CBS FM Countdown; Disgraceful Omission!!!

[lalumia]

so they play "River Of Dreams" by Billy Joel(yawn) but they pass over a NY classic mainstay, "River Deep Mountain High" by the 70s Supremes & The 4 Tops!!!!...major mistake, disgraceful~

 

[Silkie]

Pretty big cover version in 1970.

so they play "River Of Dreams" by Billy Joel(yawn) but they pass over a NY classic mainstay, "River Deep Mountain High" by the 70s Supremes & The 4 Tops!!!!...major mistake, disgraceful~

 

[lalumia]

it was a huge hit, Top 10 on 77WABC, and has been in rotation on the re born CBS FM, which makes it all the more alarming;
from a 'fan' standpoint, it's really unforgivable; we'll see how the other 70's Supremes hits like "Up The Ladder To The Roof' and "Stoned Love" fare;
I didn't hear the 'n's, so I don't know if "Nathan Jones" made the cut, or "Floy Joy" for that matter;

 

[Dick Skinner]

Alarming?

 

[lalumia]

yes, alarming,
from a fan perspective, it reflects a change in direction, a change that I don't think that I like;
#1 today doesn't mean they'll stay #1 if they become too inventive

 

[lalumia]

they keep claiming they're playing the 'entire library' which means they've removed 'River Deep" from the library, as well as Motown's historic first ever #1 Pop chart record, "Please Mr.Postman" by The Marvelettes, which was also NOT played, in fact it seems The Marvelettes were wiped out entirely from this event; very ugly turn ,indeed...

 

[Morpheux]

So what direction you think CBS FM is heading to by omitting these big records?

 

[frozenfiresb]

They're afraid of playing back-to-back '60's songs now that they're #1.

I may be wrong on this but was "River Of Dreams" released in the '90s?

Ugh, that's REAL oldies for you.

 

[BruceS8852]

It is a shame that the original River Deep Mountain High produced by Phil Spector and recorded by Ike and Tina Turner was not a hit in the USA at all while it topped the British charts. I recommend to readers of this board the movie the Agony and Ecstacy of Phil Spector which is playing at the Film Forum in Greenwich Village. He discusses reasons why it didn't chart in the film. It is a shame that Spector was such a "head case." He could have been a much bigger force in the music business.

I have enjoyed this A to Z countdown since I am hearing a lot of good recordings not usually played on WCBS-FM. Obviously they will miss somethings.

Bruce

 

[lalumia]

they're not afraid of playing back to back 60s songs:

I heard "Shotgun" by Jr.Walker right into "Shout" by The Isley Brothers,and and earlier in the week I heard "My Whole World Ended" by David Ruffin right into "My World Is Empty Without You" by The Supremes(60s version with Diana Ross)

 

[davideduardo]

yes, alarming,
from a fan perspective, it reflects a change in direction, a change that I don't think that I like;
#1 today doesn't mean they'll stay #1 if they become too inventive

And I'll bet that all but a few hundred of CBS-FM's approximately 4,000,000 listeners neither noticed nor cared.

In the PPM, holiday weekends tend to have lower than normal "PUR" (Persons Using Radio) and so feature weekends, a memory-stimulating benchmark in the diary, are incentives to listen in the PPM. Daily listening for the station on weekends is something like and hour to an hour and a quarter on non-holiday weekends... so most listeners will only hear a tiny percentage of the songs and will thus not note any omissions or mistakes.

The idea here is to simply present the same overall sound in a different, attention getting fashion.

 

[lalumia]

and they did play the previously mentioned "Up The Ladder To The Roof" by the 70s(post Diana Ross) Supremes today; GOOD!
I'll check their recently played list to see if "Stoned Love" by the post Ross Supremes also made the cut!

 

[lalumia]

1:57 AM SUPREMES Stoned Love Motown
1:51 AM
---------------------------------
yes,just checked, they included "Stoned Love' as well;
now they just need to get the brilliant "River Deep" by the 70s Supremes & the 4 Tops back into the mix and we're good;
"Nathan Jones" as well, which was covered in the 80s by Bananarama!
,,,The Jean Terrell led version of The Supremes was incredible and the NY area loved them.....in the early 70s, they had more pop radio hits without Diana Ross than she had with them.....look it up

 

[radiowizard101]

I don't want to bust any bubbles here... but, these post Diana Ross Supremes songs were great 'turntable hits' back in the day. If I remember correctly, they weren't big sellers. Floy Joy was the weakest of the bunch. I still have my blue promo 45 of that one.

 

[DToTheJ]

Hmmm, remind me to look for a copy of that to play on my show... (cough * cheap plug * cough... ;D )

 

[frozenfiresb]

Considering the inclusion of songs such as "Carry On Wayward Son", "Free Bird", "Smoke on the Water", and "Whole Lotta Love", amongst others, I'm sure, it seems like there is a very high (I would call it borderline excessive) amount of overlap with Q104. Who knows, now that they're #1, maybe the Q could flip soon....

 

[Morpheux]

It's funny how big records at the time they were released sometimes do not hold up to the test of time.I wasn't even born in the 60's but I can relate through music from the 80's.Some records that were not truly major hits in the 80's are now bigger than life on rhythmic AC's.I'll just leave that up that to this funny thing call memory and taste.Especially one's taste that more than often changes with time.

 

[lalumia]

the 70s Supremes hits were big sellers, at Top 40 and even more so at Black/Soul stations of the era.It was Miss Ross who stumbled in the early 70s with the exception of :ain't No Mountain"...

 

[Morpheux]

Good factual point.But do those records hold up to the test of time is the real question.

 

[adma]

Well, thanks to the gentrification/popularization of rock history over the years, I'd argue that Ike & Tina's "River Deep Mountain High" might actually now be more "familiar", even within a US context, than the Supremes/Four Tops version.

Otherwise...when it comes to "holding up to the test of time", you might as well consider the Top 40/Oldies continuum in general falling short in that regard; at least, as something dumbed-down for the benefit of timewarped crazy ladies and musical teabaggers...