Classic Hits: Evolution or Revolution?

[davideduardo]

...only #27 US, but an international smash hit?

If there is anything less accurate than domestic charts from the 60's and 70's, it's foreign charts.

Many countries did not tabulate sales figures, and policies on returns and "promotional" percentages were likely to be quite different.

Add in the fact that tasted differ by nation and region of the world, and you have a huge shipment of irrelevant data.

Like, well, what are you going to do with the knowledge that in Latin America CCR sold far more records than The Beatles? It might be great data for Trivial Pursuit: International but as actionable data in a specific US market, it has no relevance.

 

[bigtom101]

One other odd thing about 'DRC (which, incidentally, has had two really good rating periods since getting its playlist a lot younger): They're playing three songs that seem to always come up in discussions of the worst top 40 hits: "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)," "We Built This City" and "Love Will Keep Us Together," as well as the "Saturday Night," by the Bay City Rollers, who are a punchline on the order of Debby Boone or Milli Vanilli rather than a band. Are these songs somehow testing well in Hartford and nowhere else or are the making the cut on classic hits stations everywhere despite the hold-your-nose factor that I seem to recall these tunes having?

They test well with the target audience is my guess...I always liked all of those songs, with the exception of "We Built This City." "Saturday Night" would be a 70's B song for me, but that's just my taste.

CBS-FM plays all of the songs you mentioned, and I've heard them on WOGL (especially on "I Love The 70's Sundays").

DRC-FM has been sounding better lately, as the ratings have shown. Now if only Rockin' Ron would limit himself to ONE name jingle per segue...

 

[RIN3GUY]

Evolving the format has given it new life, and kept many jocks off the unemployment line.

I don't recall anyone clamoring for songs that are that old. I remember that when Hippie Radio first came on the air, they played a listener comment over the air which said something along the lines of "finally a station that realizes that ABBA was not a one-hit wonder!" That has been the gist of my complaints. In other words, if you are supposedly programming to MY generation, then you need to play MY generation's hits, not just cherry-pick a few of them and call yourself a "classic hits" station. (By the way, the station about which that comment was directed (the one that played ONLY "Dancing Queen") has since been sold to K-Love. So much for cherry-picking.)

A savvy programmer should know that while ABBA had only one US #1 hit, they had seven #1s in the UK. That should lend some weight to stations' willingness to play songs like "SOS," "Waterloo," and "Take a Chance on Me." I don't expect any station to play anything pre-1964. But it does seem kind of goofy for them to play just ONE Elvis song ("Suspicious Minds"). I mean, if you're going to play Elvis, play Elvis. Was it really that big of a hit, to the exclusion of everything else he ever did? Why does he have to be transformed into a one-hit wonder?? Our local station does the same thing with Cher. You would think her musical career ended in 1965. The previous local station played only 1970-1989, so they ended up with just "Let It Be" & "Long & Winding Road" as the only two Beatles songs they played, which was just dumb. No Beatles fan wants that.

I understand that a successful station must have a solid core rotation, but it sure would help to toss in a random tune or two each hour that they don't ordinarily play. I listen to my local CH station far less than I otherwise would because I have learned the parameters of their 36-hour rotation and I'm just bored stiff with it! Half the time I just station surf or plug in the MP3 because I surely know I won't be missing any surprises.

For example, instead of Blondie's tired old "One Way or Another" (#24 US, but an international flop) how about just once in a while playing "Dreaming" (only #27 US, but an international smash hit)? Just throwing it out there.

I'll probably regret asking this, but after our lengthy conversation about the irrelevance of 30-40 year old US chart numbers in programming to 45 year old Americans, are we now going to suggest that they should know or care how a record performed on the charts in another country when they were children?

I'm looking forward to the reply! The idea of a station adding "Dreaming" on the basis of its European chart performance is way out there. Interesting, though, that "One Way or Another" didn't crack the top 20; airplay alone would suggest it did much better. Ditto for BTO's "Let It Ride." What's the story with those two songs? They certainly were played like top 10 hits back when they were current; were they only "turntable hits" that didn't move vinyl?

