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Did KIIS FM play the crossover hits back in the early 80's?
- Thread starter 30james
- Start date
Yes, look at the music surveys here:
KIIS 102.7 Los Angeles
An historical archive of surveys and nostalgia from radio station KIIS 102.7 FM, Los Angeles.
www.las-solanas.com
It only gives number 1's and most of 81 is unlisted
Click on the individual "Survey Date" links to see each survey.
There's just enough there from 1981 to get an overall picture, such as
or KIIS 102.7 Los Angeles Survey 1981-02-27
with http://www.las-solanas.com/surveys/KIIS/KIIS_1981-02-27_1.jpg
KIIS 102.7 Los Angeles Survey 1981-06-15
with http://www.las-solanas.com/surveys/KIIS/KIIS_1981-06-15_1.jpg
By Summer 1981, the crossovers are being phased out:
By late October 1981, the crossovers are gone:
KIIS-FM's Top 100 Of 1981: KIIS 102.7 Los Angeles Survey 1981-00-00
See this thread for some remembrances of that era:
There's just enough there from 1981 to get an overall picture, such as
or KIIS 102.7 Los Angeles Survey 1981-02-27
with http://www.las-solanas.com/surveys/KIIS/KIIS_1981-02-27_1.jpg
KIIS 102.7 Los Angeles Survey 1981-06-15
with http://www.las-solanas.com/surveys/KIIS/KIIS_1981-06-15_1.jpg
By Summer 1981, the crossovers are being phased out:
KIIS 102.7 Los Angeles Survey 1981-08-01
Los Angeles radio station KIIS 102.7 FM survey chart for the week of 1981-08-01.
www.las-solanas.com
By late October 1981, the crossovers are gone:
KIIS 102.7 Los Angeles Survey 1981-10-26
Los Angeles radio station KIIS 102.7 FM survey chart for the week of 1981-10-26.
www.las-solanas.com
KIIS-FM's Top 100 Of 1981: KIIS 102.7 Los Angeles Survey 1981-00-00
See this thread for some remembrances of that era:
Because Billboard is an accurate reflection of Los Angeles' musical tastes and because KIIS was an abject failure after 1981?
Worth noting that by late October, 1981, the crossovers were pretty much gone nationally, too.
A quick check of the Hot 100 for the same week shows exactly two in the top 30, Eddie Rabbitt's "Step By Step", which was on its way down the chart (and which R&R shows was not getting Top 40 play in most markets) and Kenny Rogers' "Share Your Love With Me", which stalled at #14 on the Hot 100 that week. KIIS was smart not to be playing it.
It is no accident that crossovers fell out of favor in the summer and fall of 1981 because that is when MTV launched. MTV was an absolute game changer. They had no use for Kenny Rogers and Eddie Rabbit, but had plenty of time for the up and coming new wave artists like The Pretenders, Elvis Costello, Blondie, Talking Heads, The Cars and Split Endz. Later would come bands like Duran Duran, which were almost MTV creations.
It is true that MTV played some cross-overs at the very beginning such as Lee Ritenour and Juice Newton, but that was just for a lack of video inventory; within a year they would be almost completely gone.
Some surprising trivia:
Which artist was played the most in MTVs first 100 videos?
Rod Stewart, played eight times, none of the songs being repeats. Amazing! REO Speedwagon is the runner up, played six times with only two repeats on the strength of the monster Hi-Infidelity album that year.
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Even that country-pop novelty "Elvira" from 1981, got to #2 locally....
Always thought of that one as catchy.
KRTH 101.1 Los Angeles Survey 1981-07-07
Los Angeles radio station KRTH 101.1 FM survey chart for the week of 1981-07-07.
www.las-solanas.com
Remember that 1980-81 was the "recuperation" of Top 40 from the effects of the disco years preceding that time. Disco was an interesting case of "sudden death" when, from one month to the next, it just stopped selling, getting good callout results and even good new releases.
KIIS, with no disco, wandered around with crossovers and everything else until the music industry realigned itself with reality.
Remember, the challenge for MTV and even channels like CNN was the fact that in most large cities people did not have cable because they had free OTA service. Cable started as a way to get TV to rural areas, signal blocked valleys and such. It was slow expanding to big cities and even slower getting high connection rates.
Again, it took many years for the full effect of that to be felt. MTV had a definite effect, but thinking it was instantaneous is incorrect.
That’s L.A. A lot of mid-chart R&B overperformed there—even in the 70s (Tower of Power’s “You’re Still A Young Man” was top five in L.A., but peaked at #27 in Billboard).
As for Hall & Oates, KCBQ listed any song with a “you” as “Q” (“I Honestly Love Q”) and KHJ did the same with “morning” (“Touch Me in the Morgan”).
A separate thread could be done with how stations modified song titles and even place names to tie in their slogan or name.
In San Juan, on 11-Q, WQII, we were "Awn-say coo" in Spanish. Our T-shirts, called "camisetas" in Spanish, were "Coo-misetas". Any song that had "tu" (the informal "you" in Spanish) were changed from "tu" to "Q". "Octubre", the month of October, was "Oct-Q-bre" and so on. Window stickers, "calcomanías" were "Cal-Q-monías" and so on. And because Spanglish was so common in Puerto Rico, PSA's were "Q-tips".
New Wave started before MTV, in the late '70s. That's when Blondie had their first hit. Other acts followed suit. The sea change in pop was already in progress by the time MTV played "Video Killed the Radio Star." What MTV did was hasten the demise of R&B at Top 40 radio, leading to the schism of the late '80s that saw rock-based and rhythmic-based variants of CHR emerge, divided, sadly, along racial lines.
Judging four-decade old playlists is…something. Especially since the station survives to this day. Reasonable to assume they knew precisely what they were doing for that market at that time.
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