• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Musical genres…becoming irrelevant?

M

Mediafrog+

Wasn’t sure where to post this, but an interesting article with food for thought on how we categorize music. Any thoughts on how this relates to radio and other distribution platforms going forward?

One particularly interesting item: “(T)here’s been a rise of listeners who class themselves not as fans of a genre, but of a single act.” All the Taylor Swift discussion comes to mind.

www.bbc.com

Spotify Wrapped 2023: 'Music genres are now irrelevant to fans'

With over 6,000 classifications on Spotify, fewer fans choose their music by genre in the digital age.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Last edited:
Totally anecdotal data point, but was having pizza the other evening at Delfino's in Seattle with one of my sons and his girlfriend. She is considered a Millennial by age group and a huge Swifty. She's been to the Taylor Swift concert, and concert movie several times. She's all in on Taylor Swift. So I asked her; is Taylor Swift the only music she listens to? Her answer was surprising. Apparently, she frequently listens to classic rock and is a huge Pink Floyd fan, along with EDM, hip hop, and classic jazz. It was very clear that her taste in music was very diverse, unlike the boomer generation where embracing and defending brand loyalty was so important, doing that just isn't a thing for Millennials or Gen-Z.
 
What research has shown is that listeners may like a variety of music, but generally they do not like it combined on a radio station. The keyword here is "mood" as in "when I feel that way, I want to hear songs like..." In other words, " am feeling nostalgic or have had some good memories come to mind, I want to hear older songs from a certain era." Or "I am in a fun, party, happy mood" and want to hear uptempo, rhythmic music. And so on.

That is why when the PPM revealed that people' favorite (meaning "most listened to") station change over time... every week or two on average, but maybe twice a week or twice a month for each individual. And the various "favorites" which are generally two or three stations are not all the same format... there might be a gold station, a country station and an AC station. Or there might be two different kinds of music stations and one other that has a favorite morning show, even if the music is not the "most favorite" at all.

So radio is selected by mood most often, while when one is picking random songs on YouTube or one of the others, they may jump era and style and genre totally at random.
 
I've been saying this here for ten years or more. Genre doesn't matter. Country isn't country. It's a lifestyle and a demographic. People who complain about Jelly Roll not being country are not addressing the fact that the fans of country radio, who are in the demo we sell to, say he's country. That's what matters.

We had a similar conversation a few years ago about alternative. Stations were playing pop-leaning alternative artists, and the traditional alternative fans (admittedly a contradiction in terms) objected to their music, saying they were pop artists, not alternative. The problem there was stations were alienating their core listeners by playing these newer artists. But that's what led to the current schism among alt stations.

Radio stations aren't in the music business. We don't hire musicologists to determine the music we play. So it doesn't matter to us if CHR stations are playing Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs. Those two artists are dominating music activity charts, not just in broadcast radio, but also in streaming. So there's a huge audience for what they do, regardless of the classification. And THAT is what matters to us. When a country artist named Luke Combs sings a song by a non-country writer, is that song country or pop? We don't care. Forty years ago Conway Twitty sang Heartache Tonight, a hit by the Eagles, and had a #1 country song with it. All that matters is that the audience for a particular station likes and accepts the music. Not what genre it is. Stations that build themselves strictly on genre are destined to fail.
 
TheBigA said:
All that matters is that the audience for a particular station likes and accepts the music. Not what genre it is. Stations that build themselves strictly on genre are destined to fail.
Click to expand...
Well said.

KLVE in Los Angeles we is a Spanish language AC station. In mood and texture, it is a lot like KOST. It's target is Mexican or Mexican American young adult women.

We started getting some requests for a song by a Colombian artist named Carlos Vives. It was a modernized but very famous song called "La Gota Fría" which was composed in 1938. It's of a genre called "vallenato" which comes out of the more rural areas of Northeast Colombia. One could say it is in many ways like Zydeco of rural Louisiana; but, while Colombia's "country music" it is quite rhythmic.