Knowing what listeners like and want to hear is not quite the same as knowing what people do NOT want to hear. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Some songs may have 80/20 appeal, 60/40, 50/50, etc. What I mean by that is, there is nothing wrong with ANY of CTListener's above-listed #1 hit songs. Should they be in the core playlist every 24 to 48 hours? Probably not, but how about monthly or perhaps semimonthly? (But if pina coladas are off the list, then margaritas have gotta go too!) If one-fourth or one-third of listeners somewhat dislike a song, is that enough reason to disregard the likes of the majority? Just asking. I argue that unless the negatives are just overwhelming, no Top 30 (or at least Top 20) hit should ever disappear entirely, particularly from the years of highest singles sales (mid-1970s).

And I mostly disagree with your assessment of the Bay City Rollers. Like the Jackson 5 and the Monkees, they may be cheese, but they aren't limburger. Their popularity is greater than programmers assume:

One example is their charting. On Billboard, the Rollers' four greatest hits peaked at 1, 9, 10 & 12, but on Cash Box they hit 1, 7, 7 & 8.

Second is international acclaim: Canadian, European and general international chart success would indicate that such music holds appeal to a very wide audience. In Canada, the Bay City Rollers charted hits at 1, 1, 2, 3 & 6. Consigning US chart accomplishments to the bin of irrelevancy is a bit harder to do when it is not only consistently confirmed but even exceeded abroad.

Third, like the Monkees, the BCRs maintain a significant international fan base. Their popularity did not just evaporate.

Hearing BCR hits would be a huge relief from all those horribly overplayed Eagles songs!

And on Blondie's two songs that charted at #24 & #27, if they can justify universal playing of "One Way or Another" based primarily on album sales, then they can do the same for "Dreaming"! ("Dreaming" actually peaked higher on Cash Box at #20, vs. #22 for the other, so virtually identical singles charting.)

 

[michael hagerty]

Knowing what listeners like and want to hear is not quite the same as knowing what people do NOT want to hear. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Some songs may have 80/20 appeal, 60/40, 50/50, etc. What I mean by that is, there is nothing wrong with ANY of CTListener's above-listed #1 hit songs. Should they be in the core playlist every 24 to 48 hours? Probably not, but how about monthly or perhaps semimonthly? (But if pina coladas are off the list, then margaritas have gotta go too!) If one-fourth or one-third of listeners somewhat dislike a song, is that enough reason to disregard the likes of the majority? Just asking. I argue that unless the negatives are just overwhelming, no Top 30 (or at least Top 20) hit should ever disappear entirely, particularly from the years of highest singles sales (mid-1970s).

That's like suggesting that monthly or semi-monthly, In-N-Out or Five Guys should serve sushi unannounced. And you're taking that risk based on irrelevant chart rankings from around the time your desired audience was born.

And I mostly disagree with your assessment of the Bay City Rollers. Like the Jackson 5 and the Monkees, they may be cheese, but they aren't limburger. Their popularity is greater than programmers assume:

One example is their charting. On Billboard, the Rollers' four greatest hits peaked at 1, 9, 10 & 12, but on Cash Box they hit 1, 7, 7 & 8.

Second is international acclaim: Canadian, European and general international chart success would indicate that such music holds appeal to a very wide audience. In Canada, the Bay City Rollers charted hits at 1, 1, 2, 3 & 6. Consigning US chart accomplishments to the bin of irrelevancy is a bit harder to do when it is not only consistently confirmed but even exceeded abroad.

Third, like the Monkees, the BCRs maintain a significant international fan base. Their popularity did not just evaporate.

Hearing BCR hits would be a huge relief from all those horribly overplayed Eagles songs!

Again, we're assuming that a band's chart performance 37 years ago has any relevance to 45 year old Americans' tastes in 2013, and that their performance in Europe 37 years ago might somehow be relevant to those Americans.

Also, Mike Nesmith and Berry Gordy would like a word with you.

And on Blondie's two songs that charted at #24 & #27, if they can justify universal playing of "One Way or Another" based primarily on album sales, then they can do the same for "Dreaming"! ("Dreaming" actually peaked higher on Cash Box at #20, vs. #22 for the other, so virtually identical singles charting.)

Irrelevant, your honor (oops...Perry Mason flashback there...the demo won't get that...L.A. Law is from their adolesence). Programmers today (successful ones anyway) aren't programming to decades-old singles or album charts (successful ones didn't program by them when new...see the "Billboard Hot 100" thread from the beginning), but to what listeners are telling them they share in common as songs they love, like or won't tune out.

 

[RIN3GUY]

To simply say that you like a song (or play it on You Tube) is one thing. But to pay money and actually purchase a song is a whole other ball game. The charts will always maintain significance as an indicator of musical quality because that is what people went out and spent money for.

