Bob Seger Songs

Merry Christmas!

On Facebook, under the "Lost Hits (M.I.A.)" threads, there's a topic by Darian Dennison on which of the two songs people and listeners prefer: "Old Time Rock and Roll" or "Fire Lake". Overwhelmingly, "Fire Lake" is the much better choice of the two songs, but is ignored by radio.

Personally, I much prefer 1980's "Fire Lake" and 1977/78's "Night Moves" and "Still the Same".

What are your thoughts and conclusions on Bob Seger Music and airplay today?

Never been much of a "Fire Lake" fan. For me, the ones I can listen to again and again are "Against the Wind," "We've Got Tonight" and "Turn the Page." And if you're going to play "Night Moves," it had better be the full LP version. Up this way, the stations that are still playing Seger seem to spin "Hollywood Nights" more than any other song of his. Another one I'm not too keen on.

"Fire Lake" is an interesting song, because it features The Eagles singing background vocals. Sometimes a song gets lost when it is released between two monster hits, and I think that's what happened here. It was released between "Old Time Rock & Roll" and "Against The Wind." Fire Lake wasn't as big a hit as either of them. So when you pick & choose Seger songs, it's not one that comes up. I was looking at his own setlists, and even Bob doesn't perform the song any more. But he does do all of the other songs mentioned in this thread.

I love a lot of Bob Seger’s music. He had a lot of hits and some are just not heard much on classic hits stations. It’s not too unusual though. Other artists have the same situation. There’s been lots of discussions that song chart position has not always determined airplay on nostalgia based formats.

There’s the results of music testing. Other factors probably weigh in as well. Stations in a cluster can’t negatively impact sister stations. As is, there is some music overlap between classic rock and classic hits formats. Perhaps, classic rock goes deeper into Seger cuts.

There’s also gender consideration. Let’s say a classic hits station is designed to attract more females and classic rock more males.
Outside of heavily played and mass-appeal popular songs such as “Old Time Rock and Roll” and a couple others mentioned, those Seger songs may be favored more by males.

So, if a classic hits station started playing more Seger cuts and with increased frequency, that could cause female P1s to tune out. That classic hits station may lose some identity sounding more like something else. Perhaps too, the station would move from being a minor, indirect competitor to a sister classic rocker to one where peeling off listeners over time could have devastating results. Sometimes, too, increased music overlap occurs by design when a company decides one of the formats is planned to be flipped to something else.

Programming today is like walking in a mine field. For those stations who still do it, specialty programs such as countdowns sometimes see lesser played songs have a chance to shine. But, going too much in any direction could have negative impacts to that station or to a sister or maybe even both.

My favorite is "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (1969)

"Old Time Rock and Roll" is my favorite, even though I don't actually like rock and roll ... well, actually, when it was called that, it did sound good. Also, I like disco, but not being in a disco.

I like "We've Got Tonight" but prefer the Kenny Rogers/Sheena Easton version. Also "Like a Rock", "Against the Wind" and "Still the Same".

TheBigA said:

"Fire Lake" is an interesting song, because it features The Eagles singing background vocals. Sometimes a song gets lost when it is released between two monster hits, and I think that's what happened here. It was released between "Old Time Rock & Roll" and "Against The Wind." Fire Lake wasn't as big a hit as either of them. So when you pick & choose Seger songs, it's not one that comes up. I was looking at his own setlists, and even Bob doesn't perform the song any more. But he does do all of the other songs mentioned in this thread.

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"Fire Lake" peaked at #6, while "Old Time Rock & Roll" only managed to go to #28, so "Fire Lake" was definitely a hit. The deciding factor in the continuing popularity of "Old Time R&R" seems to be the iconic image of Tom Cruise dancing to it in his underwear in Risky Business. It was re-released in conjunction with the movie (I still have that 45), but still only managed to peak in the mid 50s. A dj at the time said that it was a bigger hit the second time around (obviously not true).

The biggest missed opportunity in the Seger catalog seems to be the non-release (at least as an A-side) of "Her Strut" as a single. It was the b-side of "Horizontal Bop," which went nowhere, but now, nearly 35 years later, it seems like "Her Strut" still gets a lot of airplay. I remember hearing it over WLS in summer 1980, when it was played only as an album track.

The only real surprise here seems to be the lack of enduring popularity of "Fire Lake," especially since the Eagles sang backup on it. That was a return favor to him for the co-write of "Heartache Tonight."

And listening to part of the top 100 songs from 1980 on American Top 40 last week, I was surprised (and glad) to see that he ranked "Fire Lake" #68, ahead of "Against the Wind" #73 on this particular countdown. It was great hearing "Fire Lake" on the air waves again, even though it was a year-end special and not regular programming.

http://www.oldradioshows.com/at100/1980.html

oldies76 said:

I was surprised (and glad) to see that he ranked "Fire Lake" #68, ahead of "Against the Wind" #73 on this particular countdown.

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Ranking in year-end charts are often a function of when a song was released. The earlier a song is released in a year, the more total it gets, thus the higher it is in the chart.

So Fire Lake was released in January 1980, spent more time on the chart than Against The Wind, and is higher in the year end chart.

oldies76 said:

And listening to part of the top 100 songs from 1980 on American Top 40 last week, I was surprised (and glad) to see that he ranked "Fire Lake" #68, ahead of "Against the Wind" #73 on this particular countdown. It was great hearing "Fire Lake" on the air waves again, even though it was a year-end special and not regular programming.
http://www.oldradioshows.com/at100/1980.html

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Was jamming out to the 1976 countdown(s) myself this past weekend. Are you able to find four-hour shows, or are you having to settle for three-hour programs? KOKZ and WRQN (I think) are a couple of stations that carry the four-hour versions of the retro '70s shows, when available. Not sure about the '80s shows, but if you find some, let me know!

