Why are big hits "lost?"

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

It's like the riddle of what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Does a song become a hit because listeners like the song, call in requests for it, and purchase the music? Or, does the station play the song so often that the listener decides that it obviously must be popular, so the listener should like it also?

The other day, I was in Best Buy with my spouse, looking at electronics. Right next to the electronics section, was the section of audio speakers. All of the speakers were on full blast, playing a demo of 70's songs.

The salesperson helping us was explaining the features of the electronic device we were considering purchasing. But I couldn't hear him, because the speakers were blasting a 70's song, "Sara Smile" by Hall and Oates. I started to think, gosh damn, this is as bad as "You Light Up My Life", or "Muskrat Love". It's so......lifeless, without any energy, and the music composition is awful. Finally, I said to the salesperson, "Could you go into the audio department and turn down the speakers? How do you young people manage all day with that 70's music on full blast?" The salesperson smiled wanly, but he did go over and turn down the music. By that time, I'd had enough, and we decided to just go home, order the product on line, and figure out by ourselves how the device worked.

I think that stations in the 70's must have played this due to heavy pressure from promoters, who thought that Hall and Oates would become big stars. While they may not have offered payola, there might have been some other perk.

David says that PD's need to have a natural ear for music -- PD's are born, not made. If that is the case, then I doubt that any PD would select "Sara Smile." It should just go into the wastebasket, along with "Honey", "Light Up My Life" "Muskrat", etc. etc.

 

[davideduardo]

It's like the riddle of what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Does a song become a hit because listeners like the song, call in requests for it, and purchase the music? Or, does the station play the song so often that the listener decides that it obviously must be popular, so the listener should like it also?

Stations have currents in at least a couple of rotation categories. In my world of Top 40 / CHR, I'd usually have a power category, a second (slower rotation) category, a new song category and a declining song category. I have used both a secondary and tertiary category on occasion when I want greater variety of how the songs come up in each hour.

The assignment of the categories is determined by station research. Back in the the earliest days and Top 40 it was done by polling record stores, distributors and onestops. Later, when the sale of singles declined, we used callout to find our own listeners to find out how much they liked (or disliked) each song. Now, we use online "callout" plus analysis of resources like data on streaming.

But in all cases, listener feedback determines speeding up or slowing down rotations.

I think that stations in the 70's must have played this due to heavy pressure from promoters, who thought that Hall and Oates would become big stars. While they may not have offered payola, there might have been some other perk.

You are not giving programmers credit for predicting what their listeners might like... and rapidly trashing any song that did not "take off".

David says that PD's need to have a natural ear for music

Not an "ear for music" but an ear for "what my listeners will like hearing". Big difference.

-- PD's are born, not made. If that is the case, then I doubt that any PD would select "Sara Smile." It should just go into the wastebasket, along with "Honey", "Light Up My Life" "Muskrat", etc. etc.

Having played every one of those songs when they were current, I can tell you that at the time the song "fit" the station and I was rewarded by significant sales / requests data that supported the decision. All of those, particularly the Muskrat, were ones I knew would hit a burn-out or saturation point where they'd need to be either pulled or slowed way down in rotation.

 

[CTListener]

It's like the riddle of what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Does a song become a hit because listeners like the song, call in requests for it, and purchase the music? Or, does the station play the song so often that the listener decides that it obviously must be popular, so the listener should like it also?

The other day, I was in Best Buy with my spouse, looking at electronics. Right next to the electronics section, was the section of audio speakers. All of the speakers were on full blast, playing a demo of 70's songs.

The salesperson helping us was explaining the features of the electronic device we were considering purchasing. But I couldn't hear him, because the speakers were blasting a 70's song, "Sara Smile" by Hall and Oates. I started to think, gosh damn, this is as bad as "You Light Up My Life", or "Muskrat Love". It's so......lifeless, without any energy, and the music composition is awful. Finally, I said to the salesperson, "Could you go into the audio department and turn down the speakers? How do you young people manage all day with that 70's music on full blast?" The salesperson smiled wanly, but he did go over and turn down the music. By that time, I'd had enough, and we decided to just go home, order the product on line, and figure out by ourselves how the device worked.

I think that stations in the 70's must have played this due to heavy pressure from promoters, who thought that Hall and Oates would become big stars. While they may not have offered payola, there might have been some other perk.

David says that PD's need to have a natural ear for music -- PD's are born, not made. If that is the case, then I doubt that any PD would select "Sara Smile." It should just go into the wastebasket, along with "Honey", "Light Up My Life" "Muskrat", etc. etc.