Just because "One Way or Another" is liked doesn't imply that "Dreaming" is disliked, or a tune-out. Since the two songs were similarly played and purchased in '79, it would be illogical to think that an equally good song by the same artist somehow won't pass muster today. There is no comparison to fast food sushi here! At 48, I like Blondie's songs just as well as I did when I was 15; can anyone honestly say they hear them differently now than they did then?

I feel that lackluster treadmill playlists simply reveal laziness and a lack of creativity and initiative on the part of programmers, resulting in decreased listener interest and increased boredom and propensity for tune-out, especially among the heaviest listeners.

 

[oldies76]

If there is anything less accurate than domestic charts from the 60's and 70's, it's foreign charts.

It's what the public (especially the song collectors) has for reference to older songs (and new for that matter...). Who cares if they are irrevelant or less accurate...they are what they are and the average person could care less. There is nothing else to reference older music's positions and rankings. It is what it is and it cannot ever be changed, no matter what theories may or may not exist in the past about this or that about the chart methodologies or other issues.

Obviously the success of the Joel Whitburn and Fred Bronson books overwhelmingly differ from your beliefs of the chart's "dark side".

 

[davideduardo]

Who cares if they are irrevelant or less accurate...

My point here is that, while international charts are woefully inaccurate, the songs that did get play and sales in other countries is totally irrelevant to people in the US.

... and there are no Whitburn books and Bronson books about international charts.

 

[michael hagerty]

The charts will always maintain significance as an indicator of musical quality because that is what people went out and spent money for.

No, most of the chart is an indication of what record stores bought at wholesale.

Those songs that did sell at retail in the 70s? They sold to other people. Today's 45 year olds started high school in 1982. All that counts is whether they want to hear certain songs now, as a group, not as individuals.

Just because "One Way or Another" is liked doesn't imply that "Dreaming" is disliked, or a tune-out. Since the two songs were similarly played and purchased in '79, it would be illogical to think that an equally good song by the same artist somehow won't pass muster today. There is no comparison to fast food sushi here! At 48, I like Blondie's songs just as well as I did when I was 15; can anyone honestly say they hear them differently now than they did then?

I wish you'd been around to explain that to Brian Wilson after "Good Vibrations" made #1, but "Heroes And Villains" stalled at #11. Might have saved him years of therapy.

Except that it's not true. "Good" is a subjective term, "equally good" more so. We hear music differently. The difference between a hit and a stiff is the number of people who find something that moves them in a beat, a lyric, a melody, a voice or a hook. And only some of what moved most people in their teens moves them the same way when they're five years from 50.

The only way you find out whether a song from an album is as popular today as another song from the same album is to test it.

I feel that lackluster treadmill playlists simply reveal laziness and a lack of creativity and initiative on the part of programmers, resulting in decreased listener interest and increased boredom and propensity for tune-out, especially among the heaviest listeners.

And we've answered this one before. Programmers pray for different, new tracks to test well. They need them to replace what ages and burns. Throwing everything that made a certain chart number back in the day on the air would be lazy. What good programmers are doing today is hard work.

 

[RIN3GUY]

My point here is that, while international charts are woefully inaccurate, the songs that did get play and sales in other countries is totally irrelevant to people in the US.

Specifically with reference to ABBA and the Bay City Rollers, what the international charts tell us is that their considerable success in the United States was a significant understatement compared to their success elsewhere. It also validates the continued playing of their music alongside the best of other Classic Hits artists. Even Blondie, an American artist, had to go to Europe to become successful before they could ever be appreciated here.

 

[michael hagerty]

If there is anything less accurate than domestic charts from the 60's and 70's, it's foreign charts.

It's what the public (especially the song collectors) has for reference to older songs (and new for that matter...). Who cares if they are irrevelant or less accurate...they are what they are and the average person could care less. There is nothing else to reference older music's positions and rankings. It is what it is and it cannot ever be changed, no matter what theories may or may not exist in the past about this or that about the chart methodologies or other issues.

Obviously the success of the Joel Whitburn and Fred Bronson books overwhelmingly differ from your beliefs of the chart's "dark side".

Oldies, you're not thinking that the Whitburn and Bronson books sold to a mass audience in the millions or anything, are you?

 

[michael hagerty]

My point here is that, while international charts are woefully inaccurate, the songs that did get play and sales in other countries is totally irrelevant to people in the US.

