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Rock music popularity

This absolutely is a thing in the Hampton Roads market! Prior to 4/20 there were ads for smoke/vape shops that sold glass and CBD oil. Now there are commercials for businesses that sell kits so that you can have your first "crop" in as little as 90 days! And to make it even more convincing, the spot has a reggae-like music bed!
My city's council has decided that we'll have three marijuana dispensaries. The first application being considered is downtown, just a few doors down from Mr. Bentley's, a Jamaican restaurant! Stereotyping is alive and well.
 
My city's council has decided that we'll have three marijuana dispensaries. The first application being considered is downtown, just a few doors down from Mr. Bentley's, a Jamaican restaurant! Stereotyping is alive and well.
What so many self-righteous prudes forget is that there are many people who use marijuana for medical reasons. Folkks undergoing chemo, people with chronic and inoperable pain and arthritis and even those recovering from some kinds of surgery.

The dispensaries should be located in safe areas that are accessible to such people.

No, I am not a smoker, a toker or a midnight joker... but where it's legal it should not be stereotyped or restricted to areas many people would feel uncomfortable in.

Here in the Palm Springs area, we have "El Paseo" which is very much like Rodeo Drive. A pot shop opened recently called The Leaf and it is as elegant as any on that exclusive roadway.

 
Never smoked a single thing, pot, tobacco or otherwise and barring something medical that would change my situation (and if there were not another way to obtain the desired medical benefits), never plan to.

The attempts to stigmatize dispensaries when the officials can't outright ban them, is just sad. I have a lot of issues with recreational legalization. I have a dear friend in a near fatal car crash who will never be free from pain or live anything close to a normal life again because of a high driver who plowed into the car head on. Rational or not, that gives me a lot of heartburn about going further down the road than medicinal. But here we are. So let's not try to make it harder on people who need something to help them while dealing with a serious medical issue.
 
What so many self-righteous prudes forget is that there are many people who use marijuana for medical reasons. Folkks undergoing chemo, people with chronic and inoperable pain and arthritis and even those recovering from some kinds of surgery.

The dispensaries should be located in safe areas that are accessible to such people.

No, I am not a smoker, a toker or a midnight joker... but where it's legal it should not be stereotyped or restricted to areas many people would feel uncomfortable in.
One of the neighboring suburbs has already barred any marijuana-related business from locating there -- did it within a week of the state legalizing recreational use. Another is probably going to do the same thing before long. Medical marijuana has been legal for years in Connecticut and there is already a dispensary for that in this city. What are being considered now are retail outlets for recreational marijuana. There are several medical marijuana dispensaries in non-urban communities, and they seem to work well. But the suburban NIMBYs will never accept retail recreational pot.
 
HAS faded. Quality rock music died sometime in the mid-80's.
Absolutely NOT true. There are numerous Rock artists that have made great records in the past 30 years. They just don't get on Radio Playlists. Radio exists in a vacuum.
Music lovers stopped using Radio for this reason. It's a wasteland of Zeppelin and "Freebird".

Many artists have huge followings. Dave Matthews Band are just one that get virtually no Radio airplay and sell out concerts. There are many other artists that have large crowds. There is a world of great music that Radio ignores. People find it in other ways. It's no wonder that Radio has no future. They are stuck in the past...
 
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It's no wonder that Radio has no future. They are stuck in the past...
I'd agree playing 80s to today. IMO, Radio needs to feature the newer "hip" stuff that kids like these days. Bedroom pop and some rap songs. Kids don't want to wait 2-3 days for the song to make it on the radio when they can pull it up on Spotify the second the song is released.
 
The thing we are forgetting is there are two types of music listeners. The vast minority is like me. I want to expand my musical horizons hearing new material and deeper tracks. The number in younger demos is greater, mostly under 25. Radio really didn't serve my tastes that well years and years ago.

Most music listeners want only familiar songs they know and like. They could care less if they are new or the same songs they have heard for decades.

For the most part, some music lovers like myself are also okay with the same, as stated so often, old tired songs radio plays. Even when it comes to new artists and songs, it is so difficult to find consensus on new material it often turns off more people than it turns on.

