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It's 2015! Time to get rid of the '70s.

I emailed a station I've been checking out on Radionomy. Here's the reply I got: Radionomy has advised us that we do not need to worry about it - for now.

Basically, the services that haven't been hit with a lawsuit, are taking a wait and see stance.
 
JeffM said:
Ever heard of a "turntable hit"? That's a record that got plenty of air play (and no, I'm not implying payola; maybe it got a lot of phone-in requests or whatever), but when it came to actual sales, the only reason they put a hole in the middle of the record was so that it would sink.

The record industry was guilty in the 70's and 80's of pressing millions of an LP so it would "SHIP MULTI-PLATINUM!"...then wind up with warehouses groaning with unsold returns. (Warner Bros' Chicago warehouse manager was at least creative about this...he knew the warehouse was soon to face a flood from a nearby river, and moved tens of thousands of copies of duds like Richard Simmons' "Reach" to the ground floor to soak up the mess! WB made a killing on the insurance...)
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Good points.

Turntable hits were songs that stations played for a variety of reasons... often to balance the "feel" of the station or due to requests... back in the 60's and into the 70's.

In the last 4 decades, stations have used callout to check current songs. Since then, we have seen a very significant number of songs that score very high on "I want to hear it on the radio" but which stiffed in sales. That is one of the reasons why stations stopped tracking record sales (or at least gave that data less importance) and increasingly looked towards "acceptability" for airplay.

And there were plenty of songs that radio played that never got good acceptance, proving that no amount of play will make a stiff into a hit.

Of course, once you go beyond the top 20 to 30 albums in any era, the sales flatten out. A peak at #68 really does not mean a lot unless the album spent a year or two at that position. If it spiked at 68 and disappeared, that was typical of the label shipping a lot of product and then never shipping any more. And, of course, the charts are not adjusted for returns... so #68 might really be #268.
 
JeffM said:
Ever heard of a "turntable hit"? That's a record that got plenty of air play (and no, I'm not implying payola; maybe it got a lot of phone-in requests or whatever), but when it came to actual sales, the only reason they put a hole in the middle of the record was so that it would sink.

The record industry was guilty in the 70's and 80's of pressing millions of an LP so it would "SHIP MULTI-PLATINUM!"...then wind up with warehouses groaning with unsold returns. (Warner Bros' Chicago warehouse manager was at least creative about this...he knew the warehouse was soon to face a flood from a nearby river, and moved tens of thousands of copies of duds like Richard Simmons' "Reach" to the ground floor to soak up the mess! WB made a killing on the insurance...)
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That's not the case with Hot Tuna or New Riders Of The Purple Sage. Those are the acts being discussed. I am aware of "turntable hits". They're usually rare, and often come from albums that sold reasonably well, even if the teenyboppers didn't buy the 45s. Some weren't even released as singles, but still became airplay hits.

DavidEduardo said:
Please re-read that statement.

"I don't believe the suits" means that what they say is a lie.

"I won't go so far as to call them liars" is a contradiction because you just said they lie.
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An "honest mistake" is not a lie, so someone who states an error is not a liar. A lie is a deliberate statement that is contrary to facts. An error is a misstatement of fact that the speaker thought was true. An error is not a lie. However, I find it a good policy to give others the benefit of the doubt and assume that when they say something that is at variance with reality, it is an error, not a lie.

DavidEduardo said:
Good points.

Turntable hits were songs that stations played for a variety of reasons... often to balance the "feel" of the station or due to requests... back in the 60's and into the 70's.

In the last 4 decades, stations have used callout to check current songs. Since then, we have seen a very significant number of songs that score very high on "I want to hear it on the radio" but which stiffed in sales. That is one of the reasons why stations stopped tracking record sales (or at least gave that data less importance) and increasingly looked towards "acceptability" for airplay.
Click to expand...

What do you call a song that was popular as an album cut that was never released as a single?
 
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Music Lover said:
I emailed a station I've been checking out on Radionomy. Here's the reply I got: Radionomy has advised us that we do not need to worry about it - for now.

