• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

the late '80s re-release craze

Mid West Clubber said:
I was thinking red red wine from ub40 was from fall of 1988, but the cd says its a 1983 release, so it must have been a re issue... Another song that comes to mind is that, If I could fly, id pick you up... I sorry if these where previously mentioned....
Click to expand...
Yes, that second one is "Into the Night" by Benny Mardones, #11 in 1980, and #20 in 1989.

"Red Red Wine" was originally released as a single in late 1983-early 1984 (without the rap), and the reissue in fall 1988 (with the rap).
 
Didnt bob marly sing the red red wine ya make me feel so fine part....



Speaken of benny mardones,,, he had a creepy song about dating a 15 yr old,,, that song still creeps me out.
 
Wasnt Def Leapard Photograph re released, also, was Pink Floyd another brick in the wall re played on radio when the movie The Wall came out in 1982.
 
Mid West Clubber said:
Didnt bob marly sing the red red wine ya make me feel so fine part....



Speaken of benny mardones,,, he had a creepy song about dating a 15 yr old,,, that song still creeps me out.
Click to expand...

That's the song you're quoting! The opening lyrics to Into The Night are "She's just sixteen years old/Leave her alone, they say..."
 
Bob Marley was dead at the time UB40 recorded Red Red Wine. Don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia. Sounded nothing like Marley. If anything, it would have been Neil Diamond rapping since he originally wrote the song.
 
Mid West Clubber said:
Wasnt Def Leapard Photograph re released, also, was Pink Floyd another brick in the wall re played on radio when the movie The Wall came out in 1982.
Click to expand...


It was "Bringin' On The Heartbreak" not" Photograph" that was re-released after Pyromania was released in 1984, with a few keyboard added to the song, and a special re-release of High 'n dry with that song and "Me and My Wine'.
Don't recall "another brick "being re-released though.
 
sdh483 said:
Bob Marley was dead at the time UB40 recorded Red Red Wine. Don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia. Sounded nothing like Marley. If anything, it would have been Neil Diamond rapping since he originally wrote the song.
Click to expand...
Terence "Astro" Wilson, lead singer of UB40, was also the rapper on "Red Red Wine." I never knew why the version with the rap in it was the one released as a single when it had its second time around in 1988, after not being included in the circa 1983-84 single. Not sure if that was an album version (originally) or what.
 
1.  There was a shortage of good new music
Click to expand...
Good point, John, but there was actually a shortage of any new music by the fall of 1988.  Michael Jackson, George Michael, Whitney Houston, INXS, Def Leppard, Taylor Dayne, Rick Astley, Richard Marx, and probably a couple more acts that I cannot recall right now were still releasing singles from albums that were all well over a year old by that time.  If you were a fan of any of these acts, and had already bought their latest albums, you would have already been familiar with those fourth, fifth, and sixth singles well before radio started playing them.  Since these artists released these singles in rapid-fire succession, thus keeping themselves on the charts almost continuously throughout 1988, listeners who were not fans of these acts simply never got a break from hearing them on the radio.  So by reintroducing some old favorites that never really got a chance the first time, radio was giving listeners a break from some of the same artists who were just totally dominating the airwaves in 1988.  (I can't really fault the acts for doing this, because most of those singles, even a year after the album release, still became top 10 and #1 hits, but I believe that was largely due to a shortage of competition, except maybe from each other.)

Interesting situation came up in February, 1989, when a nearly seven-year-old song ("When I'm With You" by Sheriff, copyright 1982) went to #1, and held a nearly two-year-old song ("Don't Rush Me" by Taylor Dayne, copyright 1987) out of the #1 spot, and forced her to settle for a #2 peak position.  It is not unusual, especially in the early months of a new year, for nearly everything on the charts to still carry copyrights from the previous year, but I must consider it unusual when neither of the top two hits for a given week carried the copyright of the year just ended.
 
firepoint525 said:
1. There was a shortage of good new music
Click to expand...
Good point, John, but there was actually a shortage of any new music by the fall of 1988. Michael Jackson, George Michael, Whitney Houston, INXS, Def Leppard, Taylor Dayne, Rick Astley, Richard Marx, and probably a couple more acts that I cannot recall right now were still releasing singles from albums that were all well over a year old by that time. If you were a fan of any of these acts, and had already bought their latest albums, you would have already been familiar with those fourth, fifth, and sixth singles well before radio started playing them. Since these artists released these singles in rapid-fire succession, thus keeping themselves on the charts almost continuously throughout 1988, listeners who were not fans of these acts simply never got a break from hearing them on the radio. So by reintroducing some old favorites that never really got a chance the first time, radio was giving listeners a break from some of the same artists who were just totally dominating the airwaves in 1988. (I can't really fault the acts for doing this, because most of those singles, even a year after the album release, still became top 10 and #1 hits, but I believe that was largely due to a shortage of competition, except maybe from each other.)
Click to expand...

If you listen to Zapoleon, top 40 runs in cycles, and it's either feast or famine. Either you have tons of hits to choose from or you don't. When the well starts to run dry, you can either play crappy records to fill the slots in your list or you can be creative and find better records. Better programmers seek out better records in the doldrums.

During my time in pop radio, we never really cared much about albums (although sometimes the audience would lead us to good album cuts to play before they were "singles") because the record companies worked us on singles. But let's face it, if the record company thinks it can get 6 singles out of a disc, they're going to ride that artist as far as they can until the public loses interest (Taylor Swift, anyone?) and radio is going to play it if the audience likes it... and if the audience isn't done with some of those songs even while new ones from the same artist are climbing the charts, you bet they'll hang around forever as recurrents.

