Pop radio doesn't have a dog in the music fight. They don't care what songs are popular, as long as they attract an audience and don't get them in trouble with the FCC. But radio stations don't make money by playing music.
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What happened to rock on the charts?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
Pop radio doesn't have a dog in the music fight. They don't care what songs are popular, as long as they attract an audience and don't get them in trouble with the FCC. But radio stations don't make money by playing music.
I was more commenting on pop radio having issues lately and how the disconnect between what pop radio plays and what is actually popular may be affecting that. They may not have a dog in the music fight and they make their money from commercials, but the disconnect has been present since the 2000’s and it’s gotten much worse, and pop radio doesn’t exactly play rock music that much so the disconnect isn’t merely “people don’t listen to rock music no more”. Pop is playing “SNAP” by Rosa Linn and “Sex, Drugs, Etc.” by Beach Weather and… that’s it. And they’re very on brand “indie” songs that pop has periodically incorporated into their rotations since the 2010’s.
(I suspect that pop will be giving “Sleepwalking” by All Time Low, “Run Away to Mars” by TALK, and perhaps a blink-182 or Paramore single a shot in 2023, but I can’t see much else in the rock realm getting a chance in the immediate future.)
The other side of that is how much work do rock artists do to attract radio airplay? Anything? That's where a label promo staff comes in, working with management and publicity. If a rock artist doesn't have any of that support, they're not likely to get airplay.
You're missing my point still. The issues with pop radio are far beyond rock's presence or lack thereof.
"Pop radio" is, I presume, CHR. In that case, they play what listener research tells them to play. Currents use what we call "call out" which is actually done online now by playing hooks of songs and getting "scores" from our own listeners. Such testing is done almost continuously, with rolling averages available each week.
That data is combined with trends on social media and streaming sources, all available within services stations buy.
Older songs are tested in a similar fashion, but in one or two big song count tests each year.
So stations have a very accurate count on what is popular with their own listeners in any given moment. Those songs may not be the same as those trending on streaming services as those users may be of different age groups or ethnic groups than are in the station's own target.
The issues with pop radio are music industry issues, not radio issues. What radio is doing with CHR is expanding the playlist to older songs in order to make up for the lack of currents. That's probably a temporary problem, because new artists are getting signed all the time. I think we'll see some improvement in the new music situation next year.
Maybe it's time for Nashville to grab the (mechanical) bull by the horns and cross over to pop radio (CHR and/or AC) every single artist and band currently under contract. Might as well toss a few songs/artist to urban formats, too. The Jimmie Allen/Flo Rida duet performed on Nashville's Big Bash on New Year's Eve would work at urban CHRs and hip-hops. And the duo The War and Treaty (also featured on the Bash telecast) so more like Ike and Tina Turner than any country duo I can think of, so why is such a big effort being made to shoehorn them into the country genre?
Darius could cross back over into the mainstream.
Funny you mention him. He was the final performer on the telecast, and what did he perform? "Only Wanna Be With You," one of his monster hits from his pop years with Hootie and the Blowfish. Unlikely he'd be a fit on CHR or urban, though, unless he starts putting out music with more beat and (lyrical) bite to it. And even then, there's the optics of a 56-year-old man with plenty of gray all around his head performing that kind of material.
It's already happening. If you look at the Billboard Hot 100, you'll see Morgan Wallen and Jason Aldean. Kane Brown releases different songs for pop than for country. The pop audience tends to stay away from music they feel is too country. On the other side, the country radio stations want to protect their sound and their exclusivity. They saw what happened when they lost Taylor Swift. You don't want to cannibalize country for pop. So you have to be careful.
Taylor Swift lost whatever country sound she had. Country today really is a version of pop just with depressing lyrics. It’s not the hard country of the 70s.
Or it's the rock of the 70s.
Rock and country are really similar, they are weaker versions of their former selves.
The simple truth here is Rock is dying...especially in the CHR audience realm. Even on its own it is its own genre that doesn't fit well with alot of other stuff.
Many of us here are showing our age.
Rhythmic CHR is an established format because its a focused part of the CHR audience that has its own mass appeal such that it can stand on its own. It is the modern reality that Pop and Hip-Hop have a more symbiotic relationship that Rock and Pop.
