Came here to say this. I don’t think the OP understands that KRTH playing less “oldies” (I.e. anything from before the early 70s) and playing Christmas classics that arguably timeless and their target demo is familiar with is not mutually exclusive.
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KRTH playing "Feliz Navidad"
- Thread starter oldies76
- Start date
Caliente on SiriusXM does a countdown based on listener requests through social media, phone calls and e-mails. Within the same 10-song countdown were an alternate version of "Feliz Navidad" a children's chorus singing "El Burrito de Belen", and songs by Bad Bunny, Sech, Carlos Vivas/ Marc Anthony & Maluma. The only thing missing is a song in English! These songs will be heard side-by-side until January 6th.
I wouldn't expect a song in English on a station named Caliente.....
Christmas music season is off and running on our tiny NPR station, KSKO. Dec 1 @ 659am.
Don't Be Shy, Havana, and a few other Latin Hits are entirely in English and have been played regularly.
Good for you!!! Keep the ball rolling 🙂
Just as a note... while the original recording of El Burrito was sung by Simon Diaz, the La Rondallita version is the international standard that nearly everyone plays, and that was the choice of its very famous composer.
"Venezuelan composer Hugo Blanco wrote it in 1975. Blanco was a beloved songwriter known as El Maestro. He wrote many pieces, including a famous bolero called “Moliendo Cafe.” It was recorded in 1976 by a children’s group called La Rondallita. “Mi Burrito Sabanero” has simple and repetitive lyrics, like in most children’s songs. Venezuelan singer Simón Díaz first sang the song, but Blanco believed it would sound better sung by children. So he got in touch with the Coro Infantil of Venezuela and his director Raúl Cabrera, who arranged the song for a children’s chorus. Thus La Rondallita was born. "
Interesting fulls story: Do You Know the History of the Song ‘Mi Burrito Sabanero’?
I reviewed KRTH's playlist for this past week and I find no evidence of this song getting played. Perhaps you can share how you arrived at this conclusion. What day and time?
about 353am pacific time today is when it was last played
that matches this:
but the first link goes farther back then the second link
Thanks for that. I looked at Mediabase, but didn't notice it because of how many spins it received. This song was played 11 times just this past week. That's up from 3 spins the previous week. That appears to be the oldest Christmas song they're playing. It is tied with Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, and Band Aid, all getting 11 spins this week, among their Top 40 most-played songs.
SomeRadioGuy beat me to it, (I was at work) but I did see another airing on 11/28 at 3:01pm.
However, what we've seen is that this is the oldest Christmas song they're playing. It's from 1970.
I remember that Feliciano wanted the song played first back in Puerto Rico and so it was given to all the music stations on the same day. The first to ever play it was WUNO in San Juan.
You remind me that the fact that the song is a traditional Spanish Christmas song, sung partly in Spanish, makes this perfect for the LA market. I'm sure that had a part in the decision to play it.
Fun Fact: Jose was actually in LA when he recorded this song. Perhaps at the RCA Studios on Vine Street in Hollywood. Most of his US albums were recorded there, including his version of Light My Fire. Even more reason to play it.
Doing a little chart research, while the song was released in 1970, it actually didn't chart in Billboard until 1998, when it was re-released. I see it has re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 every year since 2017. So while it is a 50 year old song, the chart history is more recent.
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Interesting, as I did not know that. It was separately released in Puerto Rico and was part of the Christmas playlists of nearly every music station right from the start. At WUNO we got the song first, as my PD, Alfred Herger (Yes, a Puerto Rican name) had known Feliciano from the show he also did at WKAQ TV, "Teenager Matinee" (Yes, show name in English but not the content) which was a clone of the Dick Clark show with songs and live artists.
My guess is that the chart methodology at the time (because this was before BDS monitoring) didn't include holiday songs. I found this explanation under Billboard Holiday Charts in Wikipedia:
So this song wasn't in the regular Hot 100 until it was re-released in 1998, with BDS methodology. From what I can see, Joel Whitburn wrote a separate book about Holiday Songs.
I did not know or suspect that. Very interesting fact. Can you figure out when that changed (I resist believing Wikipedia, of course)?
There are so many of these "little facts" that influence our conclusions! Thanks for mentioning this one.
Since we're doing fun facts...Even though last Christmas by wham was released in december of 1984 it never got released commercially in this country until record store day as a 12 inch in November of 2014. It finally reached it peak on the billboard hot 100 it reached on January 4 2023 it peaked at number 3.
The article says 1973. Please Come Home for Christmas was released in 1978, and reached #15 in the AC chart. Wonderful Christmastime was released in 1980, and it charted in both Holiday and Hot 100. So with this song coming out in 1970, it fell into the chart black hole.
Feliz Navidad is #1 in this week's Billboard Holiday 100.
Amazing that a 1984 Christmas tune can peak at #3 nearly 40 years later. Brenda Lee (1958) has reached #2 a couple times recently as last year I believe, right behind Mariah Carey. Could you imagine the buzz if Brenda managed to oust Mariah out of the top spot? (unlikely)
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