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Hartford/New Haven We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel on 102.9 The Whale

MarcB said:
Spent some time listening to 102.9 the Whale yesterday. Was surprised they played "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. That song doesn't come to mind when I think of Classic Rock.

P.S. The song gets heavy air-play on their sister station 96.1 Kool Radio.
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Back in the day, Billy Joel was an artist who straddled the divide between rock and pop. While pop stations played singles like "Piano Man," and "Just the Way You Are,", rock stations would play songs like "Themes From an Italian Restaurant," and "Travelin' Prayer." It has only been over time with hard and classic rock's moving closer to heavy metal that the Billy Joel album tracks have been dropped from most classic rock playlists.
 
TheBigA said:
It is his highest charting song in mainstream rock:

We Didn't Start The Fire​

Billy Joel
10/14/89
6
10/28/89
8

www.billboard.com

Billy Joel | Biography, Music & News | Billboard

Billy Joel hasn't released an album of pop-rock music since 1993, and yet he remains popular enough to fill Madison Square Garden regularly. In his career, the "Piano Man" has amassed many top 10 h…
www.billboard.com www.billboard.com
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How about 'It's Still Rock N Roll' To Me' from 1980. A rockin' song about Rock music. I can see that being played on Classic Rock radio. It was #1 on the Hot 100 for 2 weeks.
 
These "Why does X station play X song" threads that have been answered again and again are really annoying. The answer is ALWAYS the same:

The song fits the format and is a consensus hit. It's called "broadcasting", not "We play ONLY what GetOffMyLawnAndLetMeBeTheMusicDirector on a message board thinks we shouldcasting".
 
As a guy that grew up when classic rock wasn't, it depends partly on the image the artist has.. By the time We Didn't Start The Fire and It's Still Rock And Roll To Me, Billy Joel was not the image. That image is hard to describe. The Eagles had the right image and yet landed so many mainstream hits, maybe because their albums had tracks worthy of album rock radio in the day (today's classic rock). Interesingly, album rock radio would play a song fairly heavily and a couple of months later, it's a top 40 single.

It doesn't matter the music category as long as the audience likes the song. It seems the target audience wants to hear these left field songs.
 
You're always going to have lots of overlap between classic hits and classic rock. I was surprised to see Ozzy Osbourne on The River. But everyone knows that song. Ultimately what characterizes a station is the mix and the presentation, not individual songs.
 
MarcB said:
Spent some time listening to 102.9 the Whale yesterday. Was surprised they played "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. That song doesn't come to mind when I think of Classic Rock.

P.S. The song gets heavy air-play on their sister station 96.1 Kool Radio.
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I'm pretty sure I heard WPLR New Haven playing that song back when I was still in Connecticut (pre-2022). Never seemed out of place to me.
 
Classic Rock in the northeast corridor has historically a bit more Billy Joel friendly. Assuming there is music testing involved in this decision. At this point the format is way more about individual songs, not artist image. And more about how each song is accepted by the target today, not how a song charted 40 years ago.
 
The Classic Rock format is big enough to go from pop-leaning to hard-edged, sometimes with both genres in the same market.

Pop leaning classic rock stations include outlets like WSRV Atlanta and WJGL Jacksonville that call themselves "Classic Hits." WAXQ New York, WDRV Chicago and WMGK Philadelphia also fall into the more pop-leaning side of the format. You'll hear, as mentioned above, Billy Joel, as well as Elton John, Hall & Oates, Doobie Brothers, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart and Bob Seger.

Then there are the "Classic Rock That Really Rocks" style stations that try to never play anything that might also get heard on AC and Classic Hits stations. KLOS Los Angeles and WEBN Cincinnati are in this group. Even the big artists who get frequently played on most Classic Rock stations are limited to their hardest-edged songs, such as Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles. You won't hear "Hold Me" or "New Kid in Town" on those stations.

In some markets where there are two Classic Rock stations, one of them goes hard-edged to contrast with the more mass-appeal competitor. iHeart put a Classic Rock station in Detroit to compete with veteran WCSX, owned by Beasley. But 106.7 WLLZ is more hard-edged, plenty of Ozzy, AC/DC, Zeppelin and Van Halen. In Denver, two Classic Rock stations always make the Top 10. Audacy's KQMT is more pop-leaning. iHeart's KRFX is a bit harder. I just checked the last hour on KRFX and I see Guns N Roses, Metalica, Mötley Crüe and Stone Temple Pilots. In the latest ratings, KQMT is #4 and KRFX is #5.
 
garfradio said:
Classic Rock in the northeast corridor has historically a bit more Billy Joel friendly.
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Joel, Springsteen and Aerosmith are the holy trinity of classic rock and classic hits formats all over the Northeast. Been that way for years. You can tell that SiriusXM is based in New York City and programmed largely by New Yorkers by the preponderance of those artists in its playlists. Springsteen has his own channel and Joel gets a pop-up channel every time he goes out on another tour or releases a new album. I don't think they've done an Aerosmith channel yet.

Every time SXM brings back the Billy Joel Channel "by popular request," the SXM Fans Facebook group explodes with complaints from subscribers in other parts of the country -- especially the South and Midwest -- who just don't get why Joel is considered such a superstar. Same goes for Springsteen, although a lot of the Bruce hate comes from listeners with right-wing political views.
 
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CTListener said:
Joel, Springsteen and Aerosmith are the holy trinity of classic rock and classic hits formats all over the Northeast. Been that way for years. You can tell that SiriusXM is based in New York City and programmed largely by New Yorkers by the preponderance of those artists in its playlists. Springsteen has his own channel and Joel gets a pop-up channel every time he goes out on another tour or releases a new album. I don't think they've done an Aerosmith channel yet.

Every time SXM brings back the Billy Joel Channel "by popular request," the SXM Fans Facebook group explodes with complaints from subscribers in other parts of the country -- especially the South and Midwest -- who just don't get why Joel is considered such a superstar. Same goes for Springsteen, although a lot of the Bruce hate comes from listeners with right-wing political views.
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Just curious why Billy Joel and Aerosmith do not play as well in the South and Midwest. Joel does quite well in most of Florida, but that could be the exception to the rule.
 
AM-FM-DXer said:
Just curious why Billy Joel and Aerosmith do not play as well in the South and Midwest. Joel does quite well in most of Florida, but that could be the exception to the rule.
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I don't know that they actually don't play well there. It's just an observation based on the locations of many of the complainers about SiriusXM's alleged East Coast music bias. I'm sure all of the artists have no trouble filling arenas anywhere in the country for one show, but their popularity seems to be highest close to home. Billy Joel sold out the Hartford Civic Center four straight nights in 2002. Could he have done that in Birmingham or Omaha?
 
CTListener said:
I don't know that they actually don't play well there. It's just an observation based on the locations of many of the complainers about SiriusXM's alleged East Coast music bias. I'm sure all of the artists have no trouble filling arenas anywhere in the country for one show, but their popularity seems to be highest close to home. Billy Joel sold out the Hartford Civic Center four straight nights in 2002. Could he have done that in Birmingham or Omaha?
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It's not quite four straight shows, but a Google search yielded this about Billy Joel in Birmingham, Alabama.

Billy Joel has played in Birmingham, Alabama, multiple times, starting in the 1970s. His performances there include:
  • 1974: A show at the Municipal Auditorium on October 19.
  • 1977: A concert at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex (BJCC) Concert Hall, around the time The Stranger album was released.
  • 1994: A stop on his River of Dreams tour at the BJCC Coliseum on February 6.
  • 2003: The kickoff of his "Face to Face" tour with Elton John at the BJCC Arena on February 21.
  • 2007: A solo show at the BJCC Arena on February 26.
 


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