Actually that's what we did in my career because we had no budget for music testing.
R
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Hit Songs That Should Never Be Played On Radio Today
- Thread starter TheFonz
- Start date
Actually that's what we did in my career because we had no budget for music testing.
R
But you did not have a goal of playing 100% of the charting songs from a particular era, did you? In other words, did you let knowledge and common sense help in deciding what you thought listeners wanted to hear?
In an earlier post you wanted to ban a song that reached #1 on the charts. I'm not clear on exactly who should do the "ranking".
I agree with you on that, but even if Sen. Kennedy had lived to a ripe old age, you wouldn't be hearing that one now, because it would be largely irrelevant now, which I am guessing also applies to the Dirksen parody, which I don't recall ever hearing. Apparently, Minkin at least learned from Vaughn Meador's mistakes, and didn't "put all his eggs in one basket."
The "Wild Thing" RFK parody, and "Mr. Custer" by Larry Verne were two songs that I specifically mentioned in a thread of mine to which I gave the subject line, "politically incorrect songs." I had never heard either of these, but I became aware of "Mr. Custer" after reading about it in The Billboard Book of #1 Hits and wanted to hear it. Once youtube came along, I googled it and took a listen. It is crap, but still worth taking a listen to in your spare time. (I was not old enough to remember either of these, which explains why I had never heard them.)
A
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I don't support "banning" anything, and have never used the word "ban" in reference to a song. As for who should do the ranking, whoever owns the transmitter and associated studio equipment ultimately makes the decisions on what does or doesn't get played. The owner may delegate that authority to employees, which is his right and privilege. Any and all such decisions, whether it is ranking songs from best to worst, or simply using a pass-fail grading system, are for the owner of the station to make.
However, if the owner of the station wants to attract listeners to his station, so that he has an optimal size audience to rent to advertisers to generate revenue, then that owner will include what those listeners want to hear as a factor in making his decisions. If he's smart, he'll gather information from a variety of sources and will also use his own intuition and experience. If he's lazy, he'll hire some consultant to do the work for him, and to take the blame if it fails.
As for chart positions for a novelty song decades ago, that's also another factor to consider, albeit a minor one. It is especially trivial when talking about a flash-in-the-pan one-hit-wonder.
I remember "Mr. Custer" very well from first-hand listening. It was a cute little novelty song, no better or worse than other such songs like "Runnin' Bear". But it's extremely dated. Likewise, the "Wild Thing" RFK parody would have had about the same shelf life as any of Weird Al Yankovic's parodies. They're funny at the time, but they aren't destined for long lives.
However, though they aren't worth replaying today because as novelty songs they just aren't funny anymore, they are not "politically incorrect". It is one of my biggest wishes that the phrase (and concept of) "political correctness" would disappear totally from American culture, once and for all.
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Good luck with that!
Novelty songs are maybe outside the scope of this discussion anyway. I suspect most PD's and DJ's dislike them in general even though the public may remember them warmly. Even "Dr. Demento" is gone now from radio. Some have had a decent shelf life; there's been a revival of interest in Allan Sherman the past few years, and you can still find (the original) David Seville and the Chipmunks and Spike Jones in most music stores. As for Ray Stevens, he's busy turning out odes to Sarah Palin for the tea-party crowd, your own opinion there would be a matter more of politics than musical tastes.
Many novelty records are topical, of and for their time; that goes for many of the titles mentioned here, and for "Weird Al" Yankovic too. That doesn't make them any less brilliant as parodies, you just need to understand where they were "coming from."
Many novelty records are topical, of and for their time; that goes for many of the titles mentioned here, and for "Weird Al" Yankovic too. That doesn't make them any less brilliant as parodies, you just need to understand where they were "coming from."
Owners......Consultants. Then it does sound like you want the "suits" to decide what music you listen to.
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That's why it's a wish.
No, I decide what music I listen to. But the people who own the stations decide what they'll play. It's their bat and ball, so they make the rules. If they want me as a listener, then they'll play music I enjoy hearing. Maybe not everything I enjoy, but some of it. They'll entertain me if they want me to tune them in. If they don't want me, then they won't program to please me.
And, since none of the radio stations that I can pick up on my radio play the music I like very often, I don't listen to them very often. I take responsibility for selecting my own music and using my own playback devices to hear it.
And that goes a step further. There are more than one station on the air, with more than one set of suits making the programming decisions. Even if I didn't have the option of using my own playback devices to hear my own collection of recorded music, I still decide which station to listen to.
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Let's change "politically incorrect" to "offensive" which is what it really means. Those songs are offensive and an embarrassment.
Maybe some of those songs were intended to be offensive when they were released! 
OK, how about this; when you're 11 years old you think Ray Stevens is a musical/comic genius; by the time you're 18 you realize he's just a stupid cracker.
He's not that stupid...he's a multi-millionaire, thanks to smart investments made from those stupid songs that millions of people bought.
I guess when one doesn't have a legitimate argument, one must resort to personal attacks.
I'm not getting how "Mr. Custer" and "Running Bear" are offensive and embarrassing. In the first the Indians won, and the second was a love story.
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Maybe some of those songs were intended to be offensive when they were released!
It's more like some people are just too thin-skinned for their own good.
In the case of Ray Stevens, the problem is that too many people only know him from what songs of his the suits were willing to put on the air. If you're familiar with his body of work aside from his novelty songs, he was quite an impressive talent. His work as an A&R man, producer, and session musician was outstanding. But, to people whose knowledge is limited to what they hear on the radio, or sales stats for hit singles, it's easy to misjudge people.
To those who seek out reasons to be offended, "Mr. Custer" doesn't depict Native Americans as innocent, tree-hugging victims of European genocide. And "Running Bear" mocks the sacred rhythms of Native American drums. Remember, being politically correct means you are free to be offended by anything, whether it's really offensive or not.
Of course, as a European-American, I find the term "cracker" loathsome and offensive, and anyone who refers to any European-American as a "cracker" should be immediately banned.
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I keep forgetting...money = brains. I guess that makes Paris Hilton a real genius. (By the way, she's made some records too...)
I agree with this post:
Chet Atkins gets more credit, but Ray is just as talented.
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