What Killed Beautiful Music?

[davideduardo]

It's possible that the samples I saw at the time were not representative of the country as a whole but if that isn't true, where did young women go other than Top 40? These people were raising kids. The last thing I think they would want is more noise and repetition!

If we are talking about the 70's, there were several eras in that decade, including the creation of AC early on, the separation of Top 40 from Rock about the same time, the beginning of all-gold stations (as early as 1968 in DC with WMOD), the modernization of country with a wave of artists, many of whom crossed over, and the further progress of r&b after the initial Motown movement. And, of course, later in the decade, disco.

You can't assume that all women in the under-40 age listened to pop music. And you have to remember that "chicken rock" AC began early in the 70s and targeted, as a core, young housewives and working women. In fact, when I was at WERC in Birmingham in 1972 there were a bunch of use who talked regularly... we had a little network with folks like Bill Tanner at WJDX in Jackson, and we also watched the more gold driven ACs like WGAR in Cleveland with Lund doing the programming.

Also remember that early in the 70's Arbitron became the standard, and we saw agencies do more and more targeted adult buying and that meant making CHR more appealing to adult women and not teens. And that is the target of CHR even today.

So it wasn't just Top 40 and Beautiful music. It was a whole bunch of formats all looking for 18-34 women.

 

[Kelly A]

What killed off "beautiful music"?... was it a case of industry giants chasing the youth demographic? Or did ratings go into a secular decline as the audience simply aged and died out?

Time and taste.

 

[b-turner]

I actually learned something! Snooky Lanson was a name mentioned by my Dad. He met her a number of times when he worked at a country club in Nashville and he said she was quite nice and actually remembered his name. He would have been early 20s then. He mentioned her as this big star but I had never heard of her and assumed perhaps she was a Nashville or regional star. He mentioned "Your Hit Parade". I just never got enough details.

 

[b-turner]

Kelly A's statement says it all. Tastes changed. Time changed making the format less current.

From the tastes department, my parents listened to the full service AM MOR stations in the car. They always had two or three they preferred. At home it was beautiful music during dinner and when the TV was not the focal point. Sometimes in the car if an AM played beautiful music, it would be the choice for in the car.

When beautiful music stations changed format, the AM MOR stations were long gone. My Dad went for country. I had never known him to ever listen to country music but he knew the artists and he knew who he liked.

Years later my parents move to Texas and I visit. It had been a good number of years since little more than a few hours on a holiday was permitted by my employer, but this time I was visiting for a week. My Dad and I jump in the car. The radio is tuned to what was a short-lived format called "Memories" playing 1960s and 1970s pop hits from top 40 radio. I'm hearing all these songs and naming them off within a couple of seconds and my Dad is looking puzzled. He asks 'How do you know these songs?". I told him these were the very same songs I was playing when I got in to radio...the very stuff you said 'made you nervous' and was too loud. This was followed by questions about if I knew certain artists like Bob Seger, Barry White and a few others.

The point of this post: My dad was a hardcore fan of beautiful music. When those stations were around, he'd choose that format over any other format on the dial. For grins, I had a few of Beautiful music LPs and cobbled a CD worth of music for him to listen to in the car. He said he really appreciated it but he would be scared to play it in the car for fear of him falling asleep behind the wheel. Then he said it sounds so old (a comment made at about age 75). I made him a CD of Bluegrass he much preferred

 

[davideduardo]

I actually learned something! Snooky Lanson was a name mentioned by my Dad. He met her a number of times when he worked at a country club in Nashville and he said she was quite nice and actually remembered his name. He would have been early 20s then. He mentioned her as this big star but I had never heard of her and assumed perhaps she was a Nashville or regional star. He mentioned "Your Hit Parade". I just never got enough details.

One problem... Snooky was a guy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snooky_Lanson

 

[b-turner]

Okay. Now I'm clueless on who the woman named something like Snooky L was. He said the woman was nationally known. He knew people from WSM, so maybe it was a WSM employee?

 

[michael hagerty]

It's possible that the samples I saw at the time were not representative of the country as a whole but if that isn't true, where did young women go other than Top 40? These people were raising kids. The last thing I think they would want is more noise and repetition!

My first response is to quote Larry Lujack in the mid-late 70s on the Tomorrow show with Tom Snyder, who said "Them housewives like them screamin' guitars while they're moppin' them floors, Tom."

