that way in 1980, I was in high school then), but at any rate, it often takes half a decade for a decade to define itself. The "sixties" didn't really begin (culturally speaking) until after JFK's death and the Beatles' arrival.

 

[ok walters]

Actually, that was me, and I have mentioned the station. See above. They have been oldies for AT LEAST five years. About the only drawback to this station is that they are a Vols affiliate, so you know that for SIX HOURS every Saturday afternoon in the fall, it will be nothing but college football. Might as well play "Hotel California" for six hours straight. I won't be listening either way. I find it amusing that anyone suggests that three minutes of "Disco Duck" is a tuneout factor, but not SIX HOURS of college football!

You have selective memory about the Cumulus station, and DEFINITELY do not know all of the facts. They had about the world's THINNEST playlist, and would play the SAME SONG as many as FOUR TIMES STRAIGHT! Oh, yeah, it was about money, all right. But it was NOT about not making enough from it. It was about NOT putting enough into it to run it properly. They tried to run it on a shoestring budget, and it (predictably) failed. Hopefully, K-Love is doing better with that frequency now. Cumulus did not do well with that station because they tried to turn too many artists (including ABBA) into "de facto" one-hit wonders, and the audience's intelligence was insulted. Seriously, don't pee on my leg and tell me that it is raining. Even if you liked the format (which apparently you don't), you, too, would be hitting the dial after a day or two of that. It was probably their lowest performing station, but that was due as much to THEM as to anything else. Yeah, the format won't ever be #1, and their other stations probably WERE doing better, but they did not help their cause with their half-hearted attempt at classic hits. Get all the facts before you start criticizing. (By the way, they also struggled with that station under OTHER formats, too. They just did not know what to do with it.)

I only know what you posted about the Cumulus station. You said they tweaked it but couldn't get it right so they canned it. Pretty clear to me that a major broadcaster deemed it not fiscally viable, yet you know more than they do. See above - "the format will never be number one", "it was probably their lowest performing station", "their other stations probably WERE doing better" - do you ever read what you write? You just explained why it failed and is no longer on.

I would love to see more classic hits/oldies stations, but I understand that the business model will not work in most locations and I accept that as a fact of business, instead of arguing about the situation with all emotion.

 

[firepoint525]

I only know what you posted about the Cumulus station. You said they tweaked it but couldn't get it right so they canned it. Pretty clear to me that a major broadcaster deemed it not fiscally viable, yet you know more than they do. See above - "the format will never be number one", "it was probably their lowest performing station", "their other stations probably WERE doing better" - do you ever read what you write? You just explained why it failed and is no longer on.

Again, get ALL the facts before you criticize. Did you not read the rest of what I wrote, or do you just like to cherry-pick whatever helps your self-serving agenda?

You remind me of folks here in Nashville who say that we can't support a hot AC station, but that can't be said for certain, because it has never been tried by a corporation that actually knew what to do with it. And Cromwell didn't. They put it on a weak signal that did not cover all of the city well.

 

[oldies76]

Amen, brother. Avid and Oldies are the ones who don't get the message - so as Avid said to me, let's put it in a way you may be able to understand. Not likely, but we will try one more time.

And it's people like you, why radio is the way it is today. Face it up. You could care less. If you were a listener or a fan, you'd be singing a different tune.

As for Disco Duck, so what if it aired, how does that concern you? To your heart's content, just sit a control board, and play "Go Your Own Way" 7 times a day, if it makes you happy.

Geez!

 

[TheBigA]

And it's people like you, why radio is the way it is today.

You mean successful? In the face of all the competition, in the face of all the technology, radio still has 244 million listeners. We didn't get that many listeners programing for ourselves.

 

[TheBigA]

I told her, "what you listen to isn't really "country" music." Her response: "yeah, I know."

This is basically the same discussion as classic hits. As I keep saying, we're not in the music business. We don't care if it's really country music. We're not musicologists or historians. What we care about is that it attracts a big audience. Amazingly, a lot of people in the music industry want the same thing. So they write and record music that works for radio. Truthfully, a lot of the music on classic hit radio was done for the same reasons. Our job is to pick the songs that get a big audience, and we do our job very well. Others can hound us all day, and tell us we're killing radio, but we've kept this medium alive in the face of a lot of other competition.

