A new format -- "Neo-Oldies"

[Talk_Dude]

And you'd still never hear any Ramones or Cramps unless lucky enough to in an area with a colege station.
(Maybe not even then) :-[

I would still hear the Ramones. Did you not read "If it gets too out of hand, I pop in a CD or connect my MP3 player to AUX"? I wouldn't hear the Cramps, which would be fine by me.

Of course, there's probably more really great rock music out there that I could load onto a CD or my MP3 Player that aren't played on the radio than ever gets played.

KenrayC mentioned, "Psychedelic Firs, Def Leppard, Van Halen, Duran Duran, Dio, Metallica, The Cure, Ultravox, Journey, Men Without Hats, Bon Jovi, Robert Palmer, The Scorpions, The Clash, Roxy Music, Warrant, The Waterboys, Ratt, A Flock of Seagulls, The Dream Academy, The Cars, The Cure, U2, Motley Crue, Blondie, Men At Work, Dokken, Whitesnake, Depeche Mode, OMD, The Pet Shop Boys, G N' R, Ozzy, and Porno For Pyros", but he didn't mention the fact that no radio station plays more than a pathetic little sampling of all the songs those bands recorded.

Take the Dream Academy. These are the songs they recorded and released on their three albums:

(Johnny) New Light
Ballad In 4/4
Bound to Be
Doubleminded
Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime
Forest Fire
Gaby Says
Hampstead Girl
Here
Humdrum
In Exile (For Rodrigo Rojas)
In Places on the Run
In The Hands Of Love
Indian Summer
It'll Never Happen Again
Life in a Northern Town
Love
Lowlands
Lucy September
Mercy Killing
Moving On
Not For Second Prize
One Dream
Power To Believe
St. Valentine's Day
The Edge of Forever
The Lesson Of Love
The Love Parade
The Party
This World
Twelve-eight Angel
Waterloo

That's 32 songs!

What gets played on the Radio? "Life in a Northern Town". That's it. Kenrayc says he likes "Dream Academy", but all they play on the radio is one of their songs. Only 1/32nd of their entire catalog gets airplay.

So, some suit decided that "research" says that's the only song that audiences want to hear. That's based on playing :20 seconds of the opening of the one song that they play to a bunch of clowns in an auditorium.

Frankly, anyone who complies lists of bands to illustrate the kind of radio format they want without also naming songs deserves the kind of tight playlist crap played currently on the air on every station.

 

[kenrayc]

And you'd still never hear any Ramones or Cramps unless lucky enough to in an area with a colege station.
(Maybe not even then) :-[

I would still hear the Ramones. Did you not read "If it gets too out of hand, I pop in a CD or connect my MP3 player to AUX"? I wouldn't hear the Cramps, which would be fine by me.

Of course, there's probably more really great rock music out there that I could load onto a CD or my MP3 Player that aren't played on the radio than ever gets played.

KenrayC mentioned, "Psychedelic Firs, Def Leppard, Van Halen, Duran Duran, Dio, Metallica, The Cure, Ultravox, Journey, Men Without Hats, Bon Jovi, Robert Palmer, The Scorpions, The Clash, Roxy Music, Warrant, The Waterboys, Ratt, A Flock of Seagulls, The Dream Academy, The Cars, The Cure, U2, Motley Crue, Blondie, Men At Work, Dokken, Whitesnake, Depeche Mode, OMD, The Pet Shop Boys, G N' R, Ozzy, and Porno For Pyros", but he didn't mention the fact that no radio station plays more than a pathetic little sampling of all the songs those bands recorded.

Take the Dream Academy. These are the songs they recorded and released on their three albums:

(Johnny) New Light
Ballad In 4/4
Bound to Be
Doubleminded
Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime
Forest Fire
Gaby Says
Hampstead Girl
Here
Humdrum
In Exile (For Rodrigo Rojas)
In Places on the Run
In The Hands Of Love
Indian Summer
It'll Never Happen Again
Life in a Northern Town
Love
Lowlands
Lucy September
Mercy Killing
Moving On
Not For Second Prize
One Dream
Power To Believe
St. Valentine's Day
The Edge of Forever
The Lesson Of Love
The Love Parade
The Party
This World
Twelve-eight Angel
Waterloo

That's 32 songs!

What gets played on the Radio? "Life in a Northern Town". That's it. Kenrayc says he likes "Dream Academy", but all they play on the radio is one of their songs. Only 1/32nd of their entire catalog gets airplay.

So, some suit decided that "research" says that's the only song that audiences want to hear. That's based on playing :20 seconds of the opening of the one song that they play to a bunch of clowns in an auditorium.

Frankly, anyone who complies lists of bands to illustrate the kind of radio format they want without also naming songs deserves the kind of tight playlist crap played currently on the air on every station.

Talk_Dude you started this thread Neo-oldies, I didn't list individuals songs but a format that would be more AOR from the 80s is what I'm talking about, I will add Frank Zappa, The Tubes (White Punks On Dope) and (Amnesia), New England (don't Ever Wanna Lose You), actual in my Market switching pre-set isn't going to get half the music or Groups I mention, The Alterative are 90s and beyoyd and the classic rock stations play there same limited 300 song formats. Take Roxy Music none is played and they had Love is The Drug ,Dance With Me, Avalon, More than this and many more, and any Neil/Bob/ Jack/Steve/ or dave would not play anay of those songs. I'm saying Classic AOR with the Classic Alternative. BTW we do have a JACK-FM but it went News-Talk, and now has the worse ratings ever.

