That song, and Freak-A-Zoid by Midnight Star were HUGE hits on Pittsburgh's (a smallish African American market) CHR station WBZZ probably for the same reasons. I mean, the song is a silly novelty record that only managed #66 Pop nationally so even Kasem and Dees Disciples probably never heard it, but 11-year-old me found dancing robots irresistible.
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How was We Built This City considered "bad?"
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
Man, I botched that one, didn't I? Sorry about that. I do remember buying Kathy Mattea's 1993 Christmas album "Good News" and noticing that the CD was manufactured in Germany. I was puzzled by that at the time.
I had always wondered how KIIS-FM had been able to get away with playing "Erotic City," with lyrics that included one expletive repeated several times during the song without any edits. Now I know.
Interestingly, The Who had the exact same expletive problem with the album version of "Who Are You," from 1978. For AOR stations wanting to play the track, a version was released with the offending word replaced in the (I think) three instances it was sung.
What was surprising to me was the number of AOR stations who just played "Who Are You" unedited. If I recall correctly, the edit of the long version of "Who Are You" wound up getting more play from Top 40 stations that were playing the long versions of hit singles (KHJ, B-100, KFRC).
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Polygram itself was part of Philips, which is a Dutch company. Philips is one of the inventors of the CD. At the time, there weren't a lot of CD manufacturing plants.
I don't listen to lyrics except in country music.
Those are two good songs. Of course the lyrics are bad, but so what?
I wish the music on "Fly, Robin, Fly" had been a little more adventurous. Yes, we've heard this. Try something new.
I recently heard a Soft AC station play Donna Summer's "Love to Love You, Baby" -- thankfully, not the album version.
You make a very interesting point. There are several older songs that AC stations play that they didn't play when they were current chart hits. Besides the Donna Summer song you referenced, I've heard Aerosmith's "Dream On,", Boston's "More Than a Feeling,", Heart's "magic Man," and others that I used to call classic rock or classic hits being played on AC outlets. My guess at the reason for this is that while people may grow into listening to AC, they still remember the harder-edged music on which they were raised. I also believe that the harder-edged music has become a great deal harder (think Metallica and Korn) than what I considered to be harder-edged music in my youth.
Gold on AC has been that way since the format's inception, though, Ted. The library has almost always been (with the exception of the "Soft Continuous Hits" era started by KOST) songs that were Top 40 hits when the target audience was in high school.
It's jarring to us to think of the three songs you cite as being on AC, but the format and the audience has evolved.
I'm sure I raised some eyebrows at the early AC stations I programmed by having British Invasion artists in the Gold file---a decade before, those were one-format (Top 40) records---but it worked.
Here's an aircheck of 630 KHOW playing The Doors' "Light My Fire" alongside Dionne Warwick, Herb Alpert, Anne Murray, etc. in June 1984:
I wish AC stations would play music like that today. Give me "24 or 6 to 4" rather than "Hard to Say I'm Sorry"!
Before it segued to Bob FM in KC, the station KCKC had a very large playlist that went outside conventional AC picks quite a bit. Last fall they even had Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun in rotation!
That's...bizarre. I don't know any other ACs that were playing "Light My Fire" (Feliciano's version yes, The Doors, no).
This is about two years after I heard KHOW and there's a marked decline in quality---the jock sounds ready for Colorado Springs, not Denver. The following book KHOW was down to 16th place.
Are AC stations today playing "Hard To Say I'm Sorry"? You want 43-year-old listeners, not 43-year-old records.
It came out around the same time as Barry White's "I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More". Dan Ingram is doing the weekly countdown, and the two songs come up back to back. Dan: "Sylvia is right under Barry White on the WABC countdown" or something similar. To this day I wonder if that wasn't done on purpose, given that they knew what Dan would do with it.
Then there was the time Dan would open his mike during the Barry White song and in the background would say something like "Hey! I can't find my socks!!"
I worked at many stations that played the Album version of "Who Are You". In fact, we played many songs that had fleeting expletives. "Money", "Jet Airliner", "What's The Frequency Kenneth", and some others. No listeners ever registered a complaint and the FCC didn't bother us...
Outside of the 7 dirty words, is there any other way to actually get an FCC fine?
Those songs I mentioned contained "Dirty Words" from that list. My understanding is that someone has to formally complain to the FCC. They take it from there and investigate if they feel it's warranted.
The infamous Entercom "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest resulted in a death and lawsuit. I can't remember if the FCC levied a fine on that Sacramento station...