 

[ok walters]

Again, get ALL the facts before you criticize. Did you not read the rest of what I wrote, or do you just like to cherry-pick whatever helps your self-serving agenda?

You remind me of folks here in Nashville who say that we can't support a hot AC station, but that can't be said for certain, because it has never been tried by a corporation that actually knew what to do with it. And Cromwell didn't. They put it on a weak signal that did not cover all of the city well.

Facts? You readily admit it was a poor performer and it failed. What exact "facts" are you talking about? What did you leave out? "Other stations doing better" and "lowest performing station" are pretty clear admissions that it didn't work. It is a business, and yes I do care because I depend on radio to be successful to make a living. If the business surviving is self serving then so be it I guess.

You just keep saying that radio is doing it all wrong and radio will keep right on doing what has been shown time and time again to be the most successful way to program/revenue a station. BigA is right - listen to your Ipod if radio doesn't work for you. There are many choices and programmed for the masses OTA radio may not be the best one for you.

 

[ok walters]

And it's people like you, why radio is the way it is today. Face it up. You could care less. If you were a listener or a fan, you'd be singing a different tune.

As for Disco Duck, so what if it aired, how does that concern you? To your heart's content, just sit a control board, and play "Go Your Own Way" 7 times a day, if it makes you happy.

Geez!

And if you depended on radio for your income you would be singing a different tune too.

 

[firepoint525]

Facts? You readily admit it was a poor performer and it failed. What exact "facts" are you talking about? What did you leave out? "Other stations doing better" and "lowest performing station" are pretty clear admissions that it didn't work. It is a business, and yes I do care because I depend on radio to be successful to make a living. If the business surviving is self serving then so be it I guess.

Since you seem to have reading comprehension issues (or maybe just an axe to grind), I will offer you this: Cumulus' screwing around with their own stations certainly wasn't (and probably still isn't) limited to their former classic hits station. They monkeyed around with WSM-FM about a decade ago, calling it "The Wolf" and adding the likes of Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, and Firefall to what was a supposedly "country" station. I liked it, but then again, I am not a diehard country fan. Country fans were up in arms over it, as well they should have been. (It was probably patterned after Cromwell's "Rockin' Country" of the '90s, but they limited their "crossover" material to southern rock.)

Then I offer you examples of stations that I actually like, and you (try to) poke holes in it. Obviously, the more "corporate" it is, or the more "corporate" mindset it has, the less I will probably like it. But that extends to stations across the dial, regardless of format.

 

[TheBigA]

They monkeyed around with WSM-FM about a decade ago, calling it "The Wolf" and adding the likes of Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, and Firefall to what was a supposedly "country" station. I liked it, but then again, I am not a diehard country fan. Country fans were up in arms over it, as well they should have been.

Once again, radio doesn't program to music fans. I remember very clearly that The Wolf was the top rated country station in Nashville at the time. It wasn't Cumulus, but PD John Sebastian who came up with all those changes. He had programmed KZLA in Los Angeles, and brought some of those theories to Nashville. The Fleetwood Mac song he played was Landslide, which had also been a hit for the Dixie Chicks. I don't think he played Rod Stewart's version of First Cut is the Deepest, but he got behind Sheryl Crow's version. It was a short-lived move to get attention, and it worked. That's all that matters. Once he reverted to a more pedestrian playlist, he got beat.

 

[firepoint525]

Once again, radio doesn't program to music fans. I remember very clearly that The Wolf was the top rated country station in Nashville at the time. It wasn't Cumulus, but PD John Sebastian who came up with all those changes. He had programmed KZLA in Los Angeles, and brought some of those theories to Nashville. The Fleetwood Mac song he played was Landslide, which had also been a hit for the Dixie Chicks. I don't think he played Rod Stewart's version of First Cut is the Deepest, but he got behind Sheryl Crow's version. It was a short-lived move to get attention, and it worked. That's all that matters. Once he reverted to a more pedestrian playlist, he got beat.

The Stewart song that I specifically recall was "You're in My Heart," a nice, acoustic ballad. I don't remember the Mac song, although I believe it was one of Stevie Nicks' numbers, but more uptempo than "Landslide." Interesting to note that "Landslide" by the Mac has had a far longer shelf life than the version by the Chicks, despite the latter being the one that was the single, and thus the "hit," while Fleetwood Mac's version, even as just an album track, has survived for nearly 40 years.

