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Obscure hits within a soft AC format

Han Solo said:
Some small webcasters talking about why they stream: http://forum.streamlicensing.com/index.php?topic=218.0

Like some of them said, they are trying to fill musical voids.
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And they also give voice to indie artists who don't get as much promotion as major label artists.

This guy is an indie artist amongst my music collection. www.davidcookofficial.com David started as an indie artist, won season 7 of American Idol, released 2 albums on RCA, and is now back to being an indie artist.
 
passtheword said:
Soft AC's back then definitely had their own distinct sound, as opposed to other radio formats that were available at the time. And, of course, you could still hear the occasional current, too, that the mainstream AC and CHR's were airing. I never was opposed to listening to top 40 music, although my interest in those kinds of stations was much less than in the easy listening/soft AC ones.
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Some soft AC's in my neck of the woods were very ballad-oriented, like yours and Soft N Easy.

Other soft AC's in my neck of the were more adventurous like this one: www.kliteonline.com and this one: www.joy995.com While they played a lot of ballads, they wouldn't shy away from playing songs like "Like A Prayer" by Madonna or "Jack and Diane" by John Mellencamp. Those two examples are basically bringing that more adventurous style of soft AC forward in time by playing some currents by Adele, Maroon 5, and One Direction in the mix.
 
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passtheword said:
I don't refute the idea that doing these stations gives me pleasure as a side benefit...and really, I don't see why anyone should feel they are merely there to serve others and not be allowed any sort of personal enjoyment out of doing it, whether it be an online radio station or any other kind of business. To make a blanket statement that all online radio station broadcasters do it merely for personal gratifcation is judgmental, not to mention unfactual.
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Let's look at it a different way.

A hobby is engaged in because it is fun, challenging, interesting. Some hobbies make money, but in most cases that is not why we take one up.

A business is started because we make money. While it may also be a fun job, we must have some positive return on the investment or we abandon the effort.

So an online stream has almost zero chances of making money. Pandora, the king of that hill, makes no money.

That means that the principle objective of an online station would be the same objectives as those involved in taking up a hobby. It's rewarding, satisfying, challenging and interesting.

Is that a better explanation?
 
Here are some songs that are obscure, and mostly weren't ever "hits" as the suits define the term, but that I think any fan of Soft AC would enjoy if he heard it. And please ignore the fact that in some cases, the performer is singing something way different from the genre they are well known for. Others were recorded outside of the narrow time span the suits insist on. Some are covers. Some are originals.

Lilac Wine

Sometimes in Winter

Scarlett O'Hara

Deeper Water

Home

Enjoy the World

Please Read the Letter

Where Were You When I Needed You

Hello

Are You the One

Sailing

Breaking Down

Moonlight Shadow

And just one disclaimer. I don't give a damn what excuse the suits have for why these really excellent songs are not played on the radio. People interested in the topic "Obscure hits within a soft AC format" should be able to appreciate these songs as songs. I especially don't give a damn if some suit claims that they don't "test well" because I doubt that most of these were ever tested.
 
Avid Listener said:
Here are some songs that are obscure, and mostly weren't ever "hits" as the suits define the term

And just one disclaimer. I don't give a damn what excuse the suits have for why these really excellent songs are not played on the radio.
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Radio programmers (the "suits" term is intentionally belligerent and quite shopworn by now) don't look for songs that "were" hits. They look for songs that people want to hear on the radio today.

If we have a station that is positioned as gold-based, then our job is not to create "future gold" (which has been tried and discarded after many unsuccessful iterations of the effort) but to play the songs that our listeners want to hear today.

If you want to do a music discovery format, there are plenty of ways of doing so online. If you do a good job, you might even find a way to monetize streaming, too. There is nothing stopping you.

But the rest of us know that we have to check with our listeners and play the songs that they all like to hear.
 
My thought is if a song is obscure it means it doesn't appeal to the mainstream or has limited appeal. If I were to hear something obscure I most likely switch to another station. That doesn't mean obscure artists can't enjoy appeal online.
 
One of my favorite contemporary soft rock balladeers is Ronan Keating. He's from Ireland. He initially started off in a boy band, Boyzone. His first solo hit, When You Say Nothing At All, featured in the movie, Notting Hill, is a good example of how his music sounds. A lot of his hits have been covers, specifically covers of country ballads. A lot of the original material he's recorded has been co-written by him. A couple of songs he's co-written that American audiences would be familiar with are Last Thing On My Mind (a duet with LeAnn Rimes) and The Long Goodbye (made popular by Brooks and Dunn).

The boy band he was in has gotten back together. One of their latest albums, released in 2010 and titled Brother, is a tribute to a member who had passed away. It shows how much they've grown up. There's a maturity to the writing and the music. At times, the album reminds me of American singers such as Chris Daughtry and David Cook.

