-
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
"Blurred Lines" on AC
- Thread starter satech
- Start date
Yeah I'm wondering how the target demo is gonna take to this. Perhaps it will be the same as "Pumped up Kicks", where people liked the beat and catchy chorus and didn't know (or care) what it was about.
Blurred Lines is NOT about rape, any more than many pop songs where the guy clearly wants sex but he's enticing the woman to participate.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto..._cocky_yes_but_rapey_and_misogynistic_no.html
There's nothing in Blurred Lines to suggest the guy plans to do something the woman doesn't want to do. As far as Blurred Lines being on AC, hey, AC is no longer soft. It's the Top 40 minus the really hard edged songs, plus a Gold list that goes back to the 80s. It leans softer than other stations but it includes plenty of uptempo songs that test well with middle aged women.
And that's what Blurred Lines is. It's the top song of the summer. So just as AC has been playing the top songs, even if they're uptempo, like La Vida Loca and Sexy Back, so it plays Blurred Lines.
I understand every generation deciding for itself what AC music is, going from Sinatra to Johnny Mathis to Elvis to The Carpenters to Gloria Estefan to Celine Dion. But what I don't understand is a generation that has absolutely no interest in Soft Music of any sort, not Classical, not Easy, not Smooth Jazz, not Soft AC, nothing. We've arrived at a generation that wants no relaxing or soft music of any sort. Someone will have to explain this to me.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto..._cocky_yes_but_rapey_and_misogynistic_no.html
There's nothing in Blurred Lines to suggest the guy plans to do something the woman doesn't want to do. As far as Blurred Lines being on AC, hey, AC is no longer soft. It's the Top 40 minus the really hard edged songs, plus a Gold list that goes back to the 80s. It leans softer than other stations but it includes plenty of uptempo songs that test well with middle aged women.
And that's what Blurred Lines is. It's the top song of the summer. So just as AC has been playing the top songs, even if they're uptempo, like La Vida Loca and Sexy Back, so it plays Blurred Lines.
I understand every generation deciding for itself what AC music is, going from Sinatra to Johnny Mathis to Elvis to The Carpenters to Gloria Estefan to Celine Dion. But what I don't understand is a generation that has absolutely no interest in Soft Music of any sort, not Classical, not Easy, not Smooth Jazz, not Soft AC, nothing. We've arrived at a generation that wants no relaxing or soft music of any sort. Someone will have to explain this to me.
Someone did, Michael Hagerty: "Semoochie: The dead center of the target is women born in 1974. They graduated high school in 1992, and college in 1996. Apart from R&B ballads, they weren't raised on mellow. It was mostly about rhythm.
The whole "easy/relaxing" thing was largely 50+ in its appeal anyway, except in the early-mid 80s when "Continuous Soft Hits" was new and got women around 40.
But that was 30 years ago. Those women are 70 now."
The whole "easy/relaxing" thing was largely 50+ in its appeal anyway, except in the early-mid 80s when "Continuous Soft Hits" was new and got women around 40.
But that was 30 years ago. Those women are 70 now."
I guess you may not have read my whole post. The people who liked Smooth Jazz, Easy Listening, Soft AC, they were all raised on Elvis and The Four Seasons and Motown. They grew into softer music over time. They didn't start listening to the 1001 Strings version of Beatles and Supremes songs, they liked the original versions first. As they got older, they sought out music that wouldn't drown out dinner conversation. Or distracted them from reading or doing a report for work, or sipping wine in front of a fireplace.
Easy Listening, Smooth Jazz and Soft AC all came AFTER the beginning of the Rock era. Maybe some of Easy Listening's audience came of age before Rock Around The Clock. But many came after. And certainly those who listened to Smooth Jazz and Soft AC came after.
Easy Listening, Smooth Jazz and Soft AC all came AFTER the beginning of the Rock era. Maybe some of Easy Listening's audience came of age before Rock Around The Clock. But many came after. And certainly those who listened to Smooth Jazz and Soft AC came after.
Some smooth jazz people were born AFTER Elvis, Motown and all the Beatles/Rolling Stones stuff. There are actually new smooth jazz artists who are really good. One young man named Vincent Ingala is now a smooth jazz artist - he's about 20 years old. I wouldn't be surprised if he listened to NAC/Smooth Jazz back in his childhood, when there were still dozens of them around (now there's about four...)
-crainbebo
-crainbebo
Part Two: quote author=michael hagerty link=topic=237720.msg2145218#msg2145218 date=1374328408]
Well, there's a reason for that, too. Ballads were a carry-over from the pre-rock era. Early rock acts followed, Elvis giving us both "Hound Dog" and "Love Me Tender", on through the Beatles, Stones and even Led Zeppelin.
And we had the singer-songwriter explosion post-Beatles (James Taylor, Paul Simon solo, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne)...which dominated two-thirds of the 70s, and for a lot of people seemed like a seamless transition to "Continuous Soft Hits".
But if you look at what was happening with emerging genres...there weren't many disco ballads (had to keep the BPMs up), nor (apart from Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson) many New Wave ballads or hip-hop ballads (R&B slow jams would be the closest).
So for today's 39-and-a-half year old, whose peak musical awareness coincides with the rise of rhythmic CHR, it makes sense.
[/quote]
semoochie said:
Well, there's a reason for that, too. Ballads were a carry-over from the pre-rock era. Early rock acts followed, Elvis giving us both "Hound Dog" and "Love Me Tender", on through the Beatles, Stones and even Led Zeppelin.
And we had the singer-songwriter explosion post-Beatles (James Taylor, Paul Simon solo, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne)...which dominated two-thirds of the 70s, and for a lot of people seemed like a seamless transition to "Continuous Soft Hits".
But if you look at what was happening with emerging genres...there weren't many disco ballads (had to keep the BPMs up), nor (apart from Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson) many New Wave ballads or hip-hop ballads (R&B slow jams would be the closest).
So for today's 39-and-a-half year old, whose peak musical awareness coincides with the rise of rhythmic CHR, it makes sense.
[/quote]
New Wave artist Howard Jones had a huge hit (probably the biggest of his career) with the ballad "No One Is To Blame".semoochie said:
Ballads were always a bit part of pop music through the '80s and '90s, but there was definitely a gap in recent years. Adele's "Someone Like You" was the first ballad to be a #1 hit in over 3 years.
Then WLTW needs to throw the name in the Hudson.Gregg said:
Well, Lite-FM did try to change its name about 15 years ago to "New York's 106.7." If you use that as a web address (minus the apostrophe and decimal point), it takes you to WLTW's web address to this day. But they realized "Lite-FM" was so closely associated with the station that it made no sense to scrap it, even if much of the music isn't really light anymore.
So today, like many stations that had been using terms like Lite, Easy Rock, Soft Rock, Magic, etc., they've kept the name even though they no longer refer to the music as being light, easy or soft.
So today, like many stations that had been using terms like Lite, Easy Rock, Soft Rock, Magic, etc., they've kept the name even though they no longer refer to the music as being light, easy or soft.
Where I live at least Clear Channel canned the so-called Lite station. It now plays "anything". That includes "Back in Black".
70 million women (and counting) have bought the novel "Fifty Shades of Grey".
How can anyone be surprised that this record is a hit with 30-something women? To them, it's the best record Prince never made.
And Gregg, it's a generational thing. These are the folks keeping Red Bull and Monster in business. They believe that if their eyes are open, they've gotta be up.
It'll be interesting to see where they are at 50 and 60, but given that guys that age today are still turning up "Highway To Hell" when it comes on the radio, I doubt it'll be much of a change.
How can anyone be surprised that this record is a hit with 30-something women? To them, it's the best record Prince never made.
And Gregg, it's a generational thing. These are the folks keeping Red Bull and Monster in business. They believe that if their eyes are open, they've gotta be up.
It'll be interesting to see where they are at 50 and 60, but given that guys that age today are still turning up "Highway To Hell" when it comes on the radio, I doubt it'll be much of a change.
It's also worth remembering that when Jhani Kaye pioneered what we came to think of as AC with his "Continuous Soft Hits" approach at KOST in Los Angeles in 1982, the 39 and a half year old target female was born in 1943.
She went to high school from 1957 to 1961, college (if she attended) from 1961 to 1965, and very likely tuned out of a lot of the rock that came in the later part of the 60s. Odds are she wasn't much of a rocker to begin with, and didn't need to slow down as she aged so much as she wanted to find something relatively contemporary yet easy. And Jhani nailed it early on in a trade interview, where he said the key to the music was emotion. These were almost all love songs. An audio romance novel for (slightly) pre-Boomer women.
It worked so well so long that a lot of people came to define AC as soft. But it wasn't before Jhani (listen to airchecks of WNBC, WGAR and KFMB from the 70s), and it appears it won't be for the foreseeable future.
AC is whatever women in their 30s want to hear.
She went to high school from 1957 to 1961, college (if she attended) from 1961 to 1965, and very likely tuned out of a lot of the rock that came in the later part of the 60s. Odds are she wasn't much of a rocker to begin with, and didn't need to slow down as she aged so much as she wanted to find something relatively contemporary yet easy. And Jhani nailed it early on in a trade interview, where he said the key to the music was emotion. These were almost all love songs. An audio romance novel for (slightly) pre-Boomer women.
It worked so well so long that a lot of people came to define AC as soft. But it wasn't before Jhani (listen to airchecks of WNBC, WGAR and KFMB from the 70s), and it appears it won't be for the foreseeable future.
AC is whatever women in their 30s want to hear.
Even though AC is evolving, I wasn't sure if I'd hear Blurred Lines, especially with T.I.'s rap, in which my AC plays.
What name is that? The one they haven't used in awhile?
- Status