Anyone else thinks CHR music has become even more annoying?

I enjoyed your answer landtuna. I have memories as a kid listening to distant stations at night and hearing a fresh presentation of top 40. I had some great stations to listen to such as WHB in Kansas City and KLIF in Dallas. I enjoyed finding those most didn't mention. I enjoyed KXOL in Fort Worth, a great top 40 in Paducah, Kentucky (can't recall the call letters but it wasn't WPAD) and KTGR in Columbia, Missouri. I would listen intently to what was done at certain times of the hour and trying to crack the music rotation. I'd try to create it in the garage on my little Radio Shack 100mw. transmitter.

Sure, I felt Top 40 abandoned it's older core audience around 1990 but I saw it coming. Like when I was a kid, I didn't care for most stations because my demo was too young. Now my demo is too old.

I still love radio and love working in the business. I'm a lucky one, getting to work the business I wanted to be a part of since I was in first grade announcing records to a pencil on rainy days in my room. I know radio has changed. It is very much a different animal from the time I was growing up. Sure I miss the earlier days but like folks in radio will tell you, it's not about you but about the listeners and what they want. They just want something different. It seems to be foreign to the personality days we recall but I suspect today's listeners will pine for radio delivered as it is today when they are older. .

b-turner said:

Sure, I felt Top 40 abandoned it's older core audience around 1990

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Not sure what you mean by that. Top 40 abandoned its older demo when it stopped playing older MOR-style music. That was around 1966. Rick Sklar talked about it in his book Rockin America. The other big change for Top 40 came a few years later when it began the transition to FM, and the powerhouse AM stations went away. From that point on, the concept of DXing far away Top 40 stations like WCFL or WABC went away. All that was a long time before 1990. The fact is that since the 60s, Top 40 or CHR radio focused on a music mix that appealed to people in their late teens and 20s. At some point, the high percentage of currents was too much, and people transition to Hot AC or some other format.

I never mentioned MOR. I'm talking about around 1990 when top 40 included some dance-oriented and rap hits and a new breed of artists. It evolved rather quickly but the musical frontiers were not comfortable to me compared to even 5 or 6 years prior. I saw that coming. It seemed the last half of the 1980s top 40 was on the cusp of change. It was not unlike a great TV show that ran one season too long. It was as if it was searching for the fresh and creative spin but the writers had already run through the best they had to offer. I'm sure it happened to older top 40 demos in other times like the days when some rock tracks were always on the charts, say 1969-1972 especially, or when Disco became a thing, or when New Wave in the early 1980s took hold. I'm sure tunes like House of the Rising Sun by Frijid Pink, disco tunes like Ring My Bell and Thomas Dolby's She Blinded Me With Science made some older demos punch the next button on their radio.

You make a great point on the currents becoming 'too much'. I recall when oldies stations played a mix of currents, obviously to reach those that felt all current material was too much. If I recall correctly, it was a few years before oldies based stations went 100% oldies. I recall KXOL FM and KDNT FM (early to mid-1970s) in the Dallas/Fort Worth area did a 50/50 mix but called themselves an oldies station. I recall hearing a great little Pomona AM station that was oldies with 4 currents an hour perhaps in 1976 or 1977 on a visit to Orange County.

b-turner said:

I never mentioned MOR. I'm talking about around 1990 when top 40 included some dance-oriented and rap hits and a new breed of artists.

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That happened because the music changed. It actually began a little earlier when Run DMC had their hit with Aerosmith's Walk This Way. That one song really triggered the interest in mainstream audiences to the idea of rap music. MC Hammer and even the Spice Girls affected the music. So whenever you talk about formats changing, the first thing to look at is the music. If the popular music makes a shift, CHR radio has to follow it. See my thread about the song "Old Town Road." That song is resonating with all audiences across formats, but country radio won't play it. I think that's a big mistake.

TheBigA said:

That happened because the music changed. It actually began a little earlier when Run DMC had their hit with Aerosmith's Walk This Way. That one song really triggered the interest in mainstream audiences to the idea of rap music.

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There is no such thing as "rap music". Rap should always been called "spoken word". Or better yet.....nothing at all.

landtuna said:

There is no such thing as "rap music". Rap should always been called "spoken word". Or better yet.....nothing at all.

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You like to invent your own definitions. That's fine for you. But the genre of rap music exists, and there is a Grammy Award given for it.

There is also a Grammy given for Spoken Word. That is another thing completely. "Speaking on pitch to rhythmic accompaniment" isn't as catchy.

TheBigA said:

You like to invent your own definitions. That's fine for you. But the genre of rap music exists, and there is a Grammy Award given for it.

There is also a Grammy given for Spoken Word. That is another thing completely. "Speaking on pitch to rhythmic accompaniment" isn't as catchy.

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And rap's origins go back to talking blues, which usually consisted of a man reciting the words while accompanying himself on guitar. Sampling (when it's done with permission, theft when it's not) of snatches of music from other people's recordings has largely replaced the instrumental accompaniment, but there still is a musical element to the complete product, so I see nothing wrong with "rap music," even though my personal opinion of it is pretty close to Landtuna's, truth be told.But hey, rap is not my generation's music, just as big band music (which I also have little use for) wasn't, so it's not my place to begrudge its many fans over nearly two generations their enthusiasm for the genre. Times change, tastes change, popular music changes.

CTListener said:

And rap's origins go back to talking blues, which usually consisted of a man reciting the words while accompanying himself on guitar.

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I agree. Lots of heritage there, whether you talk about Tom Paxton, Johnny Cash, or Charlie Daniels.

TheBigA said:

You like to invent your own definitions. That's fine for you. But the genre of rap music exists, and there is a Grammy Award given for it.