Anyway, some songs that soft AC's in my neck of the woods played during the late 90's and 00's by him and Boyzone are:

No Matter What - Boyzone
When You Say Nothing At All
Last Thing On My Mind

https://www.youtube.com/user/RonanKeatingVEVO/videos
 
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Bringing back the subject of train-wreck segues; Music Of Your Life has been guilty of some beauts. Though the service hasn't been available here for some months now, one of the last times I listened to it they crashed Rosemary Clooney against Chuck Berry. I realize they have been struggling, and trying to update their image, but some rock oldies will work in an easy-listening format and some just don't.

Kind of comparable to tuning in to a local college student station (definitely a type of personal-gratification radio) and hearing a DJ connect James Brown to Ted Nugent by way of Cher.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Radio programmers (the "suits" term is intentionally belligerent and quite shopworn by now) don't look for songs that "were" hits. They look for songs that people want to hear on the radio today.
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What part of "I don't give a damn what excuse the suits have for why these really excellent songs are not played on the radio" did you not understand?

eriedj said:
My thought is if a song is obscure it means it doesn't appeal to the mainstream or has limited appeal. If I were to hear something obscure I most likely switch to another station. That doesn't mean obscure artists can't enjoy appeal online.
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I suggest you read any of the many, many books on the market about how the recording industry screwed countless musical artists out of any chance of having their music heard. If the suits at the record labels didn't even make an attempt to get the suits at the radio stations to play a particular song, then no one ever had a chance of hearing it. That is what makes a song "obscure". Without that so-called "big break", large numbers of excellent songs never got a chance.

Of course, you might also try listening to some of the songs I posted. Try to hear them as a fan of good music would, not a radio industry drone who evaluates how good a song sounds by sales figures and/or testing results. Try using your own ears.
 
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Avid Listener said:
What part of "I don't give a damn what excuse the suits have for why these really excellent songs are not played on the radio" did you not understand?
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The incongruency here is that radio stations... at least the larger ones... find out what listeners want to hear.

Radio's job is to sell advertising. It is not to sell records.

Radio reflects tastes, and is only a part of changes in taste. If record labels and promoters are not behind an artist, it is really hard to make an undiscovered artist into a hit artist. It's a risk that costs stations ratings, so we don't do it. You may not like that response as you like new music one heck of a lot more than the average adult, but it is how we keep our stations listenable and profitable.

Of course, you might also try listening to some of the songs I posted. Try to hear them as a fan of good music would, not a radio industry drone who evaluates how good a song sounds by sales figures and/or testing results. Try using your own ears.
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As I said before, record sales, whether single songs or whole albums, is not data used much by radio to determine airplay because it is so terribly hard, in a fragmented media world to determine who bought the song. Since the 70's stations have depended on call-out for current songs and music tests for library songs. Today we also have a whole additional toolbox with things like online testing and MScores.

Now I will digress to the anecdotal experiences that you so love to disparage. When I first tested songs in an AMT in the late 70's, I was programming a "Hot AC" in a top 15 market, I decided beforehand to give our own ears a test. After all, that was what we were using to program the music. The three of us on the music committee went song by song for the first couple of 50-song pods of music hooks and gave our own scores and averaged them. Then, with the test over, we compared. We were off by 20% or over on more than half of the songs. About 15% of what we were playing were very negative total stiffs.

We implemented the test, eliminated the negative songs, reduced the number of currents and increased the frequency of play of them and downsized the total library. Our station, which had been #1 in Women 18-49 already, increased shares by nearly 20% in the next book.

We never looked at sales. And we learned that trusting our own ears was dangerous unless in the context of broader research to guide us. And that's the way most stations look at satisfying listener tastes and needs.
 
Music Lover said:
Info about how Pandora makes money. http://vator.tv/news/2013-12-21-how-does-pandora-make-money
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To informed people, "making money" is synonymous with "making a profit".

Pandora loses money. The losses have increased in proportion to the increases in users. Every new user costs them money.

There is a common misunderstanding about business that all the money that comes in is profit, but that the government hands out big tax deductions. All the money that comes in is gross revenue. Every expense involved in getting that revenue is in some way deductible, and only what is left after the expenses are deducted is profit and pays taxes. In the case of Pandora, there are no profits and thus they pay no income taxes.

Pandora does not make money. It loses money.
 
Music Lover said:
Here we go again. It's gonna get locked. :( :mad:
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Why?

Critical to understanding streaming is understanding that those streamers that want to make a profit have so far not been able to achieve that goal. And stations have been streaming for a decade and a half.

Since there is no working business model, and the only out-for-profit streamers that can possibly survive are the ones with huge stacks of burn capital, we then can look at the not-for-profit streamers and their own raison d'être.

Contrary to the opinion of some, "Raison d'être" is not a Sunkist product.
 
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