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Why do these songs play day-after-day, year-after-year?

tall_guy1

tall_guy1

Star Participant
There's a group of songs I can never figure out why they won't stop playing (and often, and on multiple different formats). Isn't there a listener burnout to hearing these songs? Here's a partial list of them (there's more):

Royals-Lorde
I Will Wait-Mumford and Sons
Use Somebody-Kings of Leon
I'm Yours-Jason Mraz
Roar-Katy Perry
Locked Out of Heaven-Bruno Mars
Ho Hey-Lumineers
Somebody That I Used to Know-Gotye
Some Nights-Fun.
Little Talks-Of Monsters and Men
Demons-Imagine Dragons

I can't imagine anyone (well, maybe there's ONE person out there excited) who's excited to hear these songs play, and I could imagine tune-out when they do from being so overplayed over the years. Your opinion?
 
They must test well or they wouldn't be playing them. Then again I have a friend who, I suppose, actually believes radio's objective for success is to play stuff people hate so they can be profitable. I suspect he might have been dropped one too many times as a baby.
 
tall_guy1 said:
There's a group of songs I can never figure out why they won't stop playing (and often, and on multiple different formats). Isn't there a listener burnout to hearing these songs? Here's a partial list of them (there's more):

Royals-Lorde
I Will Wait-Mumford and Sons
Use Somebody-Kings of Leon
I'm Yours-Jason Mraz
Roar-Katy Perry
Locked Out of Heaven-Bruno Mars
Ho Hey-Lumineers
Somebody That I Used to Know-Gotye
Some Nights-Fun.
Little Talks-Of Monsters and Men
Demons-Imagine Dragons

I can't imagine anyone (well, maybe there's ONE person out there excited) who's excited to hear these songs play, and I could imagine tune-out when they do from being so overplayed over the years. Your opinion?
Click to expand...

Happens a lot with larger classic hits radio stations too. It all boils down to research and the testing of songs. Certainly not my preference, but that's the way it's done. Btw, I love that "Little Talks" song, one of my recent favorites. But I sympathize with you.
 
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tall_guy1 said:
There's a group of songs I can never figure out why they won't stop playing (and often, and on multiple different formats). Isn't there a listener burnout to hearing these songs? Here's a partial list of them (there's more):

Royals-Lorde
I Will Wait-Mumford and Sons
Use Somebody-Kings of Leon
I'm Yours-Jason Mraz
Roar-Katy Perry
Locked Out of Heaven-Bruno Mars
Ho Hey-Lumineers
Somebody That I Used to Know-Gotye
Some Nights-Fun.
Little Talks-Of Monsters and Men
Demons-Imagine Dragons

I can't imagine anyone (well, maybe there's ONE person out there excited) who's excited to hear these songs play, and I could imagine tune-out when they do from being so overplayed over the years. Your opinion?
Click to expand...

Just continuing a fine American radio tradition of overplaying certain songs for decades on end. See: Oh Pretty Woman (Roy Orbision), Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison/Them), American Pie (Don McLean), Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow (Fleetwood Mac), and many others from the '60s and '70s that were supposed to have aged out of The Sacred Sales Demos.
 
A very smart man taught me a long time ago: Play the hits. It works. Otherwise there's absolutely no other reason to do it. As tired as you say you are, imagine the people at the radio stations who play them. They hear those songs more often than you.

Imagine the musicians who perform those songs. They hear them more often than you. James Taylor was once asked if he ever got tired of singing the same songs over and over again. He said, "It's always a different audience. I just watch them, and see their joy. That's why I do it." Same with radio.
 
TheBigA said:
A very smart man taught me a long time ago: Play the hits. It works. Otherwise there's absolutely no other reason to do it. As tired as you say you are, imagine the people at the radio stations who play them. They hear those songs more often than you.
Click to expand...

At least a song like American Pie or Stairway to Heaven offers the DJ a potty break for 8 minutes. :D

Imagine the musicians who perform those songs. They hear them more often than you. James Taylor was once asked if he ever got tired of singing the same songs over and over again. He said, "It's always a different audience. I just watch them, and see their joy. That's why I do it." Same with radio.
Click to expand...

I'm willing to bet that Taylor cries all the way to the bank after every show.
 
KeithE4 said:
I'm willing to bet that Taylor cries all the way to the bank after every show.
Click to expand...

He wrote a lot of his own songs, so yes. I've seen similar quotes from Paul Simon.

I go to a lot of concerts. The songs that get the most applause are the ones that got the most airplay. I'm not the only one who notices. It affects the way they make their setlists.
 
tall_guy1 said:
There's a group of songs I can never figure out why they won't stop playing (and often, and on multiple different formats). Isn't there a listener burnout to hearing these songs? Here's a partial list of them (there's more):

Royals-Lorde
I Will Wait-Mumford and Sons
Use Somebody-Kings of Leon
I'm Yours-Jason Mraz
Roar-Katy Perry
Locked Out of Heaven-Bruno Mars
Ho Hey-Lumineers
Somebody That I Used to Know-Gotye
Some Nights-Fun.
Little Talks-Of Monsters and Men
Demons-Imagine Dragons

I can't imagine anyone (well, maybe there's ONE person out there excited) who's excited to hear these songs play, and I could imagine tune-out when they do from being so overplayed over the years. Your opinion?
Click to expand...

I think it has to do with Billboard's Hot 100, because most of these songs were at #1 or were the Top 5 at some point in the last few years, I guess.
 
Jonathan7157 said:
I think it has to do with Billboard's Hot 100, because most of these songs were at #1 or were the Top 5 at some point in the last few years, I guess.
Click to expand...

Lists like the Billboard one are generally not what stations look at in determining airplay today. Those lists don't really tell stations if the song was... and still is... popular with their specific audience.

Stations in bigger markets do research to find out which songs listeners like and dislike. Many songs that charted well when they were new do not do well years later, while other songs that perhaps were lower on the charts may have more staying power.
 
oldies76 said:
Happens a lot with larger classic hits radio stations too. It all boils down to research and the testing of songs. Certainly not my preference, but that's the way it's done. Btw, I love that "Little Talks" song, one of my recent favorites. But I sympathize with you.
Click to expand...

It has always been done this way going back to the local "Top Pop" surveys, to call out research. Today it is just a little more fancy, and less region influenced. What has changed is Youtube and other net base sources sometime bring a song band, or group to prominence.

As we get older, and the music becomes less familiar we seem to forget this.
 
KeithE4 said:
At least a song like American Pie or Stairway to Heaven offers the DJ a potty break for 8 minutes. :D



I'm willing to bet that Taylor cries all the way to the bank after every show.
Click to expand...

Gotta agree on Stairway...Kashmir works too!!! In college I used Kashmir then came back in time to do the weather forecast.
 
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