 

[TheBigA]

Interesting to note that "Landslide" by the Mac has had a far longer shelf life than the version by the Chicks, despite the latter being the one that was the single, and thus the "hit," while Fleetwood Mac's version, even as just an album track, has survived for nearly 40 years.

Six months after Landslide topped the chart, the trio got in trouble and that ended their career on country radio. In keeping with the topic of this thread, they may still have some fans, but their name is so toxic that they can't get airplay.

 

[davideduardo]

AI find it amusing that anyone suggests that three minutes of "Disco Duck" is a tuneout factor, but not SIX HOURS of college football!

I supervised my owner's WTNT in Tallahassee in the late 80's and early 90's. We were #1 with a country format, and were also the flagship station for the FSU Seminoles. We thus had those 6 hours of college football every Saturday in season.

There was no tuneout. There was, however, massive tune-in and it was enough to make our M-Sun 6 AM to Midnight share in the Fall always be higher than Spring. In the Saturday afternoon dayparts, that 8-share station had around a 25 share.

Disco duck is a different thing... a total negative.

 

[firepoint525]

I supervised my owner's WTNT in Tallahassee in the late 80's and early 90's. We were #1 with a country format, and were also the flagship station for the FSU Seminoles. We thus had those 6 hours of college football every Saturday in season.
There was no tuneout. There was, however, massive tune-in and it was enough to make our M-Sun 6 AM to Midnight share in the Fall always be higher than Spring. In the Saturday afternoon dayparts, that 8-share station had around a 25 share.
Disco duck is a different thing... a total negative.

The station that I cited that played "Disco Duck" has had its same format for AT LEAST five years. The boring predictable Cumulus station would have gone through half a dozen "flips" and name changes by then. Oh, and they carried Vanderbilt when Cumulus owned them. And that was probably their highest rated timeframe, too, but probably not for the reason that you would give.

 

[ok walters]

Since you seem to have reading comprehension issues (or maybe just an axe to grind), I will offer you this: Cumulus' screwing around with their own stations certainly wasn't (and probably still isn't) limited to their former classic hits station. They monkeyed around with WSM-FM about a decade ago, calling it "The Wolf" and adding the likes of Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac, and Firefall to what was a supposedly "country" station. I liked it, but then again, I am not a diehard country fan. Country fans were up in arms over it, as well they should have been. (It was probably patterned after Cromwell's "Rockin' Country" of the '90s, but they limited their "crossover" material to southern rock.)

Then I offer you examples of stations that I actually like, and you (try to) poke holes in it. Obviously, the more "corporate" it is, or the more "corporate" mindset it has, the less I will probably like it. But that extends to stations across the dial, regardless of format.

Yep, them big dummies over at Cumulus mess everything up. Maybe that is why they are the second largest broadcaster in the US with over 500 stations - because they don't know what they are doing. No reading comprehension issues here. Once again - maybe you are more of an Ipod person than a broadcast radio person. Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors for a reason - everybody doesn't eat chocolate and vanilla (but most do).

 

[firepoint525]

Yep, them big dummies over at Cumulus mess everything up. Maybe that is why they are the second largest broadcaster in the US with over 500 stations - because they don't know what they are doing. No reading comprehension issues here. Once again - maybe you are more of an Ipod person than a broadcast radio person. Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors for a reason - everybody doesn't eat chocolate and vanilla (but most do).

Yeah, like playing the SAME song FOUR TIMES STRAIGHT ON A MONDAY AFTERNOON! Like playing nothing but commercials FOR HALF AN HOUR STRAIGHT! There is just not much oversight there. Things screw up, and no one is there to fix it. They run ads seeking account executives, but yet they have apparently nationalized that, too. I never hear commercials for "Bob's Garage" or anything local like that, it is always the ones with the 800 number repeated at least three times at the end. So apparently the bigger they are, the harder they will fall.

 

[TheFonz]

This thread is fun to read, but really, are there still people out there who depend on commercial radio for their main source of music? If there are songs that you want to hear on radio but don't, put 'em on your iPod.