Surely you're not comparing blue-eyed soul of early Hall & Oates to the vapid MOR of Bobby Goldsboro and Debby Boone! "Sara Smile" was right up there with "She's Gone" as a classic of the genre. I loved that stuff, whether it was coming from Hall & Oates or Al Green or the Chi-Lites or the Stylistics. I know everything is a matter of taste, but Hall & Oates WERE big stars. They were legitimately talented and popular and their songs became staples on playlists of stations playing '70s music right up to a few years back when they started "aging out" in favor of more rock-based classic hits.

 

[kfbkfb]

This may be relevant to this thread - I first heard the song "Sweetest Pie" on KPRS-FM in the spring of 2022, now I'm hearing it on KMXV-FM.

Is it common to have such a delay (about 6 months) between a song played on an Urban format station to a CHR format station (I would think a song promoter would try to get a song on as many suitably formatted radio stations at the same time)?


Kirk Bayne

 

[CTListener]

This may be relevant to this thread - I first heard the song "Sweetest Pie" on KPRS-FM in the spring of 2022, now I'm hearing it on KMXV-FM.

Is it common to have such a delay (about 6 months) between a song played on an Urban format station to a CHR format station (I would think a song promoter would try to get a song on as many suitably formatted radio stations at the same time)?


Kirk Bayne

Pretty sure labels decide which format to push a song to first and make sure that song is doing well there before trying to expand its reach to secondary and tertiary formats, where the song might not be a perfect fit and might run into resistance. The "song promoters" work for the labels and their priorities are the label's priorities. Mercury didn't send Morgan Wallen's "Wasted on You" to CHR until after it had been No. 1 in country; three decades earlier, Columbia didn't send Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Passionate Kisses" to AC until after it had peaked at country radio. I would think having a song on the radio for at least partially non-concurrent runs in different formats would be desirable -- it gets the song to more ears over a longer time period (especially in format combinations like CHR/Urban, CHR/Country and Country/AC which have have long histories of crossover hits. That means more time for listeners to get interested in the artist instead of only one chart run.

 

[TheBigA]

I don't fully agree.

While maintaining a warm relationship with label representatives is good, it is more often than not like weekly visits from a whole tribe or clan of used care salesmen.

That's why you pay someone else to do it. If you feel a bit greasy doing it, get someone else to do it. But someone has to do it, and it's part the job (or someone's job). Just like the GM has to make nice with the local politicians.

Adding new music is the riskiest task a station's program staff has to undertake. That's why each of us who engaged in music selection at some point in our careers developed a safety net to prevent playing too many songs that ended up as stiffs.

That's fine. All I'm saying is listen to outside opinions. You don't have to follow them. Just let them sell. You might hear something that fits your criteria that you wouldn't have known about otherwise.

 

[TheBigA]

Ok, but I still say the system was corrupt.

It has the potential for corruption, as is the case with anything. If you have two corrupt people, you will get a corrupt result. But if all you do is listen to a pitch, and then talk to your team about it, then there's the potential for honest business. You meet a girl at a bar, and it could become prostitution, or it could lead to marriage. Obviously a lot of steps in between, but that's all I'm saying.

The amount of spins had nothing to do with quality music. It was what the record company was willing to do to make sure their spins got counted. Not pretty, but this is how the wheel churned.

There are two sides to every business deal. That's why payola involves both the label and the station. The label gets fined for making the offer, and the station is fined for accepting it. The radio station has to recognize what's happening and make sure they're not adding more spins for the wrong reason. You have to know when to say no, and have the research to back you up. This is why I say adding a new song is an investment, and you have to view it that way. If that song isn't paying off, you treat it like a bad stock and get out quickly. But if it's working you then need to convert it into something that helps your brand. None of this is easy, and it's why only a few manage to succeed at it.

 

[TheBigA]

It is still crazy though. If youre an avid listener of said station, it is torturous! (Not to mention competing stations playing the same song.)

The word "fan" is short for fanatic. Fans of artists are fanatical about their favorite stars. Harry Styles got a haircut yesterday, and it was a trending topic on twitter. His fans will play his music continuously. I know because I see it on the streaming charts. For one of his fans, 112 spins a week isn't enough. They want the station to play his music continuously. When The Beatles broke in the US, radio stations would fight over who played the most Beatles. So yes, it's crazy. It can be torture, if not done well. But that's why radio is a job, not a hobby.

 

[davideduardo]

That's why you pay someone else to do it. If you feel a bit greasy doing it, get someone else to do it. But someone has to do it, and it's part the job (or someone's job). Just like the GM has to make nice with the local politicians.

In the case I mentioned, nobody else was there for record company calls. The station received visits once a week on Thursday afternoons at 15 minute intervals for 3 hours. That was it.