There is also a Grammy given for Spoken Word. That is another thing completely. "Speaking on pitch to rhythmic accompaniment" isn't as catchy.

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My definition is as valid as the industry's. My point being that rap does not, in any way, fit the description of "music" nor do the people that do it fit the description of "artists" (as the term "artist" requires actual talent).

Yes, Top 40 or CHR, although it has it's own core artists, is actually the sum of the most popular songs of the moment and less defined by style. And that's what it should be in my book. I just began growing out of top 40 being my choice partly by about 1991 or 1992 although there are always a few that I like that get played so much. The thing that got me was some friends went from CHR to Country Hits, leaning heavily toward Young Country, calling it top 40 with a twang.

TheBigA said:

I agree. Lots of heritage there, whether you talk about Tom Paxton, Johnny Cash, or Charlie Daniels.

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I don't recall a complete "song" being spoken back then. Virtually all had some accompaniment other than percussion or they had actual music before, during or after the spoken word.

landtuna said:

My definition is as valid as the industry's.

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Somehow they have managed to get lots of other people agree with their definition. You have not.

"Rock" doesn't fit the description of the music either.

CTListener said:

And rap's origins go back to talking blues, which usually consisted of a man reciting the words while accompanying himself on guitar. Sampling (when it's done with permission, theft when it's not) of snatches of music from other people's recordings has largely replaced the instrumental accompaniment, but there still is a musical element to the complete product, so I see nothing wrong with "rap music," even though my personal opinion of it is pretty close to Landtuna's, truth be told.But hey, rap is not my generation's music, just as big band music (which I also have little use for) wasn't, so it's not my place to begrudge its many fans over nearly two generations their enthusiasm for the genre. Times change, tastes change, popular music changes.

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I think there is a world of difference between music accompanying a talking story (thinking Burl Ives or Walter Brennan here) or poem. They are as different as night and day from typical rap.

And, I was born in the twilight of Big Band but I learned to like most of it and to this day opine there is/was no better dance music. It is unfortunate it is so closely tied to WW2 because that is about the only time it is played these days.

landtuna said:

I don't recall a complete "song" being spoken back then. Virtually all had some accompaniment other than percussion or they had actual music before, during or after the spoken word.

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As does a lot of the rap being done today. The example I give is Old Town Road, in which the choruses are sung, but the verses are spoken. In the same way as The Devil Went Down To Georgia.

One of the early examples of rap was "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil-Scott Heron. No melody at all to that one. It was poetry read over rhythm.

https://youtu.be/qGaoXAwl9kw

TheBigA said:

Somehow they have managed to get lots of other people agree with their definition. You have not.

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Then again, my livelihood does not depend upon selling junk to the masses or creating stereotypes.

TheBigA said:

"Rock" doesn't fit the description of the music either.

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Not sure what this means. I believe the original definition was "Rock and Roll" which was defined originally by Black music that bordered on the sexual side. In White America in the 50's it began as Be-bop and was usurped by White DJ's/recording studios/musicians into a hundred different sub-genres.

TheBigA said:

One of the early examples of rap was "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil-Scott Heron. No melody at all to that one. It was poetry read over rhythm.

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I would not classify that example as rap at all. It has no rhyming which is a virtual requirement of rap. A poem must rhyme. None in that example at all. It does sound familiar though thinking back to the coffee club culture of the Beat Generation of the late 50's and early 60's who put their message to a background of jazz. That wasn't music either.

landtuna said:

Then again, my livelihood does not depend upon selling junk to the masses or creating stereotypes.

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Then your definition isn't as valid as theirs. It's just your definition. Mr. Webster demonstrated that the validity of definitions is about achieving consensus.

Not all that is included as rock & roll is sexual in nature or based on that goal.

landtuna said:

A poem must rhyme.

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No, no, no. Many poems have meter but no rhymes. Ever hear of blank verse. Think Milton's "Paradise Lost," Tennyson's "Ulysses" or anything by e.e. cummings. Rap's rhymes are pretty basic, slightly more complicated than the crude (but effective) rhyming couplets of Bob Dylan.

bobdavcav said:

Hey Ford, how you doing? It's been a while since we've seen you on the Seattle board. As for the topic at hand, I'm finding myself listening to a lot less CHR than I did even two years ago, though I still listen to a lot of Hot AC. I figured this would happen eventually, but that I'd be pushing 40 before it did.

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Hey Bob! It's great to hear from you! It has definitely been a while since I've checked in on the Seattle board. Lately I've been more interested in engineering, antennas, and DX (the hobbies that got me interested in broadcasting in the first place).

In regard to the topic at hand, I know that you're also on the younger side of the age spectrum, so it's interesting to see that your tastes have led you away from CHR as well. I agree with the sentiments of other forum members; I'm not a fan of this type of music, and bringing back a famous personality or different presentation doesn't help. I used to listen to a fair amount of country music growing up (before abandoning the genre around 2011). When a particular country music personality (which I remember listening to) returned to the local airwaves last month, I tuned in to see what I thought of the show, but discovered that I couldn't get past the quality of the music. The "depth" that I used to appreciate in country music just wasn't there.

Could it be that we are just getting old?

CTListener said:

No, no, no. Many poems have meter but no rhymes. Ever hear of blank verse. Think Milton's "Paradise Lost," Tennyson's "Ulysses" or anything by e.e. cummings. Rap's rhymes are pretty basic, slightly more complicated than the crude (but effective) rhyming couplets of Bob Dylan.

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po·em

noun: poem; plural noun: poems

a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanzaic structure.

A poem without rhyme is a paragraph.