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What happened to rock on the charts?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
It's now the foundation of Adult Hits. Those songs by Genesis, Bryan Adams, or Bon Jovi that were both rock songs and hit songs.
There was a time when rock stars made hit records. It was an evolution. It took a while. It took Bruce Springsteen five albums. The Grateful Dead had one Top 10 hit called Touch Of Grey. It was more of a record label thing than an artist thing. The labels wanted to recoup on their investment, and the only way at the time was to have a radio hit. Now it doesn't matter. Labels can recoup with 360 deals or with streaming royalties. So there's no motivation anymore.
That's not to say that college kids aren't playing some form of rock on their college stations now. They are. It's just not very commercial, which is why commercial radio hasn't embraced it. It gets back to the fact that these bands can make money without big hits, and the labels recoup in other ways.
Rock has really gone back to its roots. Underground. People still listen its just not mainstream anymore.
That's not true in all formats. It's only really a big problem in rock, because the music is so narrowly focused.
If you listen to country radio, they're breaking new music and new artists every week. That's because there's a close relationship between radio & records, in the way there was 30 years ago.
The problem is that most of streaming is still driven by hit songs which are getting played on the radio. If you want obscure music by obscure bands, the best place to find them is on the internet. But if you study streaming behavior the way I do, it's very similar to what you hear on commercial radio.
I can stream anything I want on Spotify. I never look at the top hits.
You and a handful of other people. The majority of Spotify users are streaming Harry Styles and Adele. The same stuff getting played on Z-100. Most people don't care about music, and just listen because their friends like it. It's a social thing. The percentage of "music fans" who seek out deep cuts is under 10%. It's been that way for generations.
I think a lot of kids hear a song on TikTok and search for it. This is how older songs get new life.
Parents are the ones who will shape what their kids get into. I think this is how 70s music has stayed relevant. Look at Fleetwood Mac.
Because there aren't current bands who can attract as large an audience. It starts with the music. The reason CHR played those bands is because those bands were attracting pop audiences. That doesn't happen now. Unless you're talking about BTS.
It doesn't seem like those are particularly "female" bands. It seems like the product today at least feels like almost all of it is aimed at a female audience, whereas some of those definitely have male appeal.
Because it is aimed at females now. The product has been aimed at females for a while now because of their buying habits versus males. And then there’s the ages, etc. All this talk of attracting males to the format is secondary theoretical discussion. Buyers want women because of how they spend. Men are tougher to draw in universally.
Example….it’s clear who the Bert Show and Elvis Duran are designed for. Just listen to the themes and nuance behind the content. Also, when your imaging features a woman delivering the station slogan in pseudo valley girl style that again tells you the core ‘aim’ is females.
Also it goes without saying but we the listener are the product that is sold. We are sold to businesses for them to advertise to. Women in the CHR age bracket’s are a great product according to businesses.
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I wonder why men seemed to be included a while back then (90s-00s)? Even Daughtry I think has some male fans as he is on rock stations.
Research, research, research. Just as sports analytics have advanced to the point that every coach or manager now takes no risks and has charts telling them exactly what play has the best chance of producing the desired result in any game situation, radio programming is now a much more exact science, backed up by cold, hard numbers, than it was 30 years ago. Women are easier to convince to buy than men, so most radio formats go after them specifically, and the recording industry supplies well-researched product that female-leaning radio will play.
I wonder what time this shift really occurred? I remember around 2009, Theory of a Deadman and Shinedown were still on the charts, and Daughtry and Nickelback were still making hits around 2010. Maybe around 2011-2015 the "shift" really occurred.
Thing is putting ‘Rock’ won’t just address the male issue. You gotta think hip-hop too. Men consume alot of hip hop music. CHR will do a certain amount of it but they are usually tracks that are universal or test well with women too.
CHR programmers love to have men if they get them but that’s not the core goal of the format now.
We have a winner! Yes. Men don't listen to as much rock as they used to. How do we know? Look at most of the rock stations. It's not the music that's getting the ratings, it's usually the heritage morning show. Get young men in a room and ask them what kind of music do they listen to (and I often do this), they'll say rap and hip-hop.
To the point where it's permeated the country genre. That's why you have rappers like Hardy or Jelly Roll in the country format. Country had a problem a few years ago that it had become a majority female format. As a result, few men were listening, and that loss of the men hurt country ratings. The format hasn't completely recovered, but adding rappers like Hardy, Jelly Roll, and Morgan Wallen to the format is adding some cred with the men. The men don't necessarily like the songs those guys have on the radio, but they at least stay in the room when their girlfriend or wife listen to country radio.
CHR has to figure out how to reconcile this love of rap by men with the love of the pop stuff by the women. We've been here before. In the 90s, you had the boy bands on one hand competing with the rap stars on the same chart. It sometimes led to confrontations at the MTV awards because they attract very different crowds. But clearly there's a problem with CHR right now, and it's NOT the lack of rock music. Because there aren't any current rock bands who can sell out stadiums like Harry Styles. But rap stars can.
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I'm surprised if some fans of rock like Nickelback or Daughtry fans would be rap fans. It seems like some men are more into more melodic stuff than something like Eminem. I'm more of a rock fan, but also a fan of EDM, which is most likely not on the radar of many today. (outside of a few songs which charted last year.)
I'm not hearing much melodic stuff when I'm at a red light next to a young man alone in his car with the windows down. What I'm hearing is the most basic rhythmic stuff with the most vile lyrics I've ever heard. And he wants everyone to know what he's listening to. It's not a secret. Eminem is way too tame.
@tall_guy1
Nickelback and Daughtry were huge with women. Thats why CHR played them. Same with any alternative rock or rock artists on CHR since the late 90's at least. Anything CHR mainstream has been women oriented first and foremost. I know I keep repeating myself but the format in its essence, has been and continues to be now more than ever about women.
I'm a 42-year old white guy in the midwest and I often listen to new or classic hip-hop. Yeah, I'm a rock fan too. and yes some pop. And its been this way since I was young. (I'm a music fan in general) If CHR Mainstream programmers really wanted me they could have drawn me in long ago.
Nickelback and Daughtry were huge with women. Thats why CHR played them. Same with any alternative rock or rock artists on CHR since the late 90's at least. Anything CHR mainstream has been women oriented first and foremost. I know I keep repeating myself but the format in its essence, has been and continues to be now more than ever about women.
I'm a 42-year old white guy in the midwest and I often listen to new or classic hip-hop. Yeah, I'm a rock fan too. and yes some pop. And its been this way since I was young. (I'm a music fan in general) If CHR Mainstream programmers really wanted me they could have drawn me in long ago.
I remember Rise above this by Seether charting in '08 and that song didn't seem female-skewing. Edit: looks like adult top 40 chart, but Mix in kc played it.
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