...which I like and do sing along to on occasion.
But (and we've discussed this before), it's not enough for a song to be somebody's favorite, it has to be darn near everybody's for it to work on radio.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
KRTH 2013 Labor Day Countdown
- Thread starter oldies76
- Start date
...which I like and do sing along to on occasion.
But (and we've discussed this before), it's not enough for a song to be somebody's favorite, it has to be darn near everybody's for it to work on radio.
Actually, I've heard that they haven't been testing very often, if at all lately, but my source could be wrong...
T
Thomps2525
Guest
Do all oldies/classic-hits stations conduct auditorium tests? Excluding the nigh-unbelievable failure of Hey Jude to make KRTH's countdown while being number one on WCBS-FM's countdown, the various Labor Day countdowns were very similar as far as which songs made the list, although not necessarily similar in regard to positions. My next question is: If large groups of listeners across the country tend to have similar tastes in music and most oldies stations are playing the same songs, why did Hey Jude fail to make KRTH's Top 500 this year? Does it have anything to do with the ethnic makeup of the Los Angeles market vis-a-vis New York? Or could it be that Angelenos are finally getting tired of the four-minute serenade of repetitious "na na na's"?
No, all such stations don't do tests.
The big market stations that know that a small investment in a test may pay back in higher ratings that can be monetized. So they do them.
Medium market stations have the options of sharing test results with sister stations, using the stations that do test in comparable markets. Or they may test in Joplin in the Fall, Tulsa in the Spring, Wichita in the following season and share between four or five markets.
Or they may take the BDS or MediaBase playlists of a few stations they think have the right approach for their market and combine them.
In smaller markets, you will find playlists based on the same MediaBase or BDS lists or, with unpleasant regularity, you will find stations that use the Whitburn books to play "anything that was a hit".
But in most cases, a station either tests or uses the results of somebody else's tests to program.
T
Thomps2525
Guest
When Art Laboe was programming KRLA and the audience included a high number of teens and Latinos, he almost never played any Beatles songs. I don't know if he thought that Latinos didn't like the Beatles---it could have been that he didn't like the Beatles. But KRTH plays a lot of Beatles songs and only six made this year's Top 500. 'Splain that if you can! (Said in my best Ricky Ricardo voice.)
Steve:
What David said plus:
KRTH and CBS-FM took very different approaches to their 500 songs.
CBS-FM only did partial listener input. Here's how they pitched it:
The top brass around CBS-FM decided to have you help them select the songs at the very top of the list by “voting them up.” We took the top 30 songs from 2012′s Top 500 Labor Day Weekend Countdown and will randomly put each song head-to-head for you to vote on.
For example, last year’s #1 — The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” — against last year’s #16 — Joan Jett & The Black Hearts’ “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” — which you can see below:
If you think “Hey Jude” deserves to stay up top, click on The Beatles. But if “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” deserves a little more admiration, select “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Once you select a song, two more songs will be randomly selected and pitted against each other. At the bottom, you’ll see the top 10 songs ranked based on their winning percentage.
So "Hey Jude" was among a set of choices put in front of the audience.
KRTH's was much more open-ended. They asked their listeners to name their 3 favorite songs off the tops of their heads. Apparently, "Hey Jude" didn't make enough people's 3 favorite songs to get to #500.
There's no reason anyone should be surprised by that.
Again....
KRTH asked for people's 3 (ONLY 3) favorite songs.
The listeners have told KRTH there are 850 songs (give or take) that they have in common that they love, like or will tolerate. But this asked them, with no prompting of artist or title to name their 3 favorites.
Lotsa stuff makes up the three songs that mean the most to people. Is it really a shock that a 7 minute song, half of which is "Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na" didn't make enough people's top 3 (KRTH has a cume of 2 million...I've been assuming 1% participation, which is 20,000...but it if it was 5%, that's 100,000) to get to #500? For all we know, it might have been #501.
Here is one interesting point that may help answering that question: In Latin America, CCR sold more records than The Beatles.
My eyes are glazed over after reading this thread for days on end. Much of what has been discussed ad infinitum are some of the reasons I can no longer relate to LA area radio. My own opinion is probably in the tiny tiny minority of maybe 1% of the posters on these radio boards and probably less than that of the radio listening population in the LA radio market and adjacent markets (with the exception maybe of the San Diego market at large). That opinion of the majority of these listeners is that they are MORONS!!!! There I’ve said it….. The playlists of English language music stations are so basic and boring with few exceptions. I realize the typical music radio listener does not have eclectic tastes. These are the same people who help make Miley Cyrus, Lil’ Wayne, P!nk, Lady GaGa, One Direction, Katy Perry, et al superstars. These are the same people who make the following big big TV hits: “Under the Dome”, “Big Bang Theory”, “America’s Got Talent”, “Duck Dynasty” (fer cryin’ out loud!!), “Big Brother”, “The Bachelor/Bachelorette”, “Mike & Molly” “Survivor”, “American Idol” (I used to watch it when it had some legitimacy thanks to Simon Cowell’s presence), every CSI/NCIS show; all of these and more big big TV hits …. While shows like “Breaking Bad”, “Homeland”, “Game of Thrones”, “Mad Men” etc. rarely if ever break the Top 20. And long gone are TV shows with actual humor like “Frasier” and “Seinfeld”. These listeners are the same kind of people who elect political leaders like Antonio Villaraigosa, Barack Obama, George W Bush, Barbara Boxer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harry Reid, etc. You wanna hear Hey Jude, look somewhere else, not LA Radio. Fortunately, there’s The Internet (at least for now) which makes available out of market radio stations that cater to my tastes. I can listen on my iPhone at home or in the car; I can stream at home and record/burn a CD playable in my car. These are radio stations where the Beatles, Stones, the Who, Led Zep, U2 et al are played side by side with Avicii, Kings of Leon, Leon Redbone, Mumford & Sons, Muse, Lumineers, Elvis Costello, and on and on and on. Luckily, I have several stations to choose from so in the case one goes off the air, I still have standbys available. Most of these are over the air and a few are Internet-only. Newton Minnow, FCC chairman many moons ago) once said “TV is a vast wasteland” and could apply that opinion to LA radio of any language. “”” Rant Over””””
And a song like that does not deserve to be off the countdown. It's a staple song to the 60's, just like Tequila is to the 50's. I'm not saying it should have been #1 (for all I know, any song making #1 on a KRTH countdown is a surprise or a let down), but top 100, yes. It's their biggest hit, it's in 1968 and it should have made the list Mr Hagerty.