I have come to understand, since early in my career, radio is about reaching the greatest number of people. Nothing says that like programming a small town top 40 in a young community where the buying decisions are made by those who are not a part of what was the current top 40 hits. My boss said my job was to lower resistance to advertisers and still keep the young demos listening. Thus, I had to center on music the under 30 crowd liked but the 40+ crowd could at least accept. That's much more difficult to do with today's unconnected musical styles. Back then I could be more AC during the day and get by. If I went with the top 40 at the time the potential client frequently wouldn't advertise because everyone they knew didn't like the music. They didn't believe it was a good investment for their ad dollars.
 
It’s interesting to read the reliable passion for two particular umbrella formats on these boards: rock and classic hits.
 
It’s interesting to read the reliable passion for two particular umbrella formats on these boards: rock and classic hits.
I suspect the dominant demographic here is white/male/over 35. The younger part of that demo is the one that remembers the "golden age" of alt/modern rock, such as it was, the most fondly. The older part has a similar attachment to the music of their younger years, the album rock of either AOR or -- for the real geezers -- progressive/freeform radio. Both groups let their personal biases color the reality of what they're hearing today and how to "improve" it.

Those realities for the alt/moderns being: (a) Rock is dying in the demographic it needs to be strongest in order to thrive, teens and 20s, and (b) canning "show killer" program directors and playing a bunch of angry, loud guitar bands is much more likely to kill what now is presented as rock on radio than return it to its 1990s peak.

The realities the classic hits fans miss are (a) freeform radio may be a fond memory, but it took Lee Abrams and tighter, more focused playlists to make FM rock radio really take off; and (b) classic rock stations do far better as concentrated versions of AOR, cherry-picking top tracks from at least three decades of rock, than as on-air museums of rock and rock-ish music of those three decades featuring well over 1,200 titles and minimal repetition.

UPDATE: Just noticed that the OP wrote classic HITS and not classic ROCK. Same observations apply, unwillingness to accept classic hits radio as a "best of", cherry-picked selection of top-testing singles of the '70s, '80s and '90s rather than a museum of popular music. The 1,200-title fantasy is even more far-fetched for this group, since there never was a "deep Top 40" format when those hits were current, nor was there a true "deep oldies" format when oldies radio emerged. Some early PDs and MDs were swimming in the dark and just loading the playlist with "forgotten 45s," regardless of whether listeners actually wanted to hear them again.
 
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There is a world of great music that Radio ignores.

That's because radio is not in the music business. It plays music that attracts an audience that it can sell.

If radio stations could get a sellable audience by playing unknown music by unknown bands, they' do it.

Otherwise they're very happy to let people seek out their personal favorites elsewhere.

There are some rock stations experimenting with their playlists, shifting around familiar anthems with unknown bands, and so far, they're not having a lot of success.

Dave Matthews Band are just one that get virtually no Radio airplay

It depends what radio stations you're talking about. Dave ceased being a rock artist 20 years ago. His last big hit was "The Space Between." That song was cross genre pop and rock. The last 20 years, his music has been getting airplay, and has a string of #1s on AAA stations. Some of that is because of the instrumentation. He's taking longer solos, and so has the band, so it's less commercial. Of course most of the AAA stations are non-commercial, so that limits his exposure. But truthfully he doesn't need exposure any more. He's a heritage artist with a bank of hit songs that fund his lifestyle and allows him to focus on making the music he wants, rather than making radio hits.
 
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Dave Matthews Band are just one that get virtually no Radio airplay and sell out concerts. There are many other artists that have large crowds. There is a world of great music that Radio ignores. People find it in other ways. It's no wonder that Radio has no future. They are stuck in the past...
There is a common misconception that an artist that fills a 3,000 to 5,000 seat smaller venue in a market that might have a population of several million has mass appeal music that should all be played on the radio.

Example: the country stations in Houston have each cumed around 1,000,000 in recent years. Lesser artists, perhaps from a decade or two back who still remain active on "the circuit" can fill a showroom. In fact, many of the legal gaming facilities around the country live off of the traffic this type of show provides. So unless Mary Chapin Carpenter or Jo Dee Messina have produced some recent songs with mass appeal, they are not going on the radio.