In the lobby, there was a box labeled for record promoters to put their new releases in.

I know of many cases and have many friends who were or are PDs of current based stations, and pretty much they try / tried to avoid wasting time with record promoters unless there was some special reason to talk to them, such as a promotion. The message was, "unless you have something in the value added category to bring to me, don't bother".

That's fine. All I'm saying is listen to outside opinions. You don't have to follow them. Just let them sell. You might hear something that fits your criteria that you wouldn't have known about otherwise.

You certainly are not going to get anything objective and of value from what a PD friend called "the record ducks". In general, getting the songs via mail (in the past) or email (today) is all that is needed. We don't care that the artist has won awards or whatever. And we tire quickly of hearing, "I'm gonna' get fired if I don't bring this song home..."

I've mentioned this before, but at one station I supervised I had a framed sign put in the PD's office, on parchment paper in diploma-like "artisan" lettering and in a gold frame was the inscription, "The record promoter is not your friend. The record promoter will do you harm.". That station was #1 for the 23 years I was involved, always with about twice the share of the #2 station... in a US market with 120 "home to the MSA" stations.

 

[Daryl Lynn L.A.]

Surely you're not comparing blue-eyed soul of early Hall & Oates to the vapid MOR of Bobby Goldsboro and Debby Boone! "Sara Smile" was right up there with "She's Gone" as a classic of the genre. I loved that stuff, whether it was coming from Hall & Oates or Al Green or the Chi-Lites or the Stylistics. I know everything is a matter of taste, but Hall & Oates WERE big stars. They were legitimately talented and popular and their songs became staples on playlists of stations playing '70s music right up to a few years back when they started "aging out" in favor of more rock-based classic hits.

To me, ( and this is just me), Hall and Oates sound like "soft rock" music that is indeed vapid. Much of 70's music was vapid, vanilla, and nondescript. The artists murmured the lyrics to a background of high-pitched guitar, drumsticks, and cymbals.
Issac Hayes did this a lot, ( with disco accompaniment added in), and I can't stand him, either.

Pretty sure that Al Green can do better with this material than Hall and Oates. However, to me, this sounds like smooth jazz background music for the workplace or played in the background at the dentist's office. And, I don't like drippy, saccharine break-up lyrics, whether it's Taylor Swift, or Adele, or Hall and Oates, or anyone else.

In addition, there's not much beat, it's not danceable, nor necessarily tuneful nor melodic. But that's just me !
As they say on the internet, YMMV. And it's true that everyone has different tastes in music.

However, I do agree with you about a lot of country music that you think is good, and I think it's good also. -- Daryl

 

[Kelly A]

I've mentioned this before, but at one station I supervised I had a framed sign put in the PD's office, on parchment paper in diploma-like "artisan" lettering and in a gold frame was the inscription, "The record promoter is not your friend. The record promoter will do you harm.".

One similar message posted on the control room wall back when I was fairly new to the business has stuck with me all these years:
"Radio is a long plastic hallway where pimps and thieves run free and weak men die like dogs".

 

[michael hagerty]

One similar message posted on the control room wall back when I was fairly new to the business has stuck with me all these years:
"Radio is a long plastic hallway where pimps and thieves run free and weak men die like dogs".

It's from Hunter S. Thompson, Kelly. "Hallway" was actually "money trench", and it has one more line:

"There's also a downside."

 

[michael hagerty]

To me, ( and this is just me), Hall and Oates sound like "soft rock" music that is indeed vapid. Much of 70's music was vapid, vanilla, and nondescript. The artists murmured the lyrics to a background of high-pitched guitar, drumsticks, and cymbals.

So, if you know this is just you, then how do you manage to write this?

I think that stations in the 70's must have played this due to heavy pressure from promoters, who thought that Hall and Oates would become big stars. While they may not have offered payola, there might have been some other perk.

We're on page 21 of some pretty thorough descriptions from people who were there (not just me, not just David), including illustrations, of how records became hits.

And somehow, the idea persists that record companies could coerce every Top 40 station in America to play a lot of records that people actually hated, and yet the ratings didn't go down---inverting the basic equally off-kilter theory involving many of the same people on the KRTH Hip-Hop thread that broadcasters should broaden their playlist beyond proven hits that today's 25-49-year old adults want to hear.