There is no such thing as a "staple" song. There are songs that people want to hear today, songs they don't care about one way or another, and ones they don't like to hear.
If a particular song did not make their cutoff, then they don't play it. That part seems rather simple.
As to "Tequila" I simply can not find logic in saying that it is a "staple" song of the 50's. It's an instrumental, a borderline novelty tune, and far less representative of the '55-'59 period than things from Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, any of the many big doo wop groups, etc., etc. I'd rather hear "Short Shorts" than "Tequila" and that is saying a lot.
Maybe I should have called it a power song. In other words, a song that did very well in it's time, but it's still represented well on radio today, overall as a classic (on any station). As for "Short Shorts", please name a major FM in a major city that still plays the Royal Teens in 2013. "Tequila" represents the 50's well, due to it's sound, style, rock and roll nature, #1 instrumental status for 1958 and has stood the test of time on many stations to this day, including KRTH. Unfortunately that may change now, with Rick at the helm.
"Short Shorts" is a good song too, but unfortunately (as with 90% of the other classics out there) does not get airplay.
Last edited:
Deserve?
The only songs that deserve to be on the countdown are songs that were named by enough people as one of their three favorite songs to place in the top 500.
It's what I said to you months ago about Hot 100 chart numbers. It's a statistic, not an award.
They didn't ask people what they thought were the most important songs of the rock era, they asked them for their three personal favorite songs.
T
Thomps2525
Guest
On the KFWB Fabulous Forty for the week ending March 1 1958, Tequila debuted at #4, then went to number one the following week. Tequila and You Send Me are about the only songs of that era that are still getting played regularly on oldies stations in 2013. Who ever could have imagined that the Champs would outlast Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis?
Here is that 'good song," Short Shorts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcvjXAtzaMU
Here is that 'good song," Short Shorts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcvjXAtzaMU
To the artists involved, especially to those in the 50's and 60's, being #1 really meant something. Sure it's a statistic to the chart world, but an honor and an achievement to the artists. As for "Hey Jude", it deserves to be on the countdown, because it's such a good song musically from a turbulent time. It's the biggest song and most well-known song by the Beatles, besides "Yesterday", I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "Let It Be". But the voters chose and that's the way of the world.....
You're still missing the point.
If you ask people what their three favorite songs are, and plan to rank the 500 most-mentioned songs in order by number of votes, that's what you do.
To exercise an editorial judgement and say that a record that didn't get the votes "deserves" to be there would require you to displace a record that legitimately got a place on that list to include a record you consider important.
And importance wasn't the question.
My vote will have been skewed because I just read through this entire thread, but I thought about what I would pick if I would have voted on my 3 favorite "classic hits" songs. I realized that I immediately defaulted to my three favorite artists of the era and then picked my favorite songs of theirs and ended up with:
1. the Rolling Stones "Beast of Burden"
2. Elton John "Bennie and the Jets"
3. Michael Jackson "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough"
I'm a 32 year old male who never listens to KRTH because it seems stale to me. I know what I'm going to hear on classic hits and classic rock stations, so I primarily listen to contemporary music of all genres (my radio favorites are KPWR, KAMP, KIIS, KYSR, and KKGO). No "Hey Jude" or "Light My Fire", though. From a personal standpoint, I think the Beatles and the Doors are highly overrated. I thought of the groups/artists that best represented what I would listen to today if someone held a gun to my head and made me play old music (which is sort of what happened with my girlfriend's father on a boat a few weekends ago)
1. the Rolling Stones "Beast of Burden"
2. Elton John "Bennie and the Jets"
3. Michael Jackson "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough"
I'm a 32 year old male who never listens to KRTH because it seems stale to me. I know what I'm going to hear on classic hits and classic rock stations, so I primarily listen to contemporary music of all genres (my radio favorites are KPWR, KAMP, KIIS, KYSR, and KKGO). No "Hey Jude" or "Light My Fire", though. From a personal standpoint, I think the Beatles and the Doors are highly overrated. I thought of the groups/artists that best represented what I would listen to today if someone held a gun to my head and made me play old music (which is sort of what happened with my girlfriend's father on a boat a few weekends ago)
They are not overrated, they are just before your time. If you were 16 in 1968, you'd think diferently. Those groups have some of the best music ever produced in the 60's. It's not all about the 90's.
If he were 16 in 1968, he'd be 61 now and on the other wrong side of the demo.
Now, he should be listened to because he'll be aging in soon, but right now, doesn't find the format appealing.
- Status