A sampling (again, for consistency, from the same issue of R&R in February, 1975) of what individual FM rock stations were playing:
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Carly Simon is classic rock?
- Thread starter vchimpanzee
- Start date
Kelly, the winner was Semoochie and about ten other people on pages one and two. Getting someone to agree with you on page 11 doesn't cut it, especially in the face of facts.
The tapes exist and are listenable with the click of a mouse. A nearly complete archive of Radio & Records (thank you, David!) is online and viewable.
Carly Simon was a legitimate artist on FM rock radio through at least 1975. I'm gonna guess "Nobody Does It Better" was the point of no return.
Sounded very interesting, thanks! I'll look through most those and the "lettheuniverseanswer" links.
I could look it up I guess, but since I'm on a radio board, what are a few examples of progressive rock? From what I can gather, it's longer-length songs like "In A Gada Da Vida" or "Roundabout." At any rate, that was pretty much over by the time MTV debuted in 1981, right?
It went beyond length---a lot of classical influences and "we're creating art" pretensions ("In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" couldn't really argue that given that the song was supposed to be "In The Garden of Eden" but the singer was too stoned to enunciate):
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly - Songfacts
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly song meaning, lyric interpretation, video and chart position
www.songfacts.com
Here's Rolling Stone's list of the 50 best (their opinion) progressive rock albums of all time:
50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time
The 50 greatest progressive rock albums of all time, including Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, Rush and more
www.rollingstone.com
Genesis, Yes, Alan Parsons Project, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd, etc. Even the Moody Blues could be considered light prog.
Well before that. I mean, some groups were still trying, but the moment was long gone.
What happened was the Platinum age of albums started in 1976, when acts like the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Steve Miller Band, Peter Frampton, Stevie Wonder, Boston...all started having these albums that went multi-platinum...way above what other acts were selling and way beyond what their own albums had done before.
That commercial success, more than anything, prompted a young programmer-turned-consultant named Lee Abrams to whip up an album rock format that focused on the biggest acts only...he called it "Superstars". And given that by this point, most major cities had more than one FM rock station, someone was always number two (or three) and looking for a quick fix---so Lee signed a lot of stations up.
The Carly Simons and Melissa Manchesters and Michael Murpheys weren't selling at that level, so they were gone. Eventually, so was Stevie Wonder. And if you go back to the second or third page of this thread, I linked to a 1978 interview with Abrams where he talks about the next move being to weed out the softer acts and what he called "borderline pop" acts like Billy Joel and Linda Ronstadt.
What he did worked for a while, but by 1983 (only four years after he implemented that approach and AOR stations that weren't his clients tried to keep up), the format (which is the basis of what people now consider Classic Rock) was in trouble---having its lunch eaten in the ratings by newly-energized CHR stations on FM and by the emergence of Modern Rock.
Looking at these dates, I just missed the Progressive party. Of course, I'm familiar with Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons, Genesis and the like; but I had never heard of a lot of groups on the Top 50 list you were kind enough to post.
H
Harvey_Dogg
Guest
Early1980's, New Wave era. Clash, Police, The Go Go's, and Men AT Work
A lot of us who were there at the time would draw a blank, too. A lot of those acts didn't get much airplay or got it late at night. The truly big sellers were rare.
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Harvey_Dogg
Guest
By 1975, pop music really sucked. Then along came punk rock. It was cool! The Ramones!
H
Harvey_Dogg
Guest
The progressive rock station in Columbus Ohio at the time was 96.3 WLVQ, not WCOL. Anyway, I never heard Carly Simon played on any progressive rock station anywhere on this Earth. Where was she played on the air as classic rock?
And, I do like some of her songs. I'm an old fart with eclectic taste.
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At the time, WLVQ was still WTVN-FM and still playing Beautiful Music. It didn't go rock until Valentine's Day of 1977. First song? Eagles. "New Kid In Town".
WLVQ didn't overtake WCOL in the ratings until the Fall, 1978 book.
H
Harvey_Dogg
Guest
I listened mostly to CJOM 88.7 from Canada at the time.
Well, you might enjoy reading this, then:
Which isn't surprising, since you couldn't listen to them all, and weren't listening all of the time. But, as we've established over the past few days, Carly Simon is one of those artists that started on FM rock radio and then crossed over to Top 40. Let's face it, "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" doesn't have out-of-the-box-Top-40-smash" written all over it.
FM rock stations broke "You're So Vain"---then it crossed over to Top 40. After a number one smash, Top 40 was as eager for a new release as FM rock. And if you'd asked me, from memory, I'd have said that it stopped there. But (and I'll save you the scrollback) it didn't.
Carly's album "Hotcakes" was relased in January of 1974. It was getting FM rock radio airplay through April. And the "Playing Possum" album from 1975 got play as well---though not as sustained as "Hotcakes", it was #5 on the R&R chart May 2. Here’s a look at what stations were playing:
Scroll to pages 16, 19, 22 and 23: https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Archive-RandR/1970s/1975/RR-1975-05-02.pdf
Thank you for backing me up, Michael! I only said that Carly Simon "used" to be considered "Rock". Part of the problem we're having is that 1975 is a little late. Carole King's album time was early '70s. Think "Tapestry". As Tommy Lee Jones said in "Space Cowboys", "I may be blind as a bat but there's nothing wrong with my memory!".
Semoochie, scroll about two or three posts up and you’ll see, via the stations themselves reporting to R&R that Carly (and Michael Murphey, Minnie Riperton and Melissa Manchester) were doing well on FM rock stations.
I used to see these bumper stickers all over Hampton Roads years after the station became 103JAMZ. 
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