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KRTH now playing rap music.

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I was checking out K-RTH’s playlist for the last few days, here’s most of the rap songs they’ve been playing.

California Love- 2pac/ Dr Dre (1996)
Every Breathe You Take- Puffy/ Notorious BIG (1997)
Hey Ya- Outkast (2003)
It’s Tricky- Run DMC (1986)
Lose Yourself- Eminem (2002)
Mo Money Mo Problems- Puffy/ Notorious BIG (1997)
Ride with Me- Nelly (2000)
The Way You Move- Outkast

I thought maybe there would be a bit more 80’s and 90’s rap. I wouldn’t consider this song rap or hip hop but the one I was surprised to see in KRTH’s rotation was Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars from 2014.
 
I thought maybe there would be a bit more 80’s and 90’s rap. I wouldn’t consider this song rap or hip hop but the one I was surprised to see in KRTH’s rotation was Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars from 2014.
Bruno Mars already??? I also see they are still spinning "Bennie and the Jets" and "Rocket Man" from 74/72. Half century records mixing it up with an 8 year old hit (a big one at that). That's a huge spread.
 
Kost also plays Bennie and the Jets and I believe rocket Man to be honest I don't care for krth. You know to me all those 80 songs which they play the majority of not strictly 80s but a lot of it you know they're all burnt out songs for me they are not for everyone obviously.

I mean I would love to hear Mike and the mechanics taken in or Cyndi lauper's I drove All night or bon Jovi born to be my baby I mean they were hits but they weren't like huge huge huge hits lasting hits I guess is the way you would say it. But I'm sure the reason is none of them test well.
 
I was thinking the opposite; that they can't find mass appeal current hits that fit in with the gold they play. Most of their gold consists of songs that were huge in LA over the past 20 years or so.
KIIS is a Top 40/CHR station and the base consists of currents and recurrents. All CHRs have problems of recent because there are not enough good currents so many spend more time on the charts filling space.

Remember, for the first decade or so of Top 40, we did not play any gold. And for the first nearly 20 years. we "rested" songs after they first charted and we did not have "recurrents".
 
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Bruno Mars already??? I also see they are still spinning "Bennie and the Jets" and "Rocket Man" from 74/72. Half century records mixing it up with an 8 year old hit (a big one at that). That's a huge spread.
And it works brilliantly. Programming gold is a bit more than buying a couple of Whitburn books, apparently.
 
KIIS is a Top 40/CHR station and the base consists of currents and recurrents. All CHRs have problems of recent because there are not enough good currents so many spend more time on the charts filling space.

Remember, for the first decade or so of Top 40, we did not play any gold. And for the first nearly 20 years. we "rested" songs after they first charted and we did not have "recurrents".
I'll have to disagree with that. The only reason I know '50s songs is because they were constantly played as oldies while I was growing up!
 
Top 40 stations were playing gold when I started listening in 1960. KRLA had their own jingle "Million dollar muuuuusic" like that, and they played the jingle, then the gold. They played early rockabilly, or Sun Records originals like "Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins, or "Rockin' Robin", or "Rock Around the Clock" or "That's All Right Mama"...........really early vintage stuff. Or they played doo-wop like the Flamingos "Only Have Eyes For You". I think they played one of those every couple of hours. It wasn't frequent, but they had their own jingle for it. -- Daryl
 
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There is no such thing as "rap music". If anything it's spoken word...and not good at that.
I used to think the same way until I looked into some of the rap music in the early 1990s, Ice-T in particular -- very literate. Street poetry with cool funk beats and bass lines. Then I got into Ice-T, Ice Cube, and a few others.

In the case of rap-rock, they mixed up the singing and rapping more. Limp Bizkit's My Way being a classic example.

It's all in the ear of the beholder, naturally.
 
I used to think the same way until I looked into some of the rap music in the early 1990s, Ice-T in particular -- very literate. Street poetry with cool funk beats and bass lines. Then I got into Ice-T, Ice Cube, and a few others.

In the case of rap-rock, they mixed up the singing and rapping more. Limp Bizkit's My Way being a classic example.

It's all in the ear of the beholder, naturally.
I love the song by Linkin Park/Jay-Z back in 2004. You still here it today on the radio😁 Wasn't Aerosmith/rundmc the first rock rap tune walk this way? And a more obscure rock rap song was bring the noize by Anthrax/Public enemy. Indie 103.1 in LA played it.
 
I'll have to disagree with that. The only reason I know '50s songs is because they were constantly played as oldies while I was growing up!
Because you heard them on oldies stations playing gold, not CHR playing them.
 
Remember, for the first decade or so of Top 40, we did not play any gold.
I think this is a case of where you were at the time. KFWB started playing one gold an hour---"KFWB Flashbacks"---as early as 1959. KRLA had "Memory" songs by '61 and KHJ did two or three Goldens an hour and was a 50/50 gold/current mix every weekend when it launched in '65.

In the Bay Area, it was pretty much the same---KEWB doing the Flashback thing (they were also consulted by Chuck Blore) from their launch in '59, KYA had "Golden Gate Greats" from as early as I've heard them (again, '59) and KFRC did the same thing as KHJ when it launched in '66.

Obviously, in the very early days, the oldies were not all that old, given that the hits for the format really only went back to '56. Even in 1971, a Golden Weekend was only going to go back 15 years (that'd be like 2008 music today).

But in the fall of 1971, Ted Atkins tightened up the Gold library at KHJ and the other RKO stations followed suit. Anything pre-Beatles was pretty rare. And a year later, KRTH came in and had that music essentially to itself. Trouble was, after the initial novelty wore off, the numbers fell badly, and in '76 Bob Hamilton took them to a Gold-based AC which R&R insisted was actually a CHR and listed them as such.
 
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Just curious approximately what year did stations like Krth ditch the 50s 60s oldies for 80s 90s oldies? Or was it more gradually? Not all at once
 
Just curious approximately what year did stations like Krth ditch the 50s 60s oldies for 80s 90s oldies? Or was it more gradually? Not all at once
Patrick, KRTH was playing very little newer than 1972 as late as 2005. The PD at the time, Jay Coffey, had the library down to 300 songs if that, and they were burned to a crisp.

Jhani Kaye came in and began branching the library out to the rest of the 70s and then the 80s. When he left in---2012, I want to say---his successors continued moving with the audience they want to attract, not the audience that's aged out of desirability for advertisers.
 
Sounds like KRTH has become a multi genre station for its newer audience. Your response sums it up. Or in other words, K-Earth has become the sum of various stations around L.A and bagging them up under one format, classic hits.
That's called Variety Hits. Or "We play everything".
 
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