Specifically with reference to ABBA and the Bay City Rollers, what the international charts tell us is that their considerable success in the United States was a significant understatement compared to their success elsewhere. It also validates the continued playing of their music alongside the best of other Classic Hits artists. Even Blondie, an American artist, had to go to Europe to become successful before they could ever be appreciated here.

The majority of the audience neither knows nor cares whether a song was popular in another country or not.

As for Blondie, fans in the US didn't flock to them because they hit in Europe. Their success in Europe convinced their record label to commit significant dollars to promote them back in the US. It didn't hurt that they got a lot more accessible with their music and their image at the same time. That's what made them.

 

[michael hagerty]

It might help to keep in mind just who the target listener is.

She was born in 1968.

She is significantly more likely to be a she. Men are more likely to be listening to Classic Rock, Alternative or Active Rock.

She started high school in 1982.

Her years of peak musical awareness were 1984-1990.

If she began buying music at age 12, that was 1980. She very likely never bought a recording at any time in the 70s.

She is unlikely to remember hit music on the radio in great detail before age 10. That's 1978.

She very likely did not own a phonograph. She probably bought mostly cassettes and listened to them on a boombox-style radio/tape player until she got a Walkman (probably as a gift).

She graduated high school and began college 27 years ago.

She's been working for a living for 23 years (27 if she didn't attend college).

She's been married (possibly more than once) for 20 years.

She had her first child 18 years ago. She has one or more other children, likely at two to three year intervals.

There is a chance that she will become a grandmother, if she hasn't already, any time now. She's more likely than not to be a grandmother in the next 10 years.

She's concerned about her aging parents, who are in their late sixties, early 70s or beyond.

She's 20 years away from her own retirement. If she married a man five years older than herself, he's 15 years away.

The last time music was in the top 10 biggest things in her life, other than to simply listen and enjoy, was 23 years ago. All those other things are much bigger deals to her. She's got 25 minutes each way in the car to amp up or decompress...assuming the parents, siblings, husband, kids or boss don't call on the cellphone. She has no time for a song she doesn't really like. Her car radio has between 12 and 36 FM (and maybe satellite) presets. She's got 6 to 9 of them programmed and she's not afraid to use them.

Whether Abba sold more copies of "Waterloo" in Europe than in America when she was six is something she gives significantly less than a.........

She'd finish that sentence but the cellphone is ringing.

 

[davideduardo]

Oldies, you're not thinking that the Whitburn and Bronson books sold to a mass audience in the millions or anything, are you?

Looking at the most popular Whitburn book on Amazon, the approaching-a-decade-old "Book of Top 40 Hits", I see it has about 80 reviews, or about 9 a year.

A run of the mill fiction bestseller gets 4 or 5 thousand reviews in its first 6 months or so.

This is a niche market, a niche interest and has little to do with radio programming... as we have been saying for oh-so-long.

 

[firepoint525]

A radio station isn't mean to be a time capsule...Classic Hits stations play the songs that the audience wants to hear en masse in 2013. That cherry picking process is meant to weed out the songs that aren't liked by the majority of potential listeners. One listener, as nice as it is for our egos as jocks or programmers, is not a bellwether as to how to program the station.

I don't know if it would be possible for you to miss the point any more than you just did here. You mentioned ALL pre-1964 songs, then trot out the same old tired "time-capsule" b.s. when I mentioned the example (a very prominent one at that) of a '70s artist who only got ONE hit played. At least be consistent in your arguments.

As far as 97.1 going K-Love: given the history and previous ownership (Cumulus), I doubt it was that good of a station to begin with. They were oldies, then classic hits, then classic rock, then classic hits again - kinda hard to have a good station when ownership is that bad.

At least you have done your homework. They were every bit the joke that you said they were, and worse. When they first went oldies, they hired some of the staff from the previous oldies station, only to fire them all just a little over a year later, and then replaced the morning show with Bob & Tom. And they (97.1) apparently had some kind of computer glitch that would cause the same song to play as much as FOUR times straight! We lampooned them for that on the Nashville board, and they even got a comment on their Facebook page about doing that.

Re: post 64 Elvis. You get "Suspicious Minds" and "Burnin' Love." What else do you need? They fit the overall "sound" of a classic hits station. It's not to diss Elvis - it's just what the majority of the listeners want to hear...