But the ability of an artist who was big two decades ago to energize a radio station that needs a million regular listeners is, well, minimal.
 
So unless Mary Chapin Carpenter or Jo Dee Messina have produced some recent songs with mass appeal, they are not going on the radio.

Not on a radio station that mostly plays currents. However both get airplay for their past hits on classic country stations.

BTW both have been releasing new music. MCC just put an album out that's mostly folk and AAA. JoDee is doing Christian.

Because of her fame from the 90s, MCC was the subject of a PBS TV special this past weekend:


Most of the songs were unfamiliar, but I imagine it had an appeal for the PBS wine & cheese crowd.
 
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There is a common misconception that an artist that fills a 3,000 to 5,000 seat smaller venue in a market that might have a population of several million has mass appeal music that should all be played on the radio.

Example: the country stations in Houston have each cumed around 1,000,000 in recent years. Lesser artists, perhaps from a decade or two back who still remain active on "the circuit" can fill a showroom. In fact, many of the legal gaming facilities around the country live off of the traffic this type of show provides. So unless Mary Chapin Carpenter or Jo Dee Messina have produced some recent songs with mass appeal, they are not going on the radio.

But the ability of an artist who was big two decades ago to energize a radio station that needs a million regular listeners is, well, minimal.
You obviously are out of touch. Dave Matthews Band fills 30,000 seat venues and larger festivals (pre COVID).

The bottom line is that most Rock formats are not likely to see growth. Most people stopped listening long ago. They have their base and that's all. Classic Rock artists are now literally dying. It's hard to tour when your band members have all passed on...
 
That's because radio is not in the music business. It plays music that attracts an audience that it can sell.

If radio stations could get a sellable audience by playing unknown music by unknown bands, they' do it.

Otherwise they're very happy to let people seek out their personal favorites elsewhere.

There are some rock stations experimenting with their playlists, shifting around familiar anthems with unknown bands, and so far, they're not having a lot of success.



It depends what radio stations you're talking about. Dave ceased being a rock artist 20 years ago. His last big hit was "The Space Between." That song was cross genre pop and rock. The last 20 years, his music has been getting airplay, and has a string of #1s on AAA stations. Some of that is because of the instrumentation. He's taking longer solos, and so has the band, so it's less commercial. Of course most of the AAA stations are non-commercial, so that limits his exposure. But truthfully he doesn't need exposure any more. He's a heritage artist with a bank of hit songs that fund his lifestyle and allows him to focus on making the music he wants, rather than making radio hits.
You obviously haven't heard a DMB album lately. Plenty of the songs are in the 3 to 4 minute range. Live versions of songs always differ from the studio ones. Anyway, he is just one example. You are correct that he does not need Radio...
 
Not on a radio station that mostly plays currents. However both get airplay for their past hits on classic country stations.

BTW both have been releasing new music. MCC just put an album out that's mostly folk and AAA. JoDee is doing Christian.

Because of her fame from the 90s, MCC was the subject of a PBS TV special this past weekend:


Most of the songs were unfamiliar, but I imagine it had an appeal for the PBS wine & cheese crowd.
And Kathy Mattea was just named permanent host of Mountain Stage. She has continued to tour long after her hit-making days, but when she releases albums, they're an eclectic blend of folk, blues, gospel, Celtic and just a bit of country, which means she won't be getting any country airplay.

Of course, like MCC and Jo Dee, she is likely too old to interest country radio.
 
You obviously are out of touch. Dave Matthews Band fills 30,000 seat venues and larger festivals (pre COVID).
I was generalizing As should have been obvious by my examples. For every large venue attraction, there are dozens of artists that play smaller ones, clubs and casino showrooms my point is that filling a venue with a few thousand people is not the same as running a station that may have to cume 10% or more of a market.
The bottom line is that most Rock formats are not likely to see growth. Most people stopped listening long ago. They have their base and that's all. Classic Rock artists are now literally dying. It's hard to tour when your band members have all passed on...
Rock lost its appeal to youth going back as far as the 80s with the fragmentation within and the growth of rhythmic genres that appealed to younger demos.
 
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