Okay, look---music is subjective, and maybe I'm being harsh. But "Baby Sittin' Boogie" peaked at #6, so....c'mon.
-
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
Song you wondered how they they ever got played on Top 40 radio
- Thread starter secondchoice
- Start date
Okay, look---music is subjective, and maybe I'm being harsh. But "Baby Sittin' Boogie" peaked at #6, so....c'mon.
So, the same can be said about 1975? When C W. McCall's 'Convoy' hit #1 on the Billboard 100.
To be fair, there were many head scratching songs that became hits to the amazement of many...Moon Zappa 'Valley Girl', and 'The Safety Dance' anyone...
Yeah, and a lot of people really thought Top 40 sucked in 1975, too. "Feelings". "Have You Never Been Mellow." "Love Will Keep Us Together".
Your mileage may vary (everyone's does), but both of those years fall squarely into the "doldrums" phase of Guy Zapoleon's Music Cycle theory :
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Novelty songs often peaked in the top 5. That's the nature of record buyers.
But it doesn't mean the overall music for a given time period can be judged entirely on those. As Mike said, you have to look at the mainstream hits.
And, while Kat may not like it, "The Safety Dance" was still in the top 250 of Classic Hits songs from the 80s last week, per my Mediabase airplay monitors.
But it doesn't mean the overall music for a given time period can be judged entirely on those. As Mike said, you have to look at the mainstream hits.
And, while Kat may not like it, "The Safety Dance" was still in the top 250 of Classic Hits songs from the 80s last week, per my Mediabase airplay monitors.
And what were people thinking in 1977, when Debby Boone had a massive hit with 'You Light Up My Life' 😲 I don't even hear that one on the Oldies or Standards stations nowadays.
So is this song still considered the pinnacle of songs that were huge hits that sucked? My apologies in advance to any fans of this song.
So is this song still considered the pinnacle of songs that were huge hits that sucked? My apologies in advance to any fans of this song.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Speaking only for myself, yes. I cannot think of any song I want less to hear on the radio.
Do you play 'The Safety Dance' in regular rotation, or please, please tell me that it is one your Forgotten 45's (should be permanently forgotten in my opinion).
There were (back in the day---I make no pretense of knowing what works today) four kinds of sure-fire hits (with the understanding that the charts are a weird thing and "sure-fire hit" is a hypothetical):
1. Novelty songs.
2. Songs you can dance to.
3. Songs about sex.
4. Songs about universal emotions (love, loss, sorrow, joy).
Yeah, "You Light Up My Life" as a record was dreadful. It was worse on your radio every hour and 40 minutes for three months straight.
But honestly, if no one else was listening, wouldn't you love to be so in love as to tell someone:
So many nights I'd sit by my window
Waiting for someone to sing me his song
So many dreams I kept deep inside me
Alone in the dark but now you've come along
And you light up my life
You give me hope to carry on
You light up my days and fill my nights with song
Rollin' at sea, adrift on the water
Could it be finally I'm turnin' for home?
Finally a chance to say, "Hey, I love you"
Never again to be all alone
....or to have someone say that to you and mean it?
I mean, damn.
A lot of it is the messenger. It hits different if it's Debby Boone than it would if it were Linda Ronstadt or Stevie Nicks in a booth in the dark in the corner in the back, but still.
Last edited:
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Regular rotation in the New Wave accent category. Ranks #20 out of 60 songs in that rotation.
YIKES!
See #2 above---songs you can dance to.
Plus the 80s vibe just syncs up with that, "She Blinded Me With Science" (a dance song, novelty song and sex song rolled into one) and a few other techno/wacko things.
What would KROQ have been without them?
I
The 70's were also ripe with hit novelty songs. Remember Dickie Goodman and Ray Stevens? MOR formatted KOY was obsessed with playing those songs, 'Mr. Jaws', 'Watergate', 'The Streak', and others.
I agree about the New Wave connection in the 80's with songs like these The whole style of the music (and KROQ) screamed quirky, offbeat, and outrageous.
The 70's were also ripe with hit novelty songs. Remember Dickie Goodman and Ray Stevens? MOR formatted KOY was obsessed with playing those songs, 'Mr. Jaws', 'Watergate', 'The Streak', and others.
Last edited:
That fourth category in general and "You Light up My Life," in particular remind me of an interview I once heard with a music professor who noted that a song's lyrics often express the things we wish to say but can't for whatever reason.
As for "You Light up My Life,", I have the song on three different various artists CD collections (no, I didn't purchase those collections for that song) and I have a copy of the original 45 (from a pile of 45s given to me by a now-deceased friend). I like the song, though not necessarily some of the behaviors its composer reportedly engaged in. It was, in fact, the last song with a waltz beat (you can count out the 3,3 rhythm on it) to reach #1. (The last song to reach the top 40 with a waltz beat would come just two years later with Kermit the Frog's [Jim Henson's] "Rainbow Connection.")
Rich Appel had a blog 15-ish years ago called "Hz So Good" and he asked readers to submit their opinions on best radio stations of given eras.
What I said about KROQ is that KHJ became number one by playing the biggest hits by the biggest artists of the era. KROQ did it by playing songs you'd never heard of by bands you'd never heard of and making them hits.
Goodman went all the way back to the 1950s. This was the first, in 1956:
Seth Meyers actually is adapting the concept for a bit that he does every few weeks:
Ray has always bugged me. The whole laughing at his own jokes thing.
That said, this was brilliant. I kept waiting for him to blow it and the "thousand violins begin to play" was where I figured it would happen, but instead, it's just marvelous:
Thankfully, KMPC and KFI avoided those like the plague.
Well, it appears you did.
And "Rainbow Connection" is another one of those emotion records.
Huh? Those are good songs.
Not surprised. The summer collegiate league team here, the Upper Valley Nighthawks, uses "Safety Dance" as its seventh-inning stretch music. I still prefer "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," but so long as it isn't "God Bless America," I'm happy. Nobody feels obligated to put their hats over their hearts for "Safety Dance"!
Well, I liked it.
Okay, I don't pay attention to lyrics.
How about LeAnn Rimes?
I actually like this one for some reason.