> > Spoken like someone who doesn't know diddly about music.
> Any
> > musician will tell you that how well any song goes over
> when
> > you play it for an audience is what mood the audience is
> in.
> > When you're performing music for an audience, and you play
> a
> > song that puts them into a particular mood, then how much
> > they will like or dislike the next song is extremely
> > dependent on how they reacted to the previous song.
> >
> > Musicians understand that even when they play song after
> > song at a club date or concert, all of the songs flow
> > together into a unified performance. Musicians understand
> > the concept of the medley, and how important it is to not
> > only play the songs well, it's also important to sequence
> > them properly.
> >
>
> Ohhhhhh..... so that's why, when I go to several concerts
> in several locations by the same band, they always play the
> same songs in the exact same order????
No, the bands play the songs in a carefully selected order because they know, based on their experience and expertise, what sequence of their songs will work best at moving and inspiring their audiences. The reaction from the audiences confirms their good judgement in ordering the songs in the sequence they have chosen.
But the way that a band reaches the point where they are doing a big concert in a different city every night is by starting out playing small, local clubs. Sometimes the bands are together through the whole process, sometimes the members each started out in different bands before coming together. But in any case, they learn how songs will affect audiences so that by the time they've reached a certain level on the professional ladder, they have acquired the sufficient understanding of how audiences will react to be able to put their songs in the best possible sequence.
> The way you write it, every time a band performs, they
> decide what they play on the spur of the moment, based on
> the mood of the audience. As someone who has attended
> concerts by many bands in many different genres up and down
> the eastern part of the US, I can tell you that is not the
> case. Most bands have ONE playlist and every show follows
> that exact same playlist. In many cases, these playlists
> aren't just the same from city to city; they are the same
> from city to city from year to year. Granted, these
> playlists are very well thought-out, and the songs do flow
> well, and I do agree with you on that point, but to suggest
> that a band adapt their playlist for the mood of every
> single audience they play for is a bit asinine.
>
> I've read so many remarks on here about how Bob sounds like
> someone loaded up their I-Pod or CD player and just hit
> "shuffle". Well, usually, that is what the average music
> listener does. The average joe with a 1000 song MP3 player
> is not going to program it to play those 1000 songs in a
> particular order because they "flow" better that way. No.
> He's going to hit "shuffle" and if he perhaps is not in the
> mood for the next song that comes up, he'll hit "shuffle"
> again until the next song comes up that he's not in the mood
> to hear.
>
> That is how Bob works.... Most people like music from
> several different genres. Myself, as an example, I like
> country most, followed very closely by southern rock and
> classic rock. But I also like oldies, some dance music,
> some AC, and even some rap, reggae, classical, and jazz
> thrown in, too.... Granted, Bob doesn't have quite THAT
> wide of a playlist, but this format plays songs that appeal
> to a wide variety of musical tastes. We in the radio
> business may think that 2 particular songs should never,
> under absolutely any circumstances segue. We even have very
> good reasons for that. The average listener isn't really
> going to care which song follows which -- to them, it's just
> like hitting "shuffle" on their I-Pod. It has nothing at
> all to do with whether a listener knows diddly or jack
> (sorry for the bad pun)about music at all. All they care is
> that they like the song that is currently playing and they
> like the song that comes next. If they don't, that little
> button that changes the station is not very far out of
> reach.
If you like different musical genres, fine. Great. More power to you. That's why it was good to have multiple stations on the air, each playing a different musical genre, and then you could pick what genre you wanted by using your station selector buttons.
As for the "average" musical listener, it strikes me that every self-styled expert in radio has a different idea of what the "average" listener wants. It pretty much boils down to a few different ideas of what the "average" listener wants, with everyone else who works in radio jumping onto whatever bandwagon happens to be trendy at the moment.
The reason that so many stations stuck to a distinct genre of music was that some radio programming expert with credentials out the wazoo said that too much of a hodge-podge of sound would chase away listeners. When I would call for more deep cuts from well-liked artists as a way to increase listenership, the response was "If you play a song that they aren't familiar with, they'll hit the station button". Yet those same people say "people don't listen that closely, and won't notice a train-wreck segue."
So what is it? Do they listen closely or don't they? If playing a cut from Springsteen's "Born to Run" album that wasn't a hit back in the 70's will chase away Springsteen fans, why would playing some minor hit by Chaka Khan not do the same thing?
If one set of radio experts who know what the average listener wants to hear says that playing the wrong sequence of songs will chase the listeners away, and another set of radio experts who also know what the average listener wants to hear says the exact opposite, and both sets of experts have credentials out the wazoo, then which one should anyone listen to?