Question...where is Rock CHR? There's your answer. If Rock CHR would have had the mass appeal that Rhythmic has had we would have Rock CHR all over even as its own official reporting base. But we don't.
I'm 42 and worked at a Rock format back in the 00's. There may be some token tracks here and there that can cross over but it doesn't fit within the pop realm in any broad sense in this era of history we are in right now.
And Its just like with Country. You have to be careful not to cannibalize it. It is its own standalone genre and the fans are sensitive to that. And since Rock has died off comparative to what it was in the past that's all the more reason.
This isn't difficult stuff when you look at our culture nowadays. We aren't nearly as eager to glorify musical styles that don't reflect urban or suburban living. While rock doesn't necessarily conflict with that outright it also doesn't magnify it. Same with Country. The Country crossover tracks happened to have enough mass appeal. And honestly most of the popularity of the Country crossover comes from regions of the country that are more rural. I bet the votes for Morgan Whalen aren't as high in Major Market CHR audiences as they are from smaller and mid market ones.
But lets not fool ourselves that the CHR audience which gains a huge chunk of its psychological mindset from suburban and urban culture is ready to adopt John Deere tractor style culture with Country. Nor is it ready to rock out to most mainstream Rock tracks.
Many of us here are showing our age.
Rhythmic CHR is an established format because its a focused part of the CHR audience that has its own mass appeal such that it can stand on its own. It is the modern reality that Pop and Hip-Hop have a more symbiotic relationship that Rock and Pop.
Question...where is Rock CHR? There's your answer. If Rock CHR would have had the mass appeal that Rhythmic has had we would have Rock CHR all over even as its own official reporting base. But we don't.
I'm 42 and worked at a Rock format back in the 00's. There may be some token tracks here and there that can cross over but it doesn't fit within the pop realm in any broad sense in this era of history we are in right now.
And Its just like with Country. You have to be careful not to cannibalize it. It is its own standalone genre and the fans are sensitive to that. And since Rock has died off comparative to what it was in the past that's all the more reason.
This isn't difficult stuff when you look at our culture nowadays. We aren't nearly as eager to glorify musical styles that don't reflect urban or suburban living. While rock doesn't necessarily conflict with that outright it also doesn't magnify it. Same with Country. The Country crossover tracks happened to have enough mass appeal. And honestly most of the popularity of the Country crossover comes from regions of the country that are more rural. I bet the votes for Morgan Whalen aren't as high in Major Market CHR audiences as they are from smaller and mid market ones.
But lets not fool ourselves that the CHR audience which gains a huge chunk of its psychological mindset from suburban and urban culture is ready to adopt John Deere tractor style culture with Country. Nor is it ready to rock out to most mainstream Rock tracks.
That question reminds me of the one semester when I hosted a show at my university's radio station during the late 1980s. I played mostly rock songs that were less than three years old. I called my format "contemporary rock," as opposed to "classic rock." During my weekly two-hour show, I played artists such as Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, Bon Jovi, and U2. Of course, today, we have a format called "modern rock," which is more of a mixed bag than the music I was playing because it doesn't have the same limitations regarding the ages of the songs that are characteristic of a contemporary hits format. As I type this, I now understand why the contemporary rock format as I played it on college radio would not work today.
Been mentioned here by @DavidEduardo and many others...those 'tween' years (13 - 19) is the music you'll listen to 'forever'.
Shortly after getting out of the car one day, while listening to the classic rock staple "House of the Rising Sun" on our local Classic Rock station...I realized that song will be 59 years old this year.
Quickly...did anyone think that song would still be on the radio 50 years after it was released?
Everything in radio does have a shelf-life. Sometimes, it's measured in weeks, other times decades.
The shelf life is forever now thanks to streaming. You can discover more music than ever before. The days of going to the record store and hunting for that one album with maybe 2 good songs are gone.
I wish the younger generation would broaden their musical horizons and maybe as they get older they will.
I know plenty of 20 somethings who love 70s music.
The exposure to 'new' music is no longer the 'focus' of broadcast radio - that ship has sailed long ago.
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