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Ignoring a #1 hit?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
Boy's A Liar is primarily getting spins on the coasts, not so much in the midwest. It's #12 this week.
Top spinners are KBFF Portland, WIHT, DC, WZFT Baltimore, and KIIS LA. Over 100 spins in those cities.
I think the same was true for Hideaway by Kiesza back in 2014. A lot of people in coastal cities (and of course Canada where it's from) heard it a lot, but a lot of people in the midwest probably haven't heard it before!
It also seems there's a lot of stations ignoring hits (I am wondering if they figure the song will fall flat?). A lot of stations around the country are not playing the Meghan Trainor song "Mother" including Z100, which seems to be shunning it as well, and most are spinning it in small increments. There are only a few that are regularly playing it. It sounds like a pretty polarizing song from what I've heard of it, though.
The top spinner is Biloxi, and then Daytona. Kiss in Chicago has it in the 20s. Lot of small markets.
That makes sense. I wonder if major markets are anticipating it to not test well?
Im hearing Boys A Liar a bunch in Des Moines. Midwest. Can’t speak for other markets.
Stations are increasing spins every week. WPIA in Peoria is playing the song 100 times a week. So is a station in Denver.
What I said a week ago will be changing all the time.
So, what you're saying is: 'It plays in Peoria?'
It is playing on KMXV but not as much. I am thinking they are trying to compete with KZPT, our Hot Ac.
KZCH in Wichita is now spinning it 83 times a week, up from 62 last week.
The song is now Top 10. A station in Bakersfield is playing it over 130 times a week.
Buck Owens is spinning in his grave.
The song was receiving huge spins on Hits 1 back in late January. It topped Spotify back in February.
33 1/3 RPM, or 44.1kHz?
I have read that some stations did in fact consider "Disco Lady" too suggestive. The same was true of another disco hit from that same year, Andrea True Connection's "More, More, More." A Top 5 monster hit nationally, but CKLW passed on it. That may have been as much because it wasn't that big in Detroit as because of the lyrics, since it was played on FM rival WDRQ but according to charts on ARSA stalled below the Top 20.
WIOG "Hits 106" in Saginaw/Bay City, MI passed on Madonna's "Live to Tell." I remember reading in the Billboard issue from the week the song hit #1 that WIOG was the only station on the Hot 100 reporter panel not playing it, even though Madonna was born in that very market (Bay City). This was likely due to the station leaning very Rock 40 at that time. They often sat out or were late on many Dance and Urban hits, but that made sense for their market. My cousin, although she lived in the Detroit market, preferred WIOG to the Detroit CHRs for just this reason (that of course was once the station moved to 102.5, which was later in 1986).
WIOG "Hits 106" in Saginaw/Bay City, MI passed on Madonna's "Live to Tell." I remember reading in the Billboard issue from the week the song hit #1 that WIOG was the only station on the Hot 100 reporter panel not playing it, even though Madonna was born in that very market (Bay City). This was likely due to the station leaning very Rock 40 at that time. They often sat out or were late on many Dance and Urban hits, but that made sense for their market. My cousin, although she lived in the Detroit market, preferred WIOG to the Detroit CHRs for just this reason (that of course was once the station moved to 102.5, which was later in 1986).
And nearly everyone played Musique's "In the Bush"...
Push, push in the bush
Push, push in the bush
Push, push in the bush
I like to do the things you like to do too
In the 1960s, the Outstate Michigan stations were often three months ahead of WLS and WCFL. In the Tri Cities, that was often WKNX 1210, which several of the posters here remember, as one of the stations ahead of the curve. WTRX, WTAC, WPAG, WSAM, WKNX, WILS, WLAV, WGRD, WERX, WYYY, and WTRU were others. CKLW and WKNR were the more well known, but they usually waited a week or two until the outstate stations had "tested" the record. As far as breaking Detroit and Eastern Michigan Garage Bands, the Eastern Michigan stations were first. With Chicago Garage Bands, the Western Michigan stations were first. I listened to all of those, except the Class IVs and high dial stations too far away in Western Michigan to hear. In the Midwest, "Garage Band" is kind of a misnomer, as most practiced in their Basement, so the neighbors didn't complain about the noise. I'm sure the term originated in California, where they don't have Basements. You can definitely see that those recollections and trends are shown on ARSA charts.
Old radio adage: What you don't play can't hurt you.
CKLW wasn't alone in avoiding the Andrea True record. It wasn't that outrageous, but once you put the line "get the cameras rollin'" together with the then-scandalous factoid that Andrea made porn films and records, it was too much for more conservative markets and managers.
Around that same time, I was dealing with a GM at KUKI in Ukiah who ordered me to pull Rod Stewart's "Tonight's The Night" off the air as it was climbing the chart. He got fired the week it hit number one and as he was packing his stuff in a box in his office, under the watchful eye of the owner, I dialed up the lobby monitor and put Rod back on the air with this intro:
"General managers come and general managers go, but the hits.....just keep on comin'!"
If I'd been a really bad 20-year-old PD, I'd have done the line over the end of the record and hit the first moan. Hindsight.
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