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DJs sharing negative opinions of songs/artists on air or online.

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AM-FM-DXer said:
If I am not mistaken, Howard Stern trashed the country songs he played when WWWW/Ann Arbor flipped to country in the early 1980s. Back in the late '90s, WJMN/Boston ran some sort of promo about never again playing Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." I believe they kept their word and never played it again. But that was after beating the song to death for the better part of a year.
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It looks like it was a song that was a big hit, but had no staying power. Ballads on general must be difficult to program, as I think people either love them or hate them. Don't think that Celine Dion song was heard at all on CHR or Hot AC even in the early 2000s. Some ballads like How to Save a Life or A Thousand Years or stuff from Colbie Callait lasted a little while, but I remember Lauren Daigle (don't care for her) coming and going quickly. I used to think all ballads were good music, but then I realized there's some really bad ballads out there I never want to hear again.
 
Mike in Destin said:
With Dan Ingram it was usually all in good fun, or "tongue in cheek " forgivable comments. He never bashed an artist directly.
Like "Someone shaved my wife last night. "
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Except when it came to Neil Sedaka. They had a falling-out at some point and did not get along personally. Dan was asked about it many times and refused to explain why or how it happened. He would, however, praise Sedaka as a very talented singer/songwriter.

During the lead-out at the end of ”Love Will Keep Us Together,” right before Toni Tennille sang “Sedaka’s back.” Dan would often interject “What’s the ugliest thing in show biz?”
 
dumber than a box of hair said:
Except when it came to Neil Sedaka. They had a falling-out at some point and did not get along personally. Dan was asked about it many times and refused to explain why or how it happened. He would, however, praise Sedaka as a very talented singer/songwriter.

During the lead-out at the end of ”Love Will Keep Us Together,” right before Toni Tennille sang “Sedaka’s back.” Dan would often interject “What’s the ugliest thing in show biz?”
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Yeah. Dan HATED Sedaka. And when he’d praise Sedaka, it was off the air. On air, every time for decades, Dan beat on Neil like a piñata.
 
dumber than a box of hair said:
Except when it came to Neil Sedaka. They had a falling-out at some point and did not get along personally. Dan was asked about it many times and refused to explain why or how it happened. He would, however, praise Sedaka as a very talented singer/songwriter.

During the lead-out at the end of ”Love Will Keep Us Together,” right before Toni Tennille sang “Sedaka’s back.” Dan would often interject “What’s the ugliest thing in show biz?”
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Thanks for the info.
 
I am old enough to remember those dreaded disco days when at least a couple of stations had a No Bee Gees weekend. I even recall one of the Gibbs recording a liner for the promotion assuring listeners that they would be back on Monday. Very clever way to promote the trend with reverse psychology. At least I was amused.
 
I remember some station playing Wham "Wake me up before you go" then apologizing, calling it "rubbish" or something to that effect.

Remember when it's almost top of the hour, and there's not enough time for an average song, so you play "Love me do." Which is like two minutes. Or "Stay" by Maurice and The Zodiacs or Four Seasons.
 
Last night, I listened to an aircheck of Bwana Johnny on KYA in San Francisco dated June 3, 1970. After the 4th song was completed, Bwana came on the air and said: "So music has descended to this," or something to that effect and then announced the song just played as Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point Third Grade Class and "Mill Valley." While that song tanked nationally, it was very big on both KYA and KFRC and it made Rita Abrams something of a hometown hero in the San Francisco Bay area.
 
I remember a Syracuse jock named Jack Mindy doing that "I hate that song" shtick on WFBL back in the '70s, and Larry Wells on WDRC-FM Hartford in the '90s. Every market must have had a grouchy DJ on its AC or oldies station at one time or another.
 
One early morning I was trying to do my show after being up since 3 AM because or a particularly loud thunderstorm when at around 6:10 AM the manager called. He had a 60 second commercial that he forgot about and It had to be aired 6 times before 9am. He didn't have a fax machine at his home and he was taking pain meds so he dictated it. He didn't want live reads because the client has "donut" jingle that they used. So I went down the hall and knocked it out during a commercial break and song. (Still thankfull for reliable cart machines). I sat down after running down the hall right after the Caption and Tennelle's "Love will keep us together". Which I back announced as "The Captain and Toenail". The phone rings the manager laughing said I made his wife mad so don't do it again.

Moral of the story: get at least 4 hours of sleep before attempting morning drive or you could accidentally trash a song
 
michael hagerty said:
“Good” is opinion. Popularity can be measured.
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I disagree. You can tell if a song is bad, it’s not a hard measure. If we took 1000 songs from all genera's over the past 50 years I bet the best songs rise to the top. We could debate the top 50 but the clunkers will be ruled out quick.
 
Don CT said:
I disagree. You can tell if a song is bad, it’s not a hard measure. If we took 1000 songs from all genera's over the past 50 years I bet the best songs rise to the top. We could debate the top 50 but the clunkers will be ruled out quick.
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Yeah, but one man's trash is another man's treasure. There's a lot of stuff given high reviews on Pitchfork I don't care for, per instance. Celine Dion has people who both love and loathe her music. I think EDM is the same way.
 
Don CT said:
How many DJs like the music they play? It’s a job so they play what they are told.
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I'm betting you get a lot of opposing viewpoints, but I'm not one of them. I was always more comfortable working with a playlist. It was one less thing to be concerned with. I was always more interested in the bits and elements between the songs than the songs themselves. But I'm guessing that I'm one of the few that welcomed playlists. So far as liking the tunes, some I liked, some I didn't. As you said, it was a product I was paid to deal with. The tunes were ample time off to read my magazines so even the bad ones had a purpose to me.
 
Don CT said:
I disagree. You can tell if a song is bad, it’s not a hard measure. If we took 1000 songs from all genera's over the past 50 years I bet the best songs rise to the top. We could debate the top 50 but the clunkers will be ruled out quick.
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Oh, I very much agree with Michael Hagerty on this one. One of the things that we humans tend to do is make friends with other humans whose thinking (as well as looks and other factors) are very similar to our own. The result is that when it comes to opinions about good or bad songs, good or bad radio stations (or nearly anything else for that matter), our friends will (mostly) stand behind us and will (mostly) stand behind them. And we will say, "See? Everybody agrees with us or if they don't, they are in such a minority that they don't count." The problem is that we may well be wrong in relying only on our inner circle of friends to validate whether songs are good or bad as perceived by the public as a whole. Polling data done scientifically will give a better result than what you and/or your inner circle think.
 
Hyrum said:
I'm betting you get a lot of opposing viewpoints, but I'm not one of them. I was always more comfortable working with a playlist. It was one less thing to be concerned with. I was always more interested in the bits and elements between the songs than the songs themselves. But I'm guessing that I'm one of the few that welcomed playlists. So far as liking the tunes, some I liked, some I didn't.
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I was listening to a local country station, WXXK Hartford, VT, in the car a couple of years ago and heard the DJ stumbling over the name of a popular artist. He wasn't the usual DJ, so I was curious. I only had to wait until the next break to find my answer: The jock (and I can't recall his name) actually explained that he was filling in and it was his first time on WXXK, and that he'd done a shift at sister station WHDQ (classic rock) earlier in the day. More information than a fill-in would usually give, so I was intrigued and curious if he'd continue to refer to "inside radio" stuff. Well, I was doing a bit of driving that day so I spent an enjoyable hour listening to the music, all the while hoping the fill-in would crack the mic after the current song! He didn't disappoint. During one break, he told about another jock at WHDQ ribbing him earlier about becoming a country DJ. And in the next, he added a "Hey, I like that" after a song with a rock edge.
 


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