My second is that, in general, women stick with listening to current hit music longer than men do. Most guys give up by their early 30s. 40-year-old women listening to CHR is not uncommon. In fact, that's the backbone of what Guy Zapolean calls the "Mother-Daughter Coalition", a part of his hit cycle where moms and daughters can listen to the same radio station because it's not in the doldrums or at an extreme.

Let's also remember that repetition is cured for most listeners by listening to more than one radio station and by not paying terribly close attention to when the last time a song was played (within reason).

But let's look at actual numbers. To get to demographics showing 18-34 women, I had to move up to the Fall 1983 Aribtron. Again, we'll stick with San Diego. KJQY was still number one overall (12+) with an 8.7.

Here are the ten highest-ranking stations among 18-34 women in that book.

1. KFMB-FM (AC)
2. KBZT-FM (AC)
3. KGB-FM (AOR)
4. KYXY-FM (AC)
5. XTRA-FM (Modern Rock)
6. KSDO-FM (CHR)
7. XHRM-FM (Urban)
8. KIFM-FM (AC with smooth jazz at night)
9. XTRA-AM (CHR---"The Mighty 690")
10. KPRI-FM (AOR)

So the answer as to where young women went other than Top 40 was AC---which at the time in San Diego was largely a softer Top 40, apart from KYXY, which I think might have been trying out the "Continuous Soft Hits" approach, and KIFM, which sprinkled some smooth jazz into its daytime rotation and was "Lights Out Jazz" at night---AOR, Modern Rock and Urban.

 

[gr8oldies]

Then you had stations like WOWO, which played top 40, including the Beatles and Stones, even The Doors and Jefferson Airplane, while still doing news/weather/farm/sports. etc. Folks still listened, and the one time they tried to mellow out, ratings tanked.
Seems most markets in the early 70s had a "Hit Parade" or "Solid Gold" (which still played currents) on FM, and that was targeted older than top 40.

 

[kevtronics]

A sample from one of the last holdouts, 95.9 WADB in Point Pleasant, NJ, who was EZ/BM until August 1996:

 

[Mikey Radio]

http://www.jibontheweb.com/

"JIB on the Web" is a re-creation of what was once one of the USA's premiere radio stations playing Beautiful Music (Easy Listening). Serving the greater Boston, Massachusetts market, 'JIB enjoyed more than two decades of audience and advertiser appeal following its sign-on in 1967. Now, it's back...playing carefully selected and programmed lush, orchestral arrangements of familiar standards and contemporary favorites along with an occasional solo or group vocal. To add to the authenticity, you'll hear the voices of former FM-97 announcers, and the actual bell of "Old Ironsides" rings at the top of every hour.

It's truly a glorious step back in radio history and the way Beautiful Music should be heard.

 

[Hoxie]

You guys have been making some great points. Much appreciated!

I wonder if another factor in the death of Beautiful Music was simply the evolution of the sound. I've been diving into that music these last few months, and it seems to me that BM meant different things in different periods:

1960s: Mantovani, Jackie Gleason, Lawrence Welk doing songs of the Gershwin-Cole Porter era
1970s: instrumental covers of pop standards of the Top 40 era (Beatles, Dionne Warwick, etc.)
1980s: orchestral covers of contemporary middle-of-the-road hits

I've been listening to JibOnTheWeb, an online station recreating Boston's WJIB, their local Beautiful Music station of the '60s-'80s. It plays the music of all these eras, but I find that a lot of the stuff from the 1980s just isn't that melodic; covers of Air Supply songs will get by, but the instrumental covers of George Michael hits don't quite work.

So I can well imagine the 50-somethings and 60-somethings in the Beautiful Music audience beginning to tune out in the late 1980s. I've been there myself--- I loved KOGO's Adult Contemporary in the 1970s, but by 1982 the current stuff bored me. Listening to 91X was literally the highlight of my day in 1987, but five years later the new grunge sound had driven me away to talk radio.

I'm getting a better idea of why a once-popular format like Beautiful Music went away. But I'm still sorry it's gone. I bet a lot of grannies were dismayed, by 1990, to find their lush instrumentals replaced with Michael Bolton.