 

[michael hagerty]

Pretty sure labels decide which format to push a song to first and make sure that song is doing well there before trying to expand its reach to secondary and tertiary formats, where the song might not be a perfect fit and might run into resistance. The "song promoters" work for the labels and their priorities are the label's priorities. Mercury didn't send Morgan Wallen's "Wasted on You" to CHR until after it had been No. 1 in country; three decades earlier, Columbia didn't send Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Passionate Kisses" to AC until after it had peaked at country radio. I would think having a song on the radio for at least partially non-concurrent runs in different formats would be desirable -- it gets the song to more ears over a longer time period (especially in format combinations like CHR/Urban, CHR/Country and Country/AC which have have long histories of crossover hits. That means more time for listeners to get interested in the artist instead of only one chart run.

Records take time to cross over. It has always been thus. Country or R&B crossovers pretty much needed to get to #1 on those charts to start to get play on Top 40. Records that went simultaneously weren't crossovers, they were just multi-format hits.

 

[tbolt909]

One similar message posted on the control room wall back when I was fairly new to the business has stuck with me all these years:
"Radio is a long plastic hallway where pimps and thieves run free and weak men die like dogs".

It's from Hunter S. Thompson, Kelly. "Hallway" was actually "money trench", and it has one more line:

"There's also a downside."

I've seen that quote posted on many control room walls. Radio is a Pirate Ship. One GM told the staff "It's time to walk the plank" after announcing the upcoming format change...

 

[michael hagerty]

Ok, but I still say the system was corrupt. The amount of spins had nothing to do with quality music. It was what the record company was willing to do to make sure their spins got counted. Not pretty, but this is how the wheel churned. We can beatify the process but in fact it was quite ugly. Am I the only person
on here who did not experience this BS?

It's hard to tell, seatown, because I still don't know exactly what it is you're saying happened.

"Not payola"? Good.

"Trips for the PD?" Where? For what? How many? How expensive? In violation of the station's gift policy? Was there one?

"Help with station promotion?" If we're talking albums, artist merch or concert tickets (even if the concert was out of town and involved air travel, hotel accommodations and meals), as long as the phrase "provided by (name) records in exchange for promotional consideration" was in the promos, that was perfectly legal.

"What the record company was willing to do to make sure their spins got counted?" Are we talking about reporting adds and number of spins to the trades (R&R, whoever else was relevant in the 90s)? If you're a trade paper reporting station, that's something you're doing anyway, whether a record is promoted or not.

A lot of non hit product made air due to this.

There is only one way to avoid that, and that's not to play records until they're hits every place else. Be last on the record. It worked for WABC. But even that's not foolproof. What was a big hit everyplace in America might be meh in your town. A competitor might have been on the record for weeks and burned it in your market before you touch it.

But if you're saying that your PD took legal promotional assistance in exchange for adding records that had no reasonable chance of being hit records (and then we have to answer why the label would invest promotion dollars in that once, much less on an ongoing basis), the problem was a bad PD, not corrupt record labels.

 

[michael hagerty]

Its crazy the amount of power spins today though...a station that plays their top songs 115-120 times a week is hard to listen to for me!

(Not to mention competing stations playing the same song.)

Don't listen to CHR all day, every day. It wasn't designed for that. Find your comfort level, tune out when you start to exceed it and spend some time listening to another format.

 

[michael hagerty]

I've seen that quote posted on many control room walls. Radio is a Pirate Ship. One GM told the staff "It's time to walk the plank" after announcing the upcoming format change...

A (certifiably insane) assistant news director I worked for in TV had the Hunter S. Thompson quote on his office wall.

Buzz Bennett lined up little green toy army men on his desk at KCBQ, called the old staff in one by one and knocked one off into a trash can, and said "that's you".

Another guy would take his Polaroid camera and shoot a picture of the jock through the studio window. After the show, he'd say "Here's a picture of your last show." That's how he told them they were fired.

Inhumane jerks.

 

[Oldbones]

Buzz Bennett lined up little green toy army men on his desk at KCBQ, called the old staff in one by one and knocked one off into a trash can, and said "that's you".

Another guy would take his Polaroid camera and shoot a picture of the jock through the studio window. After the show, he'd say "Here's a picture of your last show." That's how he told them they were fired.

Inhumane jerks.

Then there was the (in)famous Max Richmond, owner of WMEX in Boston in the 60s who'd often make the new hire break the news to the jock he's replacing. At the time WMEX used house names for each shift so most listeners were none the wiser. Night jock Arnie Ginsburg being the sole exception.

 

[tall_guy1]

This may be relevant to this thread - I first heard the song "Sweetest Pie" on KPRS-FM in the spring of 2022, now I'm hearing it on KMXV-FM.

Is it common to have such a delay (about 6 months) between a song played on an Urban format station to a CHR format station (I would think a song promoter would try to get a song on as many suitably formatted radio stations at the same time)?


Kirk Bayne

Sweetest pie was on KMXV last spring too when it was new. Its just played heavily as a recurrent now.