So it was no way like anything KLVE played. Yet we listened, and it had a feel that was compatible with the love and emotional songs of K-Love (the original K-Love, not the religious one). So we played it. And tested it. It became a power, and lasted 0over 9 months as a current.

Our listeners did not care what the name of the style of the music was. They simply liked it. So, on that basis, it fit.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
One particularly interesting item: “(T)here’s been a rise of listeners who class themselves not as fans of a genre, but of a single act.” All the Taylor Swift discussion comes to mind.
Click to expand...

It may remind you of Taylor Swift, but it reminds me of the splintering of the alternative audience that we've seen over the last few years. Alternative listeners are not fans of genre or of a station, but rather of specific bands or artists, and that's a problem for stations like KROQ. Thirty years ago, KROQ could DEFINE the genre. If it was played on KROQ, then it was alternative. That rule no longer applies. The audience has revolted against the very thing that brought them together. The thing that did it was the music itself.
 
The basis for the article in the OP is something called "Spotify Wrapped." You might ask what is that?

Spotify has a function that identifies the artists you stream the most. It becomes, in a way, Your Personal Top 10. I noticed that Morgan Wallen was trending on twitter, so I investigated, and it was a bunch of people making personal judgements about other people who have Morgan in their Spotify Wrapped list.

So back to the OP, here are Spotify's Top 10 most streamed artists of 2023:
  1. Taylor Swift
  2. Drake
  3. Morgan Wallen
  4. The Weeknd
  5. Bad Bunny
  6. 21 Savage
  7. SZA
  8. Zach Bryan
  9. Kanye West
  10. Peso Pluma
Bad Bunny is #5. Peso Pluma is #10. What does that tell you about people who use Spotify? And how should radio react to a list like this?

Here's more on Spotify Wrapped:

 
DavidEduardo said:
What research has shown is that listeners may like a variety of music, but generally they do not like it combined on a radio station. The keyword here is "mood" as in "when I feel that way, I want to hear songs like..." In other words, " am feeling nostalgic or have had some good memories come to mind, I want to hear older songs from a certain era." Or "I am in a fun, party, happy mood" and want to hear uptempo, rhythmic music. And so on.

That is why when the PPM revealed that people' favorite (meaning "most listened to") station change over time... every week or two on average, but maybe twice a week or twice a month for each individual. And the various "favorites" which are generally two or three stations are not all the same format... there might be a gold station, a country station and an AC station. Or there might be two different kinds of music stations and one other that has a favorite morning show, even if the music is not the "most favorite" at all.

So radio is selected by mood most often, while when one is picking random songs on YouTube or one of the others, they may jump era and style and genre totally at random.
Click to expand...
So much for the idea that "everyone has every song ever recorded since the beginning of time and listens to them on shuffle, and that's what radio should do"
 
gr8oldies said:
So much for the idea that "everyone has every song ever recorded since the beginning of time and listens to them on shuffle, and that's what radio should do"
Click to expand...
We all know that there are some lawyers superior to others, and some doctors better than the rest. In my class, 50% of the students graduated in the bottom of the class.

Duh!

As obvious as those facts seem, there are some people in radio who are not as good as others, whether they be managers, seller, programmers, jocks or engineers. Some stations are better than others because of that.

So why is it surprising to find that people who don't work in radio lack an understanding of how programming is done. In particular, many are not aware of the fact that most significant stations get lots of input from listeners about what they want, and their programmers try to implement a format that meets those wants and needs.

So it is to be expected that some visitors here, who have not seen how few songs there are in any format area that "everybody" likes and many love, think that we create artificially short playlists as a whim and a sign of disrespect for the listener. That is why people in radio, from the PD in a tiny market in Alaska to folks who have programmed i n New York and LA an other huge markets, are here to explain to those interested enough in radio to ask the questions. |
 
Flying Dutchman said:
Don't forget this business was started by people who were trailblazers who took risks. People like you David.
Click to expand...
Heck, I was just a teenager with a bunch of radio stations and I didn't know any better.
 
My local "Jack" though on a translator is a bit odd with their choices. Party Up by DMX followed by Every Breath You Take by The Police is kinda strange. I actually like eclecticism, but feel like some songs don't fit. (Other adult hits seem more focused in sound, at least.) Listeners in their cars probably like it, but does not seem "at work" friendly.
 
“At work” has all kinds of definitions. But the thing is it doesn’t have to “fit” to an individual if it fits what the station is aiming for, and the audience accepts it. Did they research? Beats me. But lots of things have been thoroughly researched that don’t align with my taste or that of someone I know who fits into whatever demographic box.

Totally agree it’s the mood. Music, sure, what fits the “vibe” regardless of arbitrary format definitions, especially among partisans of a particular genre. Genre labels have their place, absolutely. But to a listener they don’t mean so much. You’re the feel-good vibe, or the chill vibe, or the party vibe or whatever, and you can strategically pluck from across genres.
 
michael hagerty said:
Serious question for those still programming adult stations: How much attention is paid to being "at work friendly" anymore? The latest figures I've seen say 12-ish percent of the workforce is fully remote and 28 percent are a mixture of working from home and from the office.
Click to expand...
Many stations have eliminated live midday talent and replaced them with either tracked, or sets of long music sweeps. Sure, it's a cost savings too, but I'd say dedicated at-work listening is less of a thing from even ten years ago. Just like nights and weekends, middays is filler leading up to PM drive.
 
DavidEduardo said:
So radio is selected by mood most often, while when one is picking random songs on YouTube or one of the others, they may jump era and style and genre totally at random.
Click to expand...
I asked my son's girlfriend if she had any particular favorite radio station. She quickly answered no, that she hardly listens to "old fashioned radio". She streams exclusively Spotify because of the ability to select music. My son agreed. He said while they're in the car, Apple Carplay is the only thing is use.
 
michael hagerty said:
Serious question for those still programming adult stations: How much attention is paid to being "at work friendly" anymore? The latest figures I've seen say 12-ish percent of the workforce is fully remote and 28 percent are a mixture of working from home and from the office.
Click to expand...
Same with at-home. Pre-smartphones and pre-"Alexa" at home, at work and in-car each were at about a third of listening except for one market*.

Now, in-car is approaching half of all listening, and work and home are greatly reduced. Of course, all listening from the pre-PPM levels is off about 65% to 70% in all markets, so the declines are great in all areas... just more in fixed locations.

* New York was only about 24% in-car due to extensive use of public transit.
 
Kelly A said:
Many stations have eliminated live midday talent and replaced them with either tracked, or sets of long music sweeps. Sure, it's a cost savings too, but I'd say dedicated at-work listening is less of a thing from even ten years ago. Just like nights and weekends, middays is filler leading up to PM drive.
Click to expand...
And in PPM, PM drive and middays have higher listening levels than mornings.
 
AbrahamJSimpson said:
“At work” has all kinds of definitions. But the thing is it doesn’t have to “fit” to an individual if it fits what the station is aiming for, and the audience accepts it. Did they research? Beats me. But lots of things have been thoroughly researched that don’t align with my taste or that of someone I know who fits into whatever demographic box.
Click to expand...
In the PPM there are only two categories, home and away. In the remaining diary markets, one marks "Home", "Work", "Vehicle" and "Other". That is where the differentiated percentages come/came from.
AbrahamJSimpson said:
Totally agree it’s the mood. Music, sure, what fits the “vibe” regardless of arbitrary format definitions, especially among partisans of a particular genre. Genre labels have their place, absolutely. But to a listener they don’t mean so much. You’re the feel-good vibe, or the chill vibe, or the party vibe or whatever, and you can strategically pluck from across genres.
Click to expand...
Stations doing deep music tests will do statistical evaluations that can be called "fit" and they can see how well a song matches the station core.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom