• 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

Worst music for on air talent to have to hear?

tall_guy1

tall_guy1

I am wondering what kinds of music were played due to popularity but not liked by the on air staff that had to play them. For example, disco is one example, teen pop, ballads (Whitney Houston), ect. Do some types grate on the staff more than others?
 
C'mon...someone is going to mention "Classic Hits" any moment now. :ROFLMAO:
 
I like a lot of different music styles. While my favorite is 1980's CHR and New Wave, I have also worked at stations doing Country, Classical, Beautiful Music (for about six months in 1978) and Adult Contemporary, and have held programming positions at most of those stations in addition to being on-air.

Didn't have a lot of issues with any of it. On those rare occasions when I was tired of the music, there was this wonderful invention called a potentiometer controlling the air monitor ...
 
I don't think there is any one musical format that on-air personalities dislike over others with (maybe) Christmas being the possible exception but I think there are even disc jockeys who like that format.

What I've heard (and read) from former radio personalities in the past (think the late Richard Irwin of reelradio.com fame) is that disc jockeys get tired of playing the same songs over and over again once every hour or two. While many top-40 listeners loved it, the jocks grew to very much dislike the songs. Two specific songs that I know that Richard Irwin specifically cited were "Hey Jude," by The Beatles and "Sweet Surrender," by Bread. Usually with time and nonplay, these songs do become more acceptable for the former deejays who played them and so the situation about personal favorites remains a rather fluid one.
 
ted chittenden said:
I don't think there is any one musical format that on-air personalities dislike over others with (maybe) Christmas being the possible exception but I think there are even disc jockeys who like that format.

What I've heard (and read) from former radio personalities in the past (think the late Richard Irwin of reelradio.com fame) is that disc jockeys get tired of playing the same songs over and over again once every hour or two. While many top-40 listeners loved it, the jocks grew to very much dislike the songs. Two specific songs that I know that Richard Irwin specifically cited were "Hey Jude," by The Beatles and "Sweet Surrender," by Bread. Usually with time and nonplay, these songs do become more acceptable for the former deejays who played them and so the situation about personal favorites remains a rather fluid one.
Click to expand...
I remember specifically Nickelback being especially disliked on some corners of the internet when they were popular...not sure if DJs disliked them, but they seem to have a better reputation these days. I never thought they were awful, but some disagreed.
 
ted chittenden said:
What I've heard (and read) from former radio personalities in the past (think the late Richard Irwin of reelradio.com fame) is that disc jockeys get tired of playing the same songs over and over again once every hour or two. While many top-40 listeners loved it, the jocks grew to very much dislike the songs.
Click to expand...
But if a jock wanted a job in Top 40 they had to know that part of that was playing the same songs many times, often repeating some in the same shift.

Remember, up until very recently, Top 40 jocks had lots of other things to do as well. Meter readings, commercial logs to follow, carts to pull and put away, running contests, taking listener calls, pulling weather off the wire or checking it online, having the PD or GM pop in and so on.

They don't just sit there listening to the songs.

I recall being in the Y-100 studio in Miami (Hollywood to be exact) and watching Don Cox "Cox on the Radio" take a winner call in a contest, record his interaction and then edit manually the recording to run after a song. It took about two songs' worth of time to do it, with a pause to talk between songs. He was not paying any attention to the music itself except to watch the countdown clock above the board.
 
Mark Roberts said:
Actually, the best reporter I had covering a religion beat (among other beats) was a professed atheist.
Click to expand...
The best recovery after dead air happened at a station I was working at in New Mexico. The afternoon host for our AM station (which played Christian music during that time slot) was at the front desk chatting with the receptionist, and the song on air started to fade. He was not a "godly" person by any stretch of the imagination, and took off running down the hall cursing like a sailor. The song faded out completely...we heard the studio door slam...the mic cracked open:, and in a peaceful sounding voice announced:

"That was a moment of silence...for prayer. And now, here's Phil Keaggy."

The worst song I ever had to play on air was "The Christmas Shoes." A combination Christian/Christmas song, and pure schlock.. Everyone on the air staff hated it, but the PD made us play every year around the holidays. He left for another gig, and the MD did us all a favor, deleting it from all the station's hard drives and even throwing out any physical copies. That year was a good Christmas.

Then we got a new PD, and around the holidays he said "what do you MEAN you're not Playing the Christmas Shoes???" and promptly put it back into rotation.
 
There was much to do in the records and carts days (until 1987 at KTAW in College Station, TX). You had a number of promos and contests, psa and weather to do hourly, all over song intros or within 5 seconds going into stopsets. Lots of thought went in to editing promos to fit song intro times. Geting caller 9 legitimately, getting them coached if needed, then recorded and edited for playback the next song (reel to reel) figured in each hour. Listening to the songs wasn't much of an option but you did know every song by heart. Plus, my program director wanted us to talk up everything in a different and exciting way every hour and not repeat yourself all week (I did...by Thursday my brain was fried). Add in grabbing coffee, going to the bathroom and such, it was an intense part of the day. In fact, I could almost get through a pack of cigarettes in a shift and likely smoke about 4 of those if you combine puffs. Between a jock at the country station and the newsperson and myself, we could polish off a pot of coffee every 30 minutes.
 
b-turner said:
In fact, I could almost get through a pack of cigarettes in a shift and likely smoke about 4 of those if you combine puffs. Between a jock at the country station and the newsperson and myself, we could polish off a pot of coffee every 30 minutes.
Click to expand...
:oops:

No wonder your brain was fried by Thursday!
 
I met Sam Van Zandt (docent at the CHRS museum in Alameda), and he was lamenting the fact that DJing is, in his opinion, no longer any fun because pretty much all they do nowadays is sit and click around on a computer screen.

But then, much of his career was in the record and cart days. Like anything, it gets romanticized (as in practically every other profession, computers have made DJing much easier to do and they are much more cost effective to implement), but it does seem like it was genuinely more fun in the analog days when everything was going smoothly.

But I wasn't there, so I don't know and I could be totally wrong.

c
 
cc333 said:
I met Sam Van Zandt (docent at the CHRS museum in Alameda), and he was lamenting the fact that DJing is, in his opinion, no longer any fun because pretty much all they do nowadays is sit and click around on a computer screen.

But then, much of his career was in the record and cart days. Like anything, it gets romanticized (as in practically every other profession, computers have made DJing much easier to do and they are much more cost effective to implement), but it does seem like it was genuinely more fun in the analog days when everything was going smoothly.
Click to expand...
I've worked with both and vastly prefer digital. It's so much faster.
 
cc333 said:
I met Sam Van Zandt (docent at the CHRS museum in Alameda), and he was lamenting the fact that DJing is, in his opinion, no longer any fun because pretty much all they do nowadays is sit and click around on a computer screen.

But then, much of his career was in the record and cart days. Like anything, it gets romanticized (as in practically every other profession, computers have made DJing much easier to do and they are much more cost effective to implement), but it does seem like it was genuinely more fun in the analog days when everything was going smoothly.

But I wasn't there, so I don't know and I could be totally wrong.

c
Click to expand...
I still do a program with 45s. I occasionally use carts, too. Tons of jingles (and not enough carts, one of the big reasons I don't use them much right now), fast platter patter. I take listener requests, though I don't put them on-air. It's non-stop and a ton of fun! There's nothing like slip-cueing a 45 like "Born To Be Wild," letting 'er rip right out of a jingle and "Let's GO!" shout, talking it up and hitting the post... one of the best feelings in the world!
 


Back
Top Bottom