I think that's exactly where a lot of the money aimed at older demos has gone. As well as the cable news networks.
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Beatles - 50th Anniversary
- Thread starter oldies76
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I think that's exactly where a lot of the money aimed at older demos has gone. As well as the cable news networks.
Feel free to show me where I said anything about "new" music.
And Obamacare.
Maybe I should revisit this. I have seen Paul live twice now. Yeah, he plays the ones that you mention, but he also plays "Let Me Roll It," "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five" (both of which were b-sides) and "Mrs. Vandebilt." None of those are well-known to non-fans, but he plays them, and the audience sings along. I have seen it for myself. Notice that NO ONE ever said that you were to IGNORE the hits, which is what you seem to suggest. Where Paul flies off the rails is when he sings a song entitled "Sing the Changes" which is nothing more than a love-fest for Obama. Obama's image is even on the screen behind him as he sings it. At least he dropped it for this last tour.
But he still does better than John, who always trotted out Yoko; and George, who always brought out his Eastern musician friends.
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rbrucecarter5
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Been giving this some thought - and it becomes really obvious that the disconnect isn't that older consumers aren't influenced by advertising, they just aren't seeing or hearing the ads because the ads are on repulsive TV shows and stations. I get those surveys from time to time asking "have you seen this ad"? And, no, I haven't. Because they choose to advertise on Survivor, the Kardashians, Two Broke Girls - or radio on a horrible hip-hop racist / incendiary against whites station, or a top-40 station full of artists like Miley and Justin with repulsive lifestyles. Of course I'm not going to see or hear those ads, because I am old enough to actually have MORALS and care about decency on the airwaves. Now, when the local Gallery Furniture advertises on a good clean family show like "Sam and Cat", I see the ad. And I've spent close to ten grand at Gallery Furniture. And when someone underwrites NGEN or Air-1, and I am aware of their business, I buy specifically because they are obviously a like minded individual. When a business advertises on Rush or Hannity, I hear the ad. We got a chicken and egg situation here - advertisers want to reach me, advertise on clean family TV shows, or on good clean radio stations. I won't lower my standards so I can see their ads. And that has nothing to do with age. It has everything to do with morality and decency. As the good book says - I made a covenant with my eyes to set no unclean thing before them. Oh, and I am not a sheep. I don't buy products I don't need. Cialis commercial on History channel? Please - I don't need some drug to help that. And if I do cross over and see an ad on something repulsive, I tend NOT to buy from the company sponsoring the ad on something objectionable. I vote with my pocketbook.
I can't help but think that it is going to be HARDER to reach the younger generation, because they aren't all in the same place at the same time. It may take more repetition of ads to reach the older generations, but advertising for the younger set might actually be offset by FEWER of them listening at any given moment. And they are a smaller generation than us to begin with. So while it might take fewer repetitions of an ad to reach an individual younger listener, you are still going to need to run more ads because fewer of them listening at any given moment. They have all that competition from all of their other musical devices, and social media and everything else competing for their attention. They might actually have a shorter attention span because of all of this!
Regardless, the jukebox died before CDs.
Don't tell me. Tell the country music songwriters who CONTINUED to write songs about jukeboxes. I know because I played many of them when I was a country music dj, as recently as the '90s. There were (and probably still are) a slew of country music songs about jukeboxes.
A
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A couple of things. Maybe TheBigA just doesn't frequent the right bars. I visit several watering holes with very elaborate jukeboxes filled with CDs. And, since they're filled with CDs, when you put your money in, you can pick ANY song on ANY CD that's loaded in the jukebox. Now, by way of one isolated example to illustrate a point, the last time I was at one of my favorite bars, Queen's "A Night at the Opera" was one of the CDs loaded. I played "Bohemian Rhapsody", and many of the folks in the place sang along. I also played '39, which was not a hit and got little airplay. Based on the amount of people singing along or at least toe-tappin', a lot of people either heard it before, or liked it even though it was a "new" song to them. Now, I could have picked several other CD albums from the /60'/70'/80's as examples. In fact, I think it would be hard to find any CD, including CD reprints of vinyl albums, from that era that didn't have several "non-hit" cuts that folks in a bar hearing songs on the jukebox wouldn't like.
And firepoint 525 is absolutely, positively, completely, and totally correct. No one is saying to not play the hits. Claiming that anyone is saying that is just creating a straw man to easily knock down. But adding one or two carefully selected "deep cuts" per hour could do a world of good in keeping audiences awake and motivated to keep their radios tuned in. The most important two words in that last sentence are "carefully selected".