Basically, the services that haven't been hit with a lawsuit, are taking a wait and see stance.
Click to expand...

Maybe the parties involved in the lawsuits will come to realize just how much musical culture will be lost and will work out some kind of agreement.
 
Avid Listener said:
That's not the case with Hot Tuna or New Riders Of The Purple Sage. Those are the acts being discussed. I am aware of "turntable hits". They're usually rare, and often come from albums that sold reasonably well, even if the teenyboppers didn't buy the 45s. Some weren't even released as singles, but still became airplay hits.
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"Turntable hit" is a Top 40 term for songs listeners liked but which did not sell. They were almost 100% singles, as Top 40's did not generally play album cuts in "hit rotations".

"Turntable Hits" were not rare. They are not rare today. Once we had listener research rather than sales research we might see that as much as a third of a Top 40 playlist was made up of turntable hits. No sales, but listeners loved hearing the song.

An "honest mistake" is not a lie, so someone who states an error is not a liar. A lie is a deliberate statement that is contrary to facts. An error is a misstatement of fact that the speaker thought was true. An error is not a lie. However, I find it a good policy to give others the benefit of the doubt and assume that when they say something that is at variance with reality, it is an error, not a lie.
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The bugs here in the desert wiggle almost as much when hit by a blast of Raid.

What do you call a song that was popular as an album cut that was never released as a single?
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For radio play, such a song is a hit. Radio does not generally distinguish between the medium the song was released on and its playability; that is determined via listener research.

However, back in the pre-research days when we only had record sales and jukebox plays and requests to go on, singles tended to be the biggest determining factor. But that system of programming was only effective prior to audience fragmentation and has been mostly abandoned.
 
I mentioned earlier that ensuring an event is successful is similar to ensuring a radio station is successful. The online planning software I use allows my clients and other DJ entertainment company's clients to allow them to pick out their favorites for dancing. I've attached an image of the top 25.

Granted, there are line dancing songs that wouldn't get airplay, but the rest are tried and true, successful songs over several decades. The reason people request those songs? They like them, the songs make them want to dance and make them feel good! They don't want to hear songs they don't know.

Top 30.jpg
 
Speaking of streaming, when I first got hooked on iTunes, the radio feature was just a collection of various streams from around the web. When I upgraded to iTunes 11, the radio feature was changed to be more like Pandora Radio. There are several genre-focused stations. Or you can play stations based upon artists. Since I like modern lite AC, I selected a station based upon Josh Groban, one of my faves in the modern lite AC genre. A station based upon him has brought up artists such as Enya, Michael Buble, The Canadian Tenors, and even some of today's country crossover such as Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood. Just like with Pandora, you can customize what songs play on the station. iTunes Radio is ad-supported. If you subscribe to iTunes Match, which is $25 a year, you can listen to iTunes Radio ad-free. The customization factor is what I love about these streaming services.
 
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What do you call a song that was popular as an album cut that was never released as a single?
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Wouldn't Stairway To Heaven fall under this category?
 
Which, I've heard from vinyl collectors, fetches big bucks.
 
Music Lover said:
Speaking of streaming, when I first got hooked on iTunes, the radio feature was just a collection of various streams from around the web. When I upgraded to iTunes 11, the radio feature was changed to be more like Pandora Radio. There are several genre-focused stations. Or you can play stations based upon artists. Since I like modern lite AC, I selected a station based upon Josh Groban, one of my faves in the modern lite AC genre. A station based upon him has brought up artists such as Enya, Michael Buble, The Canadian Tenors, and even some of today's country crossover such as Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood. Just like with Pandora, you can customize what songs play on the station. iTunes Radio is ad-supported. If you subscribe to iTunes Match, which is $25 a year, you can listen to iTunes Radio ad-free. The customization factor is what I love about these streaming services.
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iTunes Radio not only matches up artists that are similar but also uses your download/purchase history, which is why the country artists came up on the station.
 
My favorite of the Pandora-like services is Pandora. They have the best knack for matching up songs sonically.
 
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