TheBigA said:

Ranking in year-end charts are often a function of when a song was released. The earlier a song is released in a year, the more total it gets, thus the higher it is in the chart.
So Fire Lake was released in January 1980, spent more time on the chart than Against The Wind, and is higher in the year end chart.

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Got curious about this, so I looked it up. "Fire Lake" spent one week longer on the charts (top 40, anyway) than "Against the Wind." The latter peaked at #5, while the former topped out at #6, so it appears that the extra week may have been the tie-breaker between the two. (#68 and #73 aren't really that far apart, at least on a year-end countdown.)

firepoint525 said:

Got curious about this, so I looked it up. "Fire Lake" spent one week longer on the charts (top 40, anyway) than "Against the Wind."

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That's not how year end charts are calculated. Most songs spend about the same amount of time on the chart, if it's a hit. The next step though is recurrent airplay, which isn't publicly charted. A song released in January continues to get recurrent airplay after it drops out of the Top 30. That recurrent airplay is also factored into the year-end chart. So songs released earlier in the year typically end up higher in year-end charts.

A song of Bob's that I really enjoy is The Famous Final Scene from Stranger in Town

My votes go to "Betty Lou's Gettin' Out Tonight" and "Katmandu".

TheBigA said:

"Fire Lake" is an interesting song, because it features The Eagles singing background vocals. Sometimes a song gets lost when it is released between two monster hits, and I think that's what happened here. It was released between "Old Time Rock & Roll" and "Against The Wind." Fire Lake wasn't as big a hit as either of them.

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Last week, you said (here) that "Fire Lake" was not a hit. Now you said that it was a bigger hit.

TheBigA said:

That's not how year end charts are calculated. Most songs spend about the same amount of time on the chart, if it's a hit. The next step though is recurrent airplay, which isn't publicly charted. A song released in January continues to get recurrent airplay after it drops out of the Top 30. That recurrent airplay is also factored into the year-end chart. So songs released earlier in the year typically end up higher in year-end charts.

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I am on the AT40 '70s Facebook page. A number of AT40 insiders are also on that page. I am definitely going to ask them what role (if any) recurrents play in year-end rankings. I suspect that if this were the case, that there would be howls of protest.

firepoint525 said:

Last week, you said (here) that "Fire Lake" was not a hit. Now you said that it was a bigger hit.

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No, I explained why it ranked higher in the year end chart. Ranking higher in a year end chart doesn't make it a bigger hit.

firepoint525 said:

I am definitely going to ask them what role (if any) recurrents play in year-end rankings. I suspect that if this were the case, that there would be howls of protest.

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Why would there be any protest? That's how it works. Year end charts are cumulative from the year's spins, tracked by the monitors. Every spin counts, regardless of if it's current or recurrent. They also track Gold spins, and we see that too.

firepoint525 said:

Was jamming out to the 1976 countdown(s) myself this past weekend. Are you able to find four-hour shows, or are you having to settle for three-hour programs? KOKZ and WRQN (I think) are a couple of stations that carry the four-hour versions of the retro '70s shows, when available. Not sure about the '80s shows, but if you find some, let me know!

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Unfortunately the classic hits station 95.5 in Pueblo only aired the three hour version of the 80's show (1980), so it was cut off at #12 I believe. I was disappointed, but all I had to do was look up the list to find the other songs. The '76 version was played in full over two weekends (part 1 and part 2). The thing that I dislike (among other things in radio it seems lately) is that Casey Kasem uses a November to November chart period. All the songs that peaked in late November and December were not included in their respective years. As far as I'm concerned "Tonight's the Night" is the top single of 1976, not "Silly Love Songs". Same thing for 1980, "(Just Like) Starting Over" was not included either, among others.

But yet when he aired the snippet montage of all the #1's of '76, it was included there.

I realize he had to produce this show by New Year's weekend, but all he really had to do was splice in a few year-end songs to a finished product and then air it. The hits of 1976 should include those hits, peaking in 1976. Heck, when I heard "Island Girl", a #1 from 1975 I knew something was up.

firepoint525 said:

Last week, you said (here) that "Fire Lake" was not a hit. Now you said that it was a bigger hit.

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"Fire Lake" and "Against the Wind" were both huge hits in 1980. I'm really disappointed that "Fire Lake" is avoided by radio to this day to the extent is has.

oldies76 said:

Casey Kasem uses a November to November chart period.

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Hmmm...it depends. The original AT40 used the Billboard Chart, which closes the first week in December. Neither Casey nor anyone in radio had anything to do with the chart periods. It was an editorial decision made by Billboard magazine for THEIR annual year-end edition, which was published and on news stands before Christmas.

TheBigA said:

Hmmm...it depends. The original AT40 used the Billboard Chart, which closes the first week in December. Neither Casey nor anyone in radio had anything to do with the chart periods. It was an editorial decision made by Billboard magazine for THEIR annual year-end edition, which was published and on news stands before Christmas.

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Casey even mentions the Nov-Nov chart period in his summary. He actually said "November 1975 through November 1976" in this countdown.

http://www.oldradioshows.com/at100/1976.html