No, he's talking about how the song "maybe you're the problem" by ava max sounds a lot like shake it off by Taylor swift.
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Why do PDs jump on some singles but not others?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
How many hits did Elvis Costello have in the US?
Sort of an unfair question, since he wasn't marketed as a pop artist. He was either mainstream rock or alternative. He had his biggest hits in the alternative chart. Mostly he charted in the UK.
Costello's biggest Top 40 song in America was probably "Everyday I Write The Book," which was accompanied by a clever video.
"Veronica," a touching song about a woman suffering from dementia, "Watching The Detectives," and "Alison" were also popular on Alternative and college radio stations. There may have been more, but those four came immediately to mind.
I believe Mr. Eduardo was referring to ABBA's reception in the United States...similar to soccer, ABBA didn't seem to "click" here, particularly in the south. I was in elementary school when ABBA first charted here. When I got older and gained access to information about the music scene in other countries, I was surprised to learn how popular they were.
ABBA was discussed on this board about six months ago in a lengthy thread prompted by the group's releasing new material.
How about "Pump It Up" - seems like one of his more popular ones but was it a radio song at the time?
When ABBA was at its peak, I was running a Hot AC station in Puerto Rico. We played one or two songs in English each hour, and there was a time when we'd have two or three ABBA songs on our "current" list and one would play in each hour at times.
I can't think of an English language artist from the 60's and 70's that was as big in Latin America, except, briefly, for CCR.
And the sales of the new release are huge. This is sort of the musical equivalent of Downton Abby with a devoted fan group.
It was not released as a single in the US. Costello's record deal was with Columbia in the US. They didn't release singles of his songs until the 1980s. Prior to that, they serviced his albums to AOR rock stations that played selected cuts from the album. So that promoted the album, not the single.
Costello's record label in England was Radar. The British radio market was more singles-based at the time, so the song was released as a single in the UK, and it peaked at #24. Not one of his bigger hits.
If you were Taylor Swift, you'd be rehashing your 10+ year old catalog, song by song.
Don't worry. AC/DC nearly got dropped for low sales. There was a time that if you called a radio station and asked them to play the band, they'd tell you that AC/DC were a poorly recorded, junk band and they would never, ever get airplay in the United States.
The Sex Pistols never did get any airplay in the US to speak of, yet they are considered a core punk and alternative 'classic', cited as a vital influence by many US classic alternative artists. Even the Ramones had only one US hit, if memory serves. Similar situation in their case.
David Bowie's first few albums stiffed in the US, sales wise. Now every other rock artist (and many pop artists) praise those albums as being influences.
Entire formats (like Alternative) were fringe and considered throwaway until grunge hit in 1991 and all of a sudden "Alternative" was a big deal on radio.
Just because something is good, doesn't mean it's going to make it to the radio.
It's part of the business, and right now, streaming is where it's at, anyway.
The Sex Pistols never did get any airplay in the US to speak of, yet they are considered a core punk and alternative 'classic', cited as a vital influence by many US classic alternative artists. Even the Ramones had only one US hit, if memory serves. Similar situation in their case.
David Bowie's first few albums stiffed in the US, sales wise. Now every other rock artist (and many pop artists) praise those albums as being influences.
Entire formats (like Alternative) were fringe and considered throwaway until grunge hit in 1991 and all of a sudden "Alternative" was a big deal on radio.
Just because something is good, doesn't mean it's going to make it to the radio.
It's part of the business, and right now, streaming is where it's at, anyway.
That's not true at all. They got airplay on rock stations before there was a rock chart. So there was no measurement data on the airplay they received. The Billboard charts mainly looked at Top 40 airplay. Sex Pistols were not a Top 40 band. So they didn't chart in the US. But that doesn't mean they didn't get airplay. Just that we don't have documentation on how much. But their debut album is double platinum, so it definitely got lots of airplay.
Same thing with AC/DC. Their 70s music wasn't released in the US because they were on a small Australian label. Then they signed with Atlantic, teamed up with producer Mutt Lange, and recorded Highway To Hell. The Mainstream Rock chart came about in the early 80s, but once again, they weren't a singles band. They released albums, those albums were services to AOR rock radio, and those stations would play tracks from the albums.
I know, but she did what she did just in case it happens to her.
I'm in the South and I heard a lot of their songs on the radio.
It's not that ABBA didn't receive adequate airplay; they just didn't generate a lot of "buzz." From what you've said in earlier posts, vchimpanzee, I gather you're bit older than I am. Is it possible the disconnect that I experienced with ABBA was due to the fact that the group was targeted more toward adult listeners? If so, that would explain why no kids were super-pumped about the group. I never saw schoolmates wearing ABBA t-shirts, carrying ABBA lunchboxes or having posters on their bedroom walls.
By the way, I have nothing against ABBA and I am delighted that they're well-loved and are experiencing a resurgence in popularity due to the release of new material. Because the Internet has made us global citizens, it's interesting to discover what music lovers in other countries listen to, and why things work in some places and don't work in others.
I never really paid attention to what the others listened to. I do know the kids liked Peter Frampton.
Also, I can't imagine ABBA being considered "adult" at that time.
I remember it well...the spring and summer of '76, when Frampton "came alive!" "Show Me The Way," "Baby I Love Your Way," and the epic "Do You Feel Like We Do," were all over the radio. With flowing curly locks, smoking hot good looks, a cool guitar and an eleven-minute long song with a voice-box, girls liked him and guys wanted to be like him! Peter Frampton generated the kind of "buzz" I'm talking about!!