Unfortunately for Elvis, he was his own worst enemy throughout much of the '60s, making lame, forgettable movies, while the Beatles were taking his (former) audience away. He was irrelevant from roughly his Army stint up until the comeback special. Songs like "Burning Love" showed that he still had it in him; it's just that it didn't show up all that much in the later years. Pretty much any time the "King" made what looked like a boneheaded decision, you can blame it on the "colonel." My wife is a huge Elvis fan, and she has taught me well! ;D

 

[firepoint525]

A savvy programmer should know that while ABBA had only one US #1 hit, they had seven #1s in the UK. That should lend some weight to stations' willingness to play songs like "SOS," "Waterloo," and "Take a Chance on Me."

Absolutely. All of those, except maybe "SOS," were American top 10 hits. I rescued an ABBA greatest hits CD from the trash at the station where I used to work, and roughly half of it was made up of songs that didn't chart here stateside, but were international hits. I don't expect U.S. stations to play those (international hits), but the examples that you mentioned should be perfectly okay with those of us from the second half of the baby boom. I'm 49, I LIVED that generation. I know those songs. The problem is that stations like Cumulus ("Come-in-last" is my slang name for them) hide behind the "results" of stacked "tests," then wonder why they never get any decent ratings, and are forced to constantly change (or at least tweak) formats. :

 

[firepoint525]

One other odd thing about 'DRC (which, incidentally, has had two really good rating periods since getting its playlist a lot younger): They're playing three songs that seem to always come up in discussions of the worst top 40 hits: "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)," "We Built This City" and "Love Will Keep Us Together," as well as the "Saturday Night," by the Bay City Rollers, who are a punchline on the order of Debby Boone or Milli Vanilli rather than a band. Are these songs somehow testing well in Hartford and nowhere else or are the making the cut on classic hits stations everywhere despite the hold-your-nose factor that I seem to recall these tunes having?

The problem with groups like Milli Vanilli is that they were punchline for Arsenio Hall even BEFORE the whole lip-synching scandal broke. Many of these songs and artists became punchlines for stand-up "comics" who really aren't one-tenth as "funny" as they think they are. : I really don't have much patience for this whole "what were we thinking" mentality, although it will be interesting to see what happens when the "what were we thinking" mentality hits the baggy-pants generation.

 

[firepoint525]

I feel that lackluster treadmill playlists simply reveal laziness and a lack of creativity and initiative on the part of programmers, resulting in decreased listener interest and increased boredom and propensity for tune-out, especially among the heaviest listeners.

"Lazy" is exactly how I would describe the way that 97.1 in Nashville was programmed when Come-in-last ran them (into the ground!).

 

[firepoint525]

And we've answered this one before. Programmers pray for different, new tracks to test well. They need them to replace what ages and burns. Throwing everything that made a certain chart number back in the day on the air would be lazy. What good programmers are doing today is hard work.

"Lazy" is exactly the way that I described how 97.1 was run by Come-in-last, except that they DIDN'T base anything that they played on any chart numbers, because there were a number of very safe top 10 hits from back in the day that probably would have "tested" well, yet 97.1 never touched them. After all, it's much easier if we just go ahead and program "Dancing Queen" now, then program it again 12 hours from now, lather rinse repeat, than to program "Take A Chance on Me" into one of those slots.

 

[firepoint525]

My point here is that, while international charts are woefully inaccurate, the songs that did get play and sales in other countries is totally irrelevant to people in the US.

Specifically with reference to ABBA and the Bay City Rollers, what the international charts tell us is that their considerable success in the United States was a significant understatement compared to their success elsewhere. It also validates the continued playing of their music alongside the best of other Classic Hits artists. Even Blondie, an American artist, had to go to Europe to become successful before they could ever be appreciated here.

The international charts are a mixed bag for me. While the Europeans tend to grab on to "the next big thing" much faster than the Americans do, they also hang on to tired failed acts that have "jumped the shark" for far longer than we do. That is probably why we have so many "one-hit-wonders" here. But there is no reason why "Come-in-last" should create any more de facto "one-hit-wonders."

 

[oldies76]

Looking at the most popular Whitburn book on Amazon, the approaching-a-decade-old "Book of Top 40 Hits", I see it has about 80 reviews, or about 9 a year.

Specialty books will never compare to fiction best sellers. There are there for the hobbyist and others who want information on past music rankings and other data. And besides, not nearly everyone who buys a book will post a review on it.