 

[Talk_Dude]

Talk_Dude you started this thread Neo-oldies, I didn't list individuals songs but a format that would be more AOR from the 80s is what I'm talking about, I will add Frank Zappa, The Tubes (White Punks On Dope) and (Amnesia), New England (don't Ever Wanna Lose You), actual in my Market switching pre-set isn't going to get half the music or Groups I mention, The Alterative are 90s and beyoyd and the classic rock stations play there same limited 300 song formats. Take Roxy Music none is played and they had Love is The Drug ,Dance With Me, Avalon, More than this and many more, and any Neil/Bob/ Jack/Steve/ or dave would not play anay of those songs. I'm saying Classic AOR with the Classic Alternative. BTW we do have a JACK-FM but it went News-Talk, and now has the worse ratings ever.

Yes, I started it. It is about the presentation of songs, it wasn't about the songs themselves.

I get the impression that you've bought into the line of BS that the suits running radio have convinced people is written in stone that there are only a limited number of "formats" possible, and that every radio station in the country needs to slavishly follow one of them. It's as if the Format Police were going to arrest the personnel at any station that simply played the music that the people in the range of their antenna wanted to hear. What a radical concept!

All of the pigeonholes that the suits created, including "Classic AOR" or "Classic Alternative", are totally bogus, arbitrary creations that have next to nothing to do with music. Some radio geek who couldn't even tune a guitar, let alone play one, and who is probably tone deaf, sits in an office somewhere and decides "we'll play this song, but not that song", and everyone goes along with him. Or some guy who lost his high school girlfriend to the lead singer of the local garage band vows to "get even", and refuses to program any songs that sound like the band the singer who took his girl played in.

The #1 thing that's killing terrestrial radio is tight, restricted playlist formats. I started this thread as a suggestion of how to sugar coat the crap with a different presentation to make it go down a little easier. It really doesn't matter what five or six songs got played to death in my proposed "Neo-Oldies" format. My idea is to elevate the crap that surrounds the crap to a higher level of importance. I know for a fact that if a station tried my idea, it wouldn't make the station better. But it might make the station more popular with certain niche audiences.

Remember, the goal of the radio suit is not to achieve quality. Their goal is packaging crap into the most appealing pile possible.

 

[Tom Wells]

Bravo, Talk dude, a very articulate argument. (Even if you don't like the The Cramps.)

 

[kenrayc]

Talk Dude I do agree with your point and have from the start, why do think I started listing group and songs nobody plays,especially those Classic hits and Classic Rock stations that think the listener only likes the same old 300 songs played over and over and over again.

 

[Radio_bored-Op]

*IF* you are reeely going to make this work
give away PEPSI throwback - reRun vintage
car ads (on aire) for the :15sweepers in between
songs, (without a station ID) . . .furthermore,
go "all in" with audio highlights from that
year (198#)in headlines, and give a time
capsule of sports scores, tv-lineups (that would
aire)this date, back then - and continue
to mold the station into a "live" rewind
for the listeners.

 

[Time Traveler]

10 years or so ago...There were a number of "All 80s stations" that signed on trying to accomplish something like this. Most didn't last very long...

 

[Radio_bored-Op]

most didnt do it right -
like the BUZZ in rochester, at the
start ( did quirky things) like
dj's: qBert, donkey kong, lol....
-it was "nice" and better than jockless
but thats too silly (even for me lol

 

[Tom Wells]

*IF* you are reeely going to make this work
give away PEPSI throwback - reRun vintage
car ads (on aire) for the :15sweepers in between
songs, (without a station ID) . . .furthermore,
go "all in" with audio highlights from that
year (198#)in headlines, and give a time
capsule of sports scores, tv-lineups (that would
aire)this date, back then - and continue
to mold the station into a "live" rewind
for the listeners.

That will only work for a few years because it is still too confining, unless many of the "deep tracks"
heard on such a day find their way into the general playlist as well.
The capsules and highlights will become tiresome unless continuous work goes into them to keep them fresh.
Fifteen second elements are good but sweepers are just plain wrong for this format.
Ideally each element needs to be >< this close to the heels of the preceding element to keep momentum up.

Something like a "year in focus" needs to be a weekend event, with even deeper and more indulgent digging.

 

[Radio_bored-Op]

def keep them FRESH _ the same problem
with a format change when u dont update,
u lose some steam, or on your 5th year milestone,
you are still the "all new"

yes, kick it off with a weekend *THEN*
tell Your LISTENERS -
(w/voice over work YOUR station creates : ) and
says:
(caller #1), "loved the throw back weekend..."
caller #2: "...wow, i was totally into where i was
ten years ago" /etc, etc, sell it AS WORKING then,
air the time capsule "broadcast" for the summer, then
see how it Reeeely goes - lol-
-
*BUT* before the flip/or starting this time capsule
"stunt" have three or four "weeks" created and
then just stay on top of it
(just like tv.tapings: Produced/created, about a month
or so in advance) unless its a live TV special..lol
soo keep it fresh, (its not thaaat hard ) if u already
have three,or four in the can - u also will get
a perspective of how its flying!

 

[kenrayc]

Best chance for this format today is JACK /BOB and what ever, We had Jack in Fresno, went away, now either it's 90 and beyond(KWHY claims to be 80s, 90s and NOW) NOT!!!, or the Alice the Clearchannel station that uses national feeds,Ryan Seacreast and so on, at least the 80 rock hair bands are covered but no NEW WAVE 80s.