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Country Music Question.....

J

J Gable

???Can someone who is in radio and puts the music list together that the "jocks" have to go by tell me why Garth Brooks still gets air play even though he's "supposedly" retired. What would it take to get you all to play some other artists that are retired, like Ms. Barbara Mandrell? PD's, care to chim in??
 
well, im not a PD but i do work for a country station.. why wouldn't country stations play Garth? the fact that he is "retired" is irrelevant to the fact that he was HUGE back in the 90s and still has a very solid and loyal fan base. Last fall he even released a new single and performed it at the CMA awards. What does Garth being retired have to do with stations playing, or not playing his music?
 
Garth Brooks has had a hit in the past year or two. And lots of them in the 2000's. Barbara Mandrell? That's what they make Classic Country stations for. Speaking as a country listener, Barabara Mandrell is my father's country. When Rap forced me away from the Top 40 stations around 1990, Country was just becoming appealing to me. The transition was smooth. Just my personal preference, but Country wasn't cool prior to about 1990. Playing pre-1990 Country today detracts from my enjoyment--I avoid stations who insist on playing an occasional "classic". The day will come when the 1990's will be irrelevant too. And then I'll be lamenting the same thing you are with Barbara. Until then, I'm in my musical heyday & enjoying it.
 
Where to start? How about this, when Mandrell was the Queen of the Country scene she was lucky to sell a million copies of her current release. Today, Carrie Underwood has just been certified 5x Platinum. (5 million copies sold). Therein lies the reason. Mandrell had a limited appeal, Underwood has a much broader one. Same with Garth. Country music really exploded with the emergence of acts like Garth, Clint Black, Dwight Yoakam, Alan Jackson and others back in the late 80's. Where the older country stars were happy with Gold albums, these guys were going multi-platinum. This new crop of singers made country cool to a whole new audience. That audience is still evolving and growing today. And it grows because of acts like Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, et al. Most of today's country audience has no idea who Barbara Mandrell is and would most likely change the preset if her songs came on the station.
 
That's one of the things I love about internet radio..you don't have to only play the songs/artists
that "test well."

I play current country, but also a lot of classic country, including Barbara Mandrell and other
artists from the past. As of today the station has 758 presets. It's been country/classic country since
August 2005.
 
As long as I live, I will never understand the phrase "songs that test well".

Granted, a station wants to have and hold as many listeners as possible, but playing a great song from Barbara Mandrell such as "Sleeping Single In A Double Bed" or "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Wanna Be Right" would make me stay with the station rather than go somewhere else.

Maybe it's the listeners that should be tested as well as the songs...

(K.T. Oslin, Anne Murray, Juice Newton and even k.d. lang are all but forgotten in the world of "country" music these days.)
 
Music testing is really pointless to an MD that knows his audience and the sound they like. Music Directors should choose adds, not flawed testing and charts that can't keep up with local taste.
 
Garth is what is called a "core" artist. Barbara Mandrell is a "legend" artist. Our station has a legend show on Sunday mornings and we actually play her a few times. Garth....well he's Garth! Why not play him??
 
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