1. Does the song resonate emotionally with listeners who normally pay little attention to songs, but tear jerker songs strikes some chord in them that relates to their own lives? Maybe they lost someone due to death, or to a bad breakup, so they call in incessantly to request the song? If you ever took requests via phone, email, text message, etc. - do you find that the same people continually contact the station with requests?
I don't know, but I usually have the opposite reaction with most tear jerker songs. As examples, I used to like "Remember When" by Alan Jackson and "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw (one of the few Tim McGraw songs that didn't make me want to wretch). Then, my dad fell over dead suddenly in the Fall of 2009. I will now push the button immediately on both of those songs, usually before the vocals even start. I don't care for songs about death in general, though I'll admit to liking "Think of Laura" by Christopher Cross. Bad breakups haven't really affected me like deaths. I love the entire "Recovering the Satellites" album by the Counting Crows, even though it was my first college girlfriend's favorite group at the time. The memory of driving north on Leverett Avenue from campus to my apartment with her in the passenger seat belting out the chorus to "Round Here" always makes me smile. You'd never know today that that breakup was a major contributor to me nearly flunking out of college the next semester.
2. Is the mediocre song part of an album release, or a movie soundtrack release which will make a big impact on the culture? For example, "The Way We Were" by Barbra Streisand was just.......not good. It was self-pitying, maudlin, tear-jerking, patronizing, corny, etc. I didn't like it. But it was played to death on L.A. radio. It won a Grammy, I believe. It was heavily promoted, because it was used to sell the movie.
As Michael and I discussed earlier, some mediocre to bad songs would seem to piggyback on being part of a good movie or album release. "Candy Man" by Sammy Davis, Jr. is an example. Davis himself didn't like the song, but he didn't decline to do it either. I'd always heard Keith Richards hated, and I mean HATED, "Satisfaction" despite being credited as its main writer. I don't think he's ever hated it enough to donate his royalty checks, though!
I will admit that I don't hate "The Way We Were." Like most Streisand songs, I wouldn't ever want to listen to it, but it doesn't make me change the station either. I suspect a lot of listeners were somewhat "meh" about that song. It might not have gotten many requests, but it's not particularly offensive or harmful.
2.a. Same thing with "You Don't Bring Me Flowers Any More" w/ Streisand and Neil Diamond. More maudlin, cornball dreck. It went to the top 10 very quickly after its release, IIRC. There was no movie associated with it. But Streisand and Diamond were huge names in pop music. So fans bought it because at that level, a fan will collect every album that their favorite artist releases.
Personally, I hate Neil Diamond. Very few of his songs aren't button pushers for me. Thing is, he's popular with a lot of people. My BIL is younger than I am, and he knows all the words to Neil's music.
\3. Do listeners request or buy music because the artist is associated w/ another artist that they like? For example, was "You Light Up My Life" a hit because fans of Debby Boone's father, Pat Boone, really liked slow, sentimental ballads that were played at wedding receptions? ( I'm not a fan of this song- I thought it was SO corny with weepy sentiment. But, a lot of my gal friends who got married during this time, wanted it played at their weddings).
"You Light Up My Life" is another one that I would never seek out, but it doesn't make me go away. I wouldn't give it a high rating if I were involved a music test, but it wouldn't get such a low rating that it would fall under the "it makes me angry" or "it makes me sick" banners. As Michael mentions, Debby Boone probably didn't get too much benefit, at least from the listeners, for being Pat Boone's kid, though it might've helped her secure a record deal.
4. Do listeners buy it because they like the genre or like to sing along? Example "That Summer" by Garth Brooks. ( Gawd. I don't like the lyrics. The guy spends the rest of his life bragging about a fling he had with a desperate older woman on a farm). The chorus is not all that singable, except to people who believe they have very strong voices. Anyone who thinks he/ she sounds like Garth, Reba McEntire, LeeAnn Rimes, or Dolly, likes to sing along. It's a big karaoke favorite on cruise ships).
"That Summer," like a lot of other Garth songs, has an upbeat melody that really stood out among the hits of its time. For people like me who were in their late teens when it came out, songs like that helped convince us that country music wasn't entirely about crying in your beer. Garth, in general, was like that, though I don't think he would've had the draw he had if pop music at the time wasn't so lousy. Again, hits are relative. No way Garth Brooks would've had any spins on pop stations if the pop product of the early 90's wasn't so godawful. I greatly reduced my listening to CHR/Top-40 stations in 1990 and '91 because the music was just so bad. I didn't become a regular listener again until about 1996. I also think Garth is incredible live, and I'm sure the shows he put on at the time helped boost him, though I don't know how many fans of his recorded music he got. I used the example of Streisand above as an artist I would never seek out but won't generally tune out either. I do actually think she's really good live, but the only song of hers in my music collection is her duet with Donna Summer, "Enough Is Enough" (which she almost didn't do), and it's there for Donna Summer's part. Going back to your mentioning of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," I suspect listeners who like one but are only lukewarm on the other probably give the song high enough marks. It makes me tune out because I detest Diamond, but I doubt my BIL would hit the "skip" button when it came on.
5. Is there a dance step associated with it? "Achy-Breaky Heart" was cute, the first 500 times that it was played.
No, it wasn't. "Achy-Breaky Heart" was always cringeworthy. I actually don't think most of Cyrus's other songs have been too bad, but I can honestly say I've never liked any version of that song. Then again, you thought it was cute a few times, and I suspect enough other people did, too, that playing it, at least for a little while, didn't hurt anybody.
P.S. What do you think is the pop song voted the # 1 Worst Song of All Time? According to a CNN poll from 2006, it's "You're Having My Baby" by Paul Anka and Odia Coates. ( I didn't think anything could top "Honey", but I have to agree with this poll).
I actually think "Honey" is worse, but "You're Having My Baby" is indeed terrible. Probably close to 25 years ago now, I was visiting family in Springfield, MO for a holiday weekend, and I turned on 1260, which had just been acquired by Journal Broadcast Group from Great Empire, had switched calls to KTTF, and was calling itself "Classic Country 1260." I actually heard a version of "Honey" by Tom T. Hall that I didn't even know existed up to that point. It was still bad, though I did actually listen to it all the way through that one time. I have never listened to it again, and I don't expect I ever will!
The entire reason for in-store play is that it's been found, when done properly, to affect sales and profits.
I've been told the music mix on stores' sound systems can even reduce theft.
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