If you didn't like Michael Jackson during Thriller-mania, radio didn't care, and radio didn't want to cut you a break from it either. Top 40 is all about the moment, and if there's nothing good to add right this minute, you need to find something that's going to work. Either you cross something over from another genre or you find something else that's going to work.
 
From what I have read here on this thread, Guy Zapoleon must be a programming genius! I certainly disagreed with some of his song choices that he chose to revive and make hits (again, in some cases!), but he obviously had an "ear to the ground" that most label execs clearly did not. He made those songs hits because he listened to his audience and ignored what the record labels were trying to force on him. (I don't know how true it is, but I have heard that UB40 actually did not want "Red Red Wine" reissued because they had some then-current new material that they were promoting.)

I wonder how Guy handled it in the '90s when the dynamic changed. First there was the advent of Soundscan in 1991, which resulted in songs staying at #1 for nearly four months in some cases, and on the top 40 charts for over a year! Then, in late 1998, Billboard did away with the long-standing requirement that a song had to be released as a single in order to make the charts. But of course, singles had begun to become irrelevant by then, and no longer even commercially available, in some areas. I would say that doing away with "singles" was probably almost inevitable, on Billboard's part.
 
have we heard the last of Michael Jackson ??????? Sony just bought the rights to the rehearsal footage of his planned tour, for a major motion picture release..there will tons of his stuff coming soon, maybe???
 
hornet61 said:
have we heard the last of Michael Jackson ??????? Sony just bought the rights to the rehearsal footage of his planned tour, for a major motion picture release..there will tons of his stuff coming soon, maybe???
Click to expand...
As far as I know, nothing by him was reissued right after he died, so I think the moment for that has finally passed! Hooray! Of course, nowadays, the fans can download whatever they want by him, so re-releases are really no longer necessary. Some previously unreleased stuff by him may still come out, as well as some remasters, but I believe that that is about it.

I sort of feel like the movie is an attempt by promoters to recoup some of what they had invested in him in this London tour.

Rereleases by M.J. really wouldn't work for two main reasons:

1) My generation is sick to death of him, and we had our fill of him "back in the day."
2) The current generation of fans see him as a relic from an earlier time, so a "comeback" would have been almost impossible for him to pull off.

I have noticed that Mix 92.9, the AC station here in Nashville, has added some format-appropriate MJ tracks to their rotation recently, so this is not a case of when EVERYONE was playing him right after he died; these are format appropriate adds to a station's playlist.
 
His Lp Thriller(on Vinyl) is routinely going $100 0n craigs list... And people are buying It. I forgot to mention that Sony paid a whopping $60 million for the rights and have sold out all first runs accross the country.
 
hornet61 said:
His Lp Thriller(on Vinyl) is routinely going $100 0n craigs list... And people are buying It. I forgot to mention that Sony paid a whopping $60 million for the rights and have sold out all first runs accross the country.
Click to expand...
I still have the 12-incher of "Billie Jean." Wonder what I could get for that? Not that I'm planning to sell it or anything.
 
I don't know what the extended mix is going for. Man do regret getting rid of all my 12"er's, I had a ton, especially the early stuff Sugarhill gang , kurtis blow, roxanne, nucleus...the fun stuff before it went to hell.
 
Fairly new release "Best Of Madonna" about 25 cuts if memory serves me. Gotta admit her stuff is Gold, still some of the best Dance stuff around. Anything by Madonna or Michael never let athe DJ"s down at the clubs. Another sure fire dance favorite was Kool and the Gang all their stuff packed the dance floors. A couple of my most memorable 12" mixxs was "San Francisco/Hollywood" by the Village People and "Rappers Delight" ... 90's favorites "Return of The Mack", "This How We do It" and "Jump" by Criss Cross
 
I seem to remember Naked Eyes "Always something there to remind me"( a cover in itself), was very popular in 89/90 here in Nantucket. Even though i was only two I seem to remember that song the most. Also, Benny Mardones "Into the night" was popular as well. WRZE, back when it was on Nantucket and not sports seemed to really stick to an 80's format. I wonder if there's a site that archives all of the old playlists from the 80s and 90s?
 
AckDX said:
I seem to remember Naked Eyes "Always something there to remind me"( a cover in itself), was very popular in 89/90 here in Nantucket.
Click to expand...

It was probably just one of these songs that was wildly overplayed (not a re-release).

In Cincinnati and Lexington in 1989-90, certain songs that were several years old were played almost like they were new. "In The Air Tonight", "Hungry Heart", and "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll" come to mind.

None of these were bad songs, but even stations that claimed to be new music arbiters were fixated on them.
 
NoWayNoCC said:
AckDX said:
I seem to remember Naked Eyes "Always something there to remind me"( a cover in itself), was very popular in 89/90 here in Nantucket.
Click to expand...

It was probably just one of these songs that was wildly overplayed (not a re-release).

In Cincinnati and Lexington in 1989-90, certain songs that were several years old were played almost like they were new. "In The Air Tonight", "Hungry Heart", and "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll" come to mind.

None of these were bad songs, but even stations that claimed to be new music arbiters were fixated on them.
Click to expand...

I thought a remix of in the air tonight was released in 1988?
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom