What does that mean exactly? Does the term 'coherent' to you mean they only play songs that you like?
What a strange question. The President can influence a particular radio format?? Unless it's news/talk, I seriously doubt it.
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Is Alternative dead and how can it go forward?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
Perhaps he influenced the musicians and their music took on a darker tone. I don't know that one can generalize about alternative listeners.
Maybe the ones on the AAA end of the Alt spectrum, but probably not the ones on the active rock end. And there are always exceptions in every group of music enthusiasts! (Says this liberal Hank Williams Jr./Toby Keith fan ...)
I like Hank Jr. and Toby Keith. Not everything they did and I'm not exactly a fan. And I lean liberal.
What about creating a radio format that plays alternative hits, from yesterday and today, that would fit with an AC audience? It could be a successor to the Modern AC format. I would call it Alternative AC.
Again, how do you build an audience for that? You have people like MarkW on the "hard" edge of alt who won't listen to "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)" and the like ever again and others on the "soft" edge who would consider a song like that a cornerstone track, right up there with "Hey, Jealousy," "One Headlight" and the like. Unlike the Boomers and GenXers, the core audience for alt had plenty of opportunity to avoid exposure to music they didn't really like much, thanks to the great schism in pop music radio that started in the '80s and became total in the '90s. Alternative AC would be left trying to find common ground where there just isn't any.
Except "coffee shop music" died out just around 2017 (tegan and sara, grizzly bear, animal collective, ect) and people left.
And yet, you used to file a report here most days about what was on the Rush Limbaugh show. Sure, we all believe that. No, not really.
Okay, that reply could be considered 'incoherent'. Care to give it another try? What do you consider a format as being 'coherent'?
I looked up info on Tegan and Sara and found that they went from alt darlings to pariahs around that time. The album they had out before 2017 went top 5 on the alt chart, the one they put out afterward didn't chart in alt at all. Apparently, the hipsters branded them as pop "sellouts" and they disappeared from the chart and the radio format.
Alt spent much of the 2010s dominated by the hipsters - probably related to the backlash to the aggro 2000's. Lots of folk and indie in general.
Alt also stayed hipster-friendly in the latter-half of the 2010's by going with avant-garde pop music (following in the footsteps of Lorde). You can tell that 2021 is a different year because the hipsters are furious at various forums and websites, complaining at a level I haven't seen since maybe 2009-11.
As someone who was a teenager during the 2000's I can only say that Alt changes every few years and unless your favorite artist has a timeless sound (or is a huge hitmaker) they're not going to stay relevant on Alt forever.
I have a solution: Appeal it to the workplace.
Isn't that what AC is doing already? What sort of workplace would have an office full of any sort of rock fans, let alone fans of a subgenre like alt that no one can agree on? Even country would be easier to program for a workplace, where it's all about songs that don't offend rather than catering to music fans.
Appealing to a certain alt-subgroup, since the format is so fragmented in terms of listeners. Part of the trouble was trying to get animal collective fans and good Charlotte fans on the same boat. That's where some of the trouble lies.
Seems to me the term 'coherent' would be used around a more broad format model. Incoherent would be more of a fractured/niche' model with a smaller playlist geared toward narrower, eclectic tastes. (Which is a money black hole)
Years ago I built a Construction Permit Class A FM from scratch in a smaller market bordered by medium market stations. Based on the older population density, some form of oldies seemed like a good, safe launching format. It was actually more stunting than anything else to take the temperature of the community. You wouldn't believe the comments we were getting: "This isn't oldies!! You need to play mainly Doo Wop!" "This isn't oldies, you need to play more music from the 60's British Invasion years!" And on and on...
Ultimately, the station went to (at the time) Classic Rock. Sure the Doo Wop people were still not satisfied, the 60's British Invasion people weren't either. Overall, the largest audience in pure numbers, was happy with CR from the 70's and 80's.
And that's the idea. Find the format that appeals to the largest audience you can find a slot in, and play the hits. That's how you make money. Not agonizing over individual artists or titles.
Years ago I built a Construction Permit Class A FM from scratch in a smaller market bordered by medium market stations. Based on the older population density, some form of oldies seemed like a good, safe launching format. It was actually more stunting than anything else to take the temperature of the community. You wouldn't believe the comments we were getting: "This isn't oldies!! You need to play mainly Doo Wop!" "This isn't oldies, you need to play more music from the 60's British Invasion years!" And on and on...
Ultimately, the station went to (at the time) Classic Rock. Sure the Doo Wop people were still not satisfied, the 60's British Invasion people weren't either. Overall, the largest audience in pure numbers, was happy with CR from the 70's and 80's.
And that's the idea. Find the format that appeals to the largest audience you can find a slot in, and play the hits. That's how you make money. Not agonizing over individual artists or titles.
Didn't say I believed it. I would report it to say "Look what he's saying!"
It has been my observation that WKZQ Myrtle Beach SC mixes those type artists in from time to time with what is being called "alternative" now and doesn't sound like rock.
And unless the owner is independently wealthy and uses the station as some sort of hobby, playing songs that are unknown or obscure is doing nothing more than creating a reason for listeners to tune-away. If you feature new or eclectic artists or titles, you do that in a featured night slot, where potential tune-out does less damage.
Well, when you look at AAA charts, there are a lot of hits on there that fall within the AC category such as Billie Eilish and Post Malone. I do agree that regular AC is already doing this. That is one reason as to why Alternative AC has a good chance of working, if done correctly.
The owner is Dick Broadcasting. I'm not saying the songs are obscure. They sound like Top 40 hits but just don't happen to be what one would normally consider rock.
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