And firepoint 525 is absolutely, positively, completely, and totally correct. No one is saying to not play the hits. Claiming that anyone is saying that is just creating a straw man to easily knock down. But adding one or two carefully selected "deep cuts" per hour could do a world of good in keeping audiences awake and motivated to keep their radios tuned in. The most important two words in that last sentence are "carefully selected".
The 90s was a long time ago. I did a search and the last country song about a jukebox was Jukebox Junkie by Ken Mellons exactly 20 years ago. Meanwhile, Darius Rucker's latest single is called "Radio." And it's all about listening to the RADIO. Gary Allan "Nothin' On But The Radio" was ten years ago. Big & Rich had a song called Radio in 2007. Eli Young Band had "Radio Waves" in 2009. Reba's last #1 was "Turn On Your Radio" in 2010. Want more?
Nice try. Those are country songs. Aside from the Beach Boys two years ago, when is the last time a pop artist sang about the joys of listening to the radio? I don't give a rip about country.
A
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It only takes a few minutes with a search engine for "Commercial Digital Jukeboxes" to find several different suppliers of modern, CD-based jukeboxes. An even more fun method of searching is a pub crawl to local neighborhood bars and taverns. People can argue until the cows come home about whether or not jukeboxes still exist or how common they are. It's mush simpler to just visit a few bars and taverns and see what's out there.
And all of that is beside the main point of this digression, which is that what people plunk down their money to hear played on a jukebox is a pretty good indicator of what songs that they like. And, a second indicator is to simply spend some time in an environment where there's a jukebox, and pay attention to the reaction of the patrons when specific songs are played. It's called "getting out into the world to see it with your own two eyeballs". I think people would be amazed at what you can learn by doing that. For the purposes of this thread in this forum, I'd suggest selecting bars and taverns that cater to adults who grew up during the 60'/70'/80's. Places that cater to the 20-something crowd might be fun to visit, but they aren't very good for researching this topic.
And all of that is beside the main point of this digression, which is that what people plunk down their money to hear played on a jukebox is a pretty good indicator of what songs that they like. And, a second indicator is to simply spend some time in an environment where there's a jukebox, and pay attention to the reaction of the patrons when specific songs are played. It's called "getting out into the world to see it with your own two eyeballs". I think people would be amazed at what you can learn by doing that. For the purposes of this thread in this forum, I'd suggest selecting bars and taverns that cater to adults who grew up during the 60'/70'/80's. Places that cater to the 20-something crowd might be fun to visit, but they aren't very good for researching this topic.
Not sure about that. If you've seen today's juke boxes then you know that they connect to a satellite. There's an unlimited number of songs available.
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I forgot about those. You are correct about there being a large number of satellite-connected jukeboxes with a virtually unlimited supply of songs. But, those aren't the only ones out there. There are still a large number of jukeboxes that are physically loaded with CDs, because the venue owner wants to control the entertainment in order to cater to a specific clientele. If a barkeeper wants to appeal a certain cultural demographic, he does the exact same thing that a radio station manager does. He offers what his target audience wants.
I wonder if the venue owner can program the satellite-connected jukeboxes to only certain genres of music? I shudder at the thought of the outcome if someone loaded a bunch of Village People songs onto the satellite jukebox at a hard-core biker bar.
Indeed I did. But then you said that "the jukebox is dead" and tried to tie country music to the radio. What I did was that I likened country music fans' love of the jukebox to pop fans' (historical) love of radio. But if "the jukebox is dead" as you claim, then can radio be far behind? You point out all these recent "radio" songs by country artists, evidently to point out that "the jukebox is dead." I pointed out that, with the exception of the Beach Boys, apparently no pop/rock singers/songwriters are writing or singing about radio anymore. The love affair with radio is over. And if country radio treats its listeners the way that pop/rock radio treats us, then it won't be long before country fans have the same feelings about their stations that we have about ours. The relationship between radio, and musicians and their fans, is somewhat hostile now. Songs written about radio, if written at all, take a more antagonistic view. Take for example, "The Last DJ" by Tom Petty. Great song that sums up how most of us feel about radio nowadays.
There have always been "other" ways of getting our music. In the early '80s, radio stepped aside and let MTV take over. Everyone sang "I want my MTV." Now we have songs like "1985" by Bowling for Soup that reminisce about the days when MTV was actually still relevant.
I don't frequent the bars. But I have been to places like Waffle House and the local bowling alley, and they do indeed have jukeboxes there. I still remember hearing "Sweet Home Alabama" TWICE in the same day on the jukebox at the bowling alley!