(Maybe Frampton was more album rock and ABBA was more pop. Perhaps they were going for different listeners. You can tell which I preferred, LOL.)
(Maybe Frampton was more album rock and ABBA was more pop. Perhaps they were going for different listeners. You can tell which I preferred, LOL.)
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You can tell where I lived and worked: I can't tell you the name of a single Frampton song, but I can even sing they lyrics of at least 10 ABBA tunes.
Heck, I can remember one dinner party for the "young new guard" vice presidents of Pueblo International where I ran the radio division and we talked about the songs and the host brought out the album his family had sent him from Argentina. There we were, about 8 or 9 guys around 30 years old with our wives singing ABBA songs along with the album...
The Sex Pistols got no airplay, at least here in Seattle. The singles were import only, for one thing. When the album came out it was import only for a couple months, and when finally released in the US it made it as far as 106 on the Billboard 200.
And local rock radio (KISW & KZOK) wouldn't touch the album with a ten foot pole even after it was released stateside. Some few alternative stations of the era may have played a track or two, but I listened to such stations locally all the time (along with the two or three AOR stations) and never heard the Sex Pistols played. They probably did eventually get played on some college stations. I'm sure KCMU, where I worked for three years, played them from time to time, although I never personally heard them on that station. By the time I was there the LP was ten years old.
FWIW, I have NEVER heard the Sex Pistols played on a rock station, either here in the Seattle area, or during travels elsewhere in the US (mainly the South, and Oregon / Northern Cal).
What you may have heard was after the breakup of the group, maybe during the 80s some alt-rock stations played one or two of of their tracks as 'gold', as the alternative acts that rose with the grunge/alt movement frequently cited the Sex Pistols as an influence.
RE; AC/DC: They were signed to Atlantic in the US in 1976, which is when the first LP was released here, and radio wouldn't touch their first three US albums (High Voltage, Let There Be Rock, and Powerage) with a ten foot pole. Even calling in and making a request would give you a polite, but downright refusal. It wasn't until their fourth US album -- the live 1978 album that preceded Highway to Hell, "If You Want Blood You've Got It" -- that they got airplay, in Seattle at least. I think that only got airplay because the word of mouth, and groundswell of support came from the constant touring by the band.
Highway To Hell, which did get airplay from its release in 1979, was AC/DC's first successful LP here. That was when fortunes began to change for the band. But before then? They were basically a cult act, with followings in Jacksonville and a couple other markets, but even in Seattle they weren't played until the bandwagon had already started rolling. And, of course, after 1980 when Back In Black hit #1 on the LP charts, radio stations "discovered" the older stuff, and those older albums began to sell.
So my point is that even 'good' music -- or music that the public eventually can deem good, or 'hit' music -- doesn't always make it to the airwaves, because, as you probably well know, there are limited airplay slots, and so many new releases to choose from. And a lot of what gets on the air is more due to other factors as opposed to actual quality, although what makes something have 'quality' is always subjective. Disco Duck was a #1 hit in 1976 and although it was a #1 smash hit, it hasn't aged as well as High Voltage, a record from the same year that radio snubbed for almost 5 years. But, obviously, people loved Disco Duck. Those sales weren't imaginary.
Those of us in the sidelines who make opinions about what should be a 'hit', and what shouldn't be, are like commenters from the peanut gallery -- it's cheap and easy to cast aspersions on radio programmers, but it's not like they have an easy job choosing what to play.
Do you have documentation or are you drawing on memory? The Sex Pistols got airplay on many rock stations such as WNEW-FM in NYC. The station was very supportive of all punk rock at the time. They also had a PD who did a weekly special show playing new music from England, much of which came from imports. There actually was a record company in the NYC area (JEM Imports) that specialized in importing music from England and other countries, and they had good relations with WNEW and other area radio stations. Here's an interview with NY DJ Meg Griffin who talks about playing their music on WRNW in the 70s:
Meg Griffin Remembers WRNW FM, Rock’s ‘Glorious Playhouse’ in Briarcliff Manor
From 1973 to 1981, a shabby building off the main drag in Briarcliff Manor was home to one of the metro area’s most progressive and unconventional FM rock stations, WRNW […]
Here is a chart of WNEW's most popular songs, and the Sex Pistols are among them.
Most PD’s and MD’s decide on song additions based on recommendations from their consultants and/or research conducted. A handful of PD’s and MD’s may make decisions based on what they like or otherwise think will work, but “I have a golden ear” has destroyed far more careers than it has ever made.
In a lot of small markets, stations that aren’t part of a large conglomerate don’t have access to the consultants and research that larger companies and markets have. That’s both why small market stations can be more adventurous musically and why the usual response to small market radio stations is, “God, they suck!” I don’t know what AMI uses to determine its playlists. I know it hired the DeMarcos, who were involved in the old Great Empire Broadcasting, after it bought Petracom out of bankruptcy, but I don’t know much more than that. I worked for Zimmer a little more than 15 years ago, and Petracom wasn’t considered much of a threat. I can’t imagine Zimmer being too worried about Bicknell either. Is he even still around? He has to be about 100 now.
“Veronica,” which I’d always heard was a thinly veiled tribute to his grandmother and what she was going through in the late-80’s, was also a top-40 hit. I don’t think it got anywhere near the top-10, but it did crack the upper half of the top-40 in 1989.
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