 

[TomásEstefan]

Even my parents, back in the day, thought the "Beautiful Music " format should be heard only in elevators if that. They may have been an exception, but they thought "Beautiful Music" was very "sappy". They really didn't like "my" music but they understood why I liked it. They preferred Big Band/Standards/Vocals and some Jazz as well as Classical Music and couldn't understand why instrumentalists would cover current Top40 Music. I didn't either: why not just listen to the original recordings?

 

[michael hagerty]

Even my parents, back in the day, thought the "Beautiful Music " format should be heard only in elevators if that. They may have been an exception, but they thought "Beautiful Music" was very "sappy". They really didn't like "my" music but they understood why I liked it. They preferred Big Band/Standards/Vocals and some Jazz as well as Classical Music and couldn't understand why instrumentalists would cover current Top40 Music. I didn't either: why not just listen to the original recordings?

Totally in generalities:

People prior to rock and roll were less into lyrics than into melody. That's part of why instrumentals were much more of a thing prior to rock and roll. They liked "the tune". And since popular artists of that time were largely people who didn't write their own material, but interpreted that of others, it didn't seem odd to want to hear someone else that you liked do a song a different artist made popular.

This was very common in the World War II and immediate postwar years---you'd have songs that were a hit both as instrumentals and vocals. And it lasted into the 60s and 70s, though not at the same level. For example:

Theme from Love Story: Andy Williams' vocal peaked at #9, Francis Lai's instrumental at #31.

Mrs. Robinson: Simon and Garfunkel vocal #1 in 1968, Booker T. and the M.G.s instrumental the following year at #37.

And the reverse---Grazing in the Grass: Hugh Masakela instrumental #1 in 1968, the Friends of Distinction vocal the following year at #3.

 

[Hoxie]

Even my parents, back in the day, thought the "Beautiful Music " format should be heard only in elevators if that. They may have been an exception, but they thought "Beautiful Music" was very "sappy". They really didn't like "my" music but they understood why I liked it. They preferred Big Band/Standards/Vocals and some Jazz as well as Classical Music and couldn't understand why instrumentalists would cover current Top40 Music. I didn't either: why not just listen to the original recordings?

I used to feel the same way about Beautiful Music. I'm sure it would have bored me back in K-JOY's glory days, had I even bothered to check it out back then.

But more recently I got intrigued with it somehow, and after spending some time with it, I've come to enjoy it, and to see it as a different musical animal from everything else on the dial. When you take a popular song, strip off the vocals, the percussion and the slick studio production, and maybe add a lot of strings, what you're left with is pure melody.

If it's a nice melody, the BM treatment can enhance the song. There are Elton John and Bee Gees hits that don't really interest me, yet I've heard BM covers of those same songs and have been able to enjoy them better than I do the originals.

It also helps if you're 50+. A lot of us, past a certain age, are more interested in musical serenity than in musical stimulation.

 

[semoochie]

One problem... Snooky was a guy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snooky_Lanson

He had me going there for awhile. I thought I had it wrong for the last 60 years!

My first response is to quote Larry Lujack in the mid-late 70s on the Tomorrow show with Tom Snyder, who said "Them housewives like them screamin' guitars while they're moppin' them floors, Tom."

My second is that, in general, women stick with listening to current hit music longer than men do. Most guys give up by their early 30s. 40-year-old women listening to CHR is not uncommon. In fact, that's the backbone of what Guy Zapolean calls the "Mother-Daughter Coalition", a part of his hit cycle where moms and daughters can listen to the same radio station because it's not in the doldrums or at an extreme.

Let's also remember that repetition is cured for most listeners by listening to more than one radio station and by not paying terribly close attention to when the last time a song was played (within reason).

But let's look at actual numbers. To get to demographics showing 18-34 women, I had to move up to the Fall 1983 Aribtron. Again, we'll stick with San Diego. KJQY was still number one overall (12+) with an 8.7.

Here are the ten highest-ranking stations among 18-34 women in that book.

1. KFMB-FM (AC)
2. KBZT-FM (AC)
3. KGB-FM (AOR)
4. KYXY-FM (AC)
5. XTRA-FM (Modern Rock)
6. KSDO-FM (CHR)
7. XHRM-FM (Urban)
8. KIFM-FM (AC with smooth jazz at night)
9. XTRA-AM (CHR---"The Mighty 690")
10. KPRI-FM (AOR)

So the answer as to where young women went other than Top 40 was AC---which at the time in San Diego was largely a softer Top 40, apart from KYXY, which I think might have been trying out the "Continuous Soft Hits" approach, and KIFM, which sprinkled some smooth jazz into its daytime rotation and was "Lights Out Jazz" at night---AOR, Modern Rock and Urban.

OK, at no time did I say that 18-34 Women were the mainstay of Beautiful Music. I said they were the lower end and without them, it was just a matter of time before the format would age out. It would probably be gone by now because the previous seemingly eternal concept of soft music being linked to romanticism is gone but it might have gotten another 15 years, if not for the existence of AC.

 

[KilowattKat]

Seems a lot of Beautiful Music stations morphed into soft A/C. WHIO-FM, Dayton (not the current News/Talk WHIO-FM, which was WPTW-FM, also Beautiful Music) was heading that direction, but found a hole for FM country a mile wide in 1989 and flipped. The book at the end was still very respectable but 55 plus. In many markets, a rimshot picked up the BM format, sometimes even the calls, but usually that didn't last.

Or Beautiful Music was moved over to a co-owned AM. For example KMEO-AM Phoenix, and KCTC-AM Sacramento. But that also didn't last long. Poor reception in doctor and dentist offices, as well as office buildings due to their electrical equipment, was a factor

 

[michael hagerty]

He had me going there for awhile. I thought I had it wrong for the last 60 years!

OK, at no time did I say that 18-34 Women were the mainstay of Beautiful Music. I said they were the lower end and without them, it was just a matter of time before the format would age out. It would probably be gone by now because the previous seemingly eternal concept of soft music being linked to romanticism is gone but it might have gotten another 15 years, if not for the existence of AC.

Semoochie: Here's what you said:

It had solid ratings with Women 18-34 but AC took away all of that!

It didn't have solid ratings with women 18-34. And AC didn't take away "all of that" because there wasn't "all of that" to take. 89.1% of KJQY's audience in 1980---two years before Jhani Kaye softened AC---was 35+, and that was divided 43.9% 35-54 and 45.2% 55+.

And it didn't---because they weren't there in significant numbers---but IF AC had taken them away, that just means, given a choice, they'd rather listen to something other than Beautiful Music.

Again---NAC/Smooth Jazz---that ate the 35-54 chunk of Beautiful's listenership. Because, ultimately, Beautiful was too old for them, too, but they didn't have an acceptable alternative until The Wave and its clones.

And yes, absolutely, it would be gone now. A 35-year-old in 1980 is 77 today. 55+ then is 97+ today. And it had insignificant numbers under 35. Same thing happened to Smooth Jazz. It never figured out how to expand its appeal and the core audience for it today is 70+.

 

[michael hagerty]

Or Beautiful Music was moved over to a co-owned AM. For example KMEO-AM Phoenix...

KMEO-AM wasn't a case of a format being moved. It signed on in 1967 as a simulcast of the FM. It did a year on its own after the FM flipped to AC in 1991, but Bonneville was just treading water, knowing a daytime-only AM (it protects KCBS, San Francisco) was never going to succeed with the format. They became one of the original Radio AAHS kid's format stations as soon as it was available for syndication a year or so later, and ultimately sold the signal to Radio AAHS.

 

[KilowattKat]

KMEO-AM wasn't a case of a format being moved. It signed on in 1967 as a simulcast of the FM. It did a year on its own after the FM flipped to AC in 1991, but Bonneville was just treading water, knowing a daytime-only AM (it protects KCBS, San Francisco) was never going to succeed with the format. They became one of the original Radio AAHS kid's format stations as soon as it was available for syndication, and ultimately sold the signal to Radio AAHS.

Actually KMEO-AM was 24 hours at the time it was carrying the only torch left in the valley for Beautiful Music (292 watts at night). But not strong enough to cover the metro area, which is very spread out. Also, KMEO would dog fight with KCBS at night. That KCBS signal at night is spectacular.

After KMEO was gone from AM, 93.7 FM in Wickenburg picked up the calls and format for awhile. But their signal barely covered the NW portion of the valley. They eventually flipped to a New Age music format that strayed too far from NAC. That too was a failure. That station is now KSWG 96.3 after two frequency moves

 

[KilowattKat]

Not to nitpick, but KMEO-FM became KPSN Sunny 97 with a mostly 60's Oldies format to compete with KOOL-FM, not AC.