Why are big hits "lost?"

[michael hagerty]

I stand corrected, never post at night after a long day when the brain is trying to recall things from 50 years ago....

It's been a lotta years and a lotta songs...

 

[anotherguyTN]

Working in Lowe's and Walmart stores in recent years I've heard songs that were never big hits played continually in their mix. One example is Jackie Wilson Said by Van Morrison. I don't remember hearing that before and didn't even know what it was until I found out on a sound search on Google. According to Wikipedia it made it to no. 61 on Billboard, and I don't remember hearing it on top 40 radio in the 70's. But it gets played on a regular basis in both stores.

 

[gr8oldies]

Working in Lowe's and Walmart stores in recent years I've heard songs that were never big hits played continually in their mix. One example is Jackie Wilson Said by Van Morrison. I don't remember hearing that before and didn't even know what it was until I found out what it was on a sound search on Google. According to Wilipedia it made it to no. 61 on Billboard, and I don't remember hearing it on top 40 radio in the 70's. But it gets played on a regular basis in both stores.

Muzak's "FM1" (in this case meaning not the FM broadcast band but "Foreground Music", has been known to play any number of lesser hits, and I don't know the reasoning. Of course is not to have music geeks wandering around the store all day. I was a captive audience for that format 8 hours a day in the late 00s, and got to know some of the non-hits, album cuts and former hits that never progressed to gold libraries.

 

[michael hagerty]

Working in Lowe's and Walmart stores in recent years I've heard songs that were never big hits played continually in their mix. One example is Jackie Wilson Said by Van Morrison. I don't remember hearing that before and didn't even know what it was until I found out on a sound search on Google. According to Wikipedia it made it to no. 61 on Billboard, and I don't remember hearing it on top 40 radio in the 70's. But it gets played on a regular basis in both stores.

In-store play is its own thing. Ratings and advertising revenue aren't at stake, so it doesn't matter if the songs are recognizable. Quite often, retail outlets or restaurants simply go for a tempo they want to maintain---one conducive to whatever they're trying to get customers to do (slow down, speed up)---and they often simply use an algorithm to choose the songs from a library and sequence them.

The upside to unfamiliar songs in retail/restaurant environments---customers are less likely to be distracted by the music and most don't have a negative opinion of songs they've never heard before---at least not at the level of hearing the first four bars of a song you know you hate.

That said, I love "Jackie Wilson Said", and played it on the radio. It stiffed as a single, but anyone who was listening to album rock stations when the ST. DOMINIC'S PREVIEW album came out in 1972 knows it.

 

[TheBigA]

Working in Lowe's and Walmart stores in recent years I've heard songs that were never big hits played continually in their mix.

There was a time when those stores had a national in-store system that was planned and purposeful. WalMart's system tied in with Anderson Merchandisers, the company that serviced their music departments. When they featured an exclusive album, it was played in the stores. These days, I suspect the music is someone's iPod or mp3 player rather than a company co-ordinated system.

 

[gr8oldies]

In-store play is its own thing. Ratings and advertising revenue aren't at stake, so it doesn't matter if the songs are recognizable. Quite often, retail outlets or restaurants simply go for a tempo they want to maintain---one conducive to whatever they're trying to get customers to do (slow down, speed up)---and they often simply use an algorithm to choose the songs from a library and sequence them.

The upside to unfamiliar songs in retail/restaurant environments---customers are less likely to be distracted by the music and most don't have a negative opinion of songs they've never heard before---at least not at the level of hearing the first four bars of a song you know you hate.

That said, I love "Jackie Wilson Said", and played it on the radio. It stiffed as a single, but anyone who was listening to album rock stations when the ST. DOMINIC'S PREVIEW album came out in 1972 knows it.

I don't know why I even remember this from years ago. I stopped for dinner around 5:30pm on a Friday and hear Glenn Frey's "I Got Mine". Despite the theme of Glenn Frey's intentions, I've got to think that was strategically programmed for payday, and for someone to subconciously think "I've got mine, let's buy the bigger steak".

 

[michael hagerty]

There was a time when those stores had a national in-store system that was planned and purposeful. WalMart's system tied in with Anderson Merchandisers, the company that serviced their music departments. When they featured an exclusive album, it was played in the stores. These days, I suspect the music is someone's iPod or mp3 player rather than a company co-ordinated system.

In a non-corporate store, maybe. Something on the scale of a Walmart is either outsourcing to a company like Muzak or doing its own.

 

[TheBigA]

In a non-corporate store, maybe. Something on the scale of a Walmart is either outsourcing to a company like Muzak or doing its own.

As I said, at one time that was a priority. They saw it as a way of selling product. Corporate did it in house and fed it nationally. Using Muzak costs money. A lot of stores now have no music at all. Just the sound of shuffling feet.

 

[gr8oldies]

There was a time when those stores had a national in-store system that was planned and purposeful. WalMart's system tied in with Anderson Merchandisers, the company that serviced their music departments. When they featured an exclusive album, it was played in the stores. These days, I suspect the music is someone's iPod or mp3 player rather than a company co-ordinated system.

Walmart has "Wal-Mart Radio" with actual DJs these days. Here's the schedule. WMW Radio

 

[TheBigA]

Walmart has "Wal-Mart Radio" with actual DJs these days. Here's the schedule. WMW Radio

As I said, I haven't heard any music lately. Maybe the local stores didn't get the memo.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Yeah, no one at a major national chain is going to be permitting their stores to run a Spotify list Jimmy from Housewares concocted. 😉🤣

I have no idea how Target does theirs for instance, but every store I go into has the same “texture” for want of a better term. Whether I’m hearing the same songs I do t pay close enough attention to to recall. But it’s clearly of one design.

I remember Walmart Radio being featured in an article some years ago, and hearing it noticeably in our local store. Not just music but foreground personality, at least then.

The worst was my college job at a Kmart (remember them?), with one damn cassette sent by corporate that played for some ungodly number of weeks. I was just part time and it was repetitive enough to make me want to stuff something in my ears to make it stop.

 

[gr8oldies]

Yeah, no one at a major national chain is going to be permitting their stores to run a Spotify list Jimmy from Housewares concocted. 😉🤣

I have no idea how Target does theirs for instance, but every store I go into has the same “texture” for want of a better term. Whether I’m hearing the same songs I do t pay close enough attention to to recall. But it’s clearly of one design.

I remember Walmart Radio being featured in an article some years ago, and hearing it noticeably in our local store. Not just music but foreground personality, at least then.

The worst was my college job at a Kmart (remember them?), with one damn cassette sent by corporate that played for some ungodly number of weeks. I was just part time and it was repetitive enough to make me want to stuff something in my ears to make it stop.

Some of those cassettes have found their way to YouTube.

 

[Theater of My Mind]

For a while, album rock stations focused their programming on "good music", but that's always subjective

To be fair a lot of those songs have held up longer than any other format. Classic Rock is still a top-5 format today, still playing some music that dates back even farther than what's played at Classic Hits, while formats like oldies and Standards were relegated to the fringes long ago.

If it's just subjective, then of a lot of today's audience in the prime demos still subjectively consider it "good music". Even some who weren't even alive at the time, apparently.

 

[michael hagerty]

To be fair a lot of those songs have held up longer than any other format. Classic Rock is still a top-5 format today, still playing some music that dates back even farther than what's played at Classic Hits, while formats like oldies and Standards were relegated to the fringes long ago.

If it's just subjective, then of a lot of today's audience in the prime demos still subjectively consider it "good music". Even some who weren't even alive at the time, apparently.

You left out the rest of that sentence...

but that's always subjective, and so they, and pretty much every other format, started playing the hits, too---just not all the hits.

 

[michael hagerty]

Yeah, no one at a major national chain is going to be permitting their stores to run a Spotify list Jimmy from Housewares concocted. 😉🤣

I have no idea how Target does theirs for instance, but every store I go into has the same “texture” for want of a better term. Whether I’m hearing the same songs I do t pay close enough attention to to recall. But it’s clearly of one design.

The entire reason for in-store play is that it's been found, when done properly, to affect sales and profits.

There's absolutely a science to it, and major chains that think about economizing by not either outsourcing to a really good company or having a top-notch in-house operation are risking money, not saving it.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

The entire reason for in-store play is that it's been found, when done properly, to affect sales and profits.

There's absolutely a science to it, and major chains that think about economizing by not either outsourcing to a really good company or having a top-notch in-house operation are risking money, not saving it.

Purely speaking from a low level part time grunt’s perspective about those Kmart tapes. Whatever science they had behind it back then, good for them. The Christmas tapes were the worst; I’d pick up extra hours and hear some of the most wretched songs they could find, but hey, they were a successful company at the time.

Years later, I was on the divisional management staff of a national retailer that operated a bunch of regional store brands. Music was an amusing amalgam of music coming from whichever vendor corporate was using at the time, with each brand able to customize which, if any, promos would run, and their rotation. The variance in quality of said promos was…wide. The end result was a semi-network, with the same basic music but obviously not simultaneous, and a hodgepodge of ads of varying length and production value.

 

[michael hagerty]

Purely speaking from a low level part time grunt’s perspective about those Kmart tapes. Whatever science they had behind it back then, good for them. The Christmas tapes were the worst; I’d pick up extra hours and hear some of the most wretched songs they could find, but hey, they were a successful company at the time.

Years later, I was on the divisional management staff of a national retailer that operated a bunch of regional store brands. Music was an amusing amalgam of music coming from whichever vendor corporate was using at the time, with each brand able to customize which, if any, promos would run, and their rotation. The variance in quality of said promos was…wide. The end result was a semi-network, with the same basic music but obviously not simultaneous, and a hodgepodge of ads of varying length and production value.

And again, the key words are "...when done properly..."

It's like radio in one key respect---there are some that are very well done and some that are apparently done by someone who couldn't program the police band in a riot.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Muzak's "FM1" (in this case meaning not the FM broadcast band but "Foreground Music", has been known to play any number of lesser hits, and I don't know the reasoning. Of course is not to have music geeks wandering around the store all day. I was a captive audience for that format 8 hours a day in the late 00s, and got to know some of the non-hits, album cuts and former hits that never progressed to gold libraries.

FM1 is what Lowe's carried most of the time when I was there.

There was a time when those stores had a national in-store system that was planned and purposeful. WalMart's system tied in with Anderson Merchandisers, the company that serviced their music departments. When they featured an exclusive album, it was played in the stores. These days, I suspect the music is someone's iPod or mp3 player rather than a company co-ordinated system.

.

Walmart has "Wal-Mart Radio" with actual DJs these days. Here's the schedule. WMW Radio

Anderson Merchandisers is the company I work for now, mostly in Walmart stores. We still service the music, but to my knowledge don't do anything with the radio network now

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

And again, the key words are "...when done properly..."

It's like radio in one key respect---there are some that are very well done and some that are apparently done by someone who couldn't program the police band in a riot.

It may have been totally properly done. I wasn’t exactly a target audience. 😉😉

 

[anotherguyTN]

The worst was my college job at a Kmart (remember them?), with one damn cassette sent by corporate that played for some ungodly number of weeks. I was just part time and it was repetitive enough to make me want to stuff something in my ears to make it stop.

I've seen some of those cassettes from Kmart available on downloads but the ones I found were mostly elevator music and a bunch of ads for the store.

At one time Hobby Lobby had their own CDs that they played in the stores for background music and also sold them. It was mainly made up of instrumental Christian music and I can remember hearing some music by Phil Keaggy, my favorite Christian artist who does a lot of instrumental albums, at the time. Since then I think they have their own Muzak channel.

At one time I had found a list online of the different exclusive music channels that Muzak had for different retail stores and other businesses and Hobby Lobby had become one of them along with other stores but I haven't been able to find the link for that again in recent years.

Also I do like Jackie Wilson Said, but I had never heard it before I started hearing it at Lowe's.🙂