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As I recall, there was a time when the magazines that reported hit song lists included jukebox plays as a separate list. When the people who decide what get played on the air and what doesn't needed to know what was popular, jukebox plays were an important factor. After all, you only bought a .45 single once. But when you were away from home, playing it again on the jukebox indicated whether you still liked it or not.
To try to bring this back to the impact of the Beatles 50th anniversary show on radio stations that play 60'/70'/80's Classic Hits, I would think that radio station programmers who want to attract listeners would want to know what their target audience wants to here now, not what they liked three to five decades ago. Doesn't it make sense that jukebox plays in venues that cater to the same audience that a radio station is pursuing should be one of the factors taken into consideration? I'm not saying that's the only thing to look at, though if I don't say that, someone will surely accuse me of that. I think it's wrong to assume that those of us who liked the music of the 60'/70'/80's Classic Hits only like the handful of songs from that era that got a lot of radio airplay. We like those hits, and more besides. Back when I was listening to the radio in those days, I always liked it when I heard a new song that sounded good for the first time. The first time I heard Piano Man on the radio, I went out and bought the album. To this day, over half of the songs from that album are on my MP3 player.
There's another thread in this forum about songs we remember liking from the era that we don't hear on the radio any more. I think that for this format to continue to thrive, the folks picking the songs need to find more of those songs we like, and slip a few of them into the rotation. Not too many. That's another thing I don't want to be accused of. Like I said earlier, maybe one or two an hour on average. I know that would be an incentive for me to leave the radio on instead of hitting the CD button on the dashboard at the first commercial stop set.
Just because Tom Petty is bitter because he's no longer getting airplay doesn't mean people are hostile. None of that is seen in the polls about radio, nor is it seen in the ratings. Keep in mind that the relationship musicians and songwriters have with radio is a financial one. For songwriters, when their songs get played, they get money. For artists, they don't. That fact alone could have an effect on the relationship. Not that anything here has changed, because it's always been that way. But organizations like RIAA and NARAS are creating a sense of hostility with radio. And even though those organizations have campaigned for their new royalty for the past 8 years, there clearly is no public support for it, and there's been no rush to pass any new royalty in Congress.
With regards to country music, one thing you always see at any awards show, from the Grammys to the CMAs, is artists thanking country radio. So if a "love affair" still exists, it's between country music and broadcast radio. And no place was that more in evidence than at last week's Country Radio Seminar in Nashville.
I also think what you call the "love affair with radio" is misplaced. When you look at Beatlemania in 1964, the real love affair was with The Beatles, not Murray The K. He glommed onto their popularity, as did WINS, but the real affection was with the music, and the only way to get it (other than buying it) was to hear it on a radio station. Once that monopoly ended, the so-called "love affair" was over. Not because of anything radio did, but because people found other ways to get their music. Truthfully, the jukebox has the same problem. A club owner has many choices, from live music to a live DJ to various satellite accounts he can buy from Sirius. To be honest, I haven't seen as many jukeboxes as I've seen those other three choices. Maybe jukeboxes are experiencing a revival. I don't know. I haven't looked for any research on the subject. But the love affair isn't with the jukebox, but the music.
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When it comes to "bitterness," I don't think anyone can top Johnny Cash. He had a run that was much longer than anyone else from his generation (certainly longer than any of the other members of the "million dollar quartet" (although it could be argued that a couple of them shot themselves in the foot)), and yet he STILL bitched about it! Petty got AAA airplay with his song. If he expected top 40 airplay with that one, he was sadly mistaken. He has aged out of the demographic. Of course, criticizing radio won't get you airplay, either. Although what he sang about was true. Cash's gripes were just sour grapes. But Petty still gets a lot of classic rock and classic hits airplay. I could argue that, aside from the message of his song, it just wasn't really "radio-friendly" to begin with. I pointed out on another thread that live versions of some of his past hits get classic rock airplay occasionally.
I would say that country music probably runs about 10-15 years behind other formats with regards to these things. Of course, the Dixie Chicks weren't thanking country radio for "Not Ready to Make Nice," because that one was even more "in your face" than anything Petty could have ever done. But that (the Dixie Chicks) is another chapter unto itself, particularly with regard to career suicide!
Yeah, I would not expect to see a jukebox anywhere that you can hear live music. It would sort of defeat the purpose.
As for radio, they, too, glommed onto the Beatles' popularity. Even I remember WA"Beatle"C, although I believe that there were other stations that also did things like that. And I am not even old enough to remember all of that!
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