Is AC no longer the family friendly/at work format?

I have been listening to AC stations since I was a six-year-old kid in 1992, and I remember that the soft rock stations as we used to call them were always advertising that they were the station you could listen to with your kids in the car and there would be no awkward lyrics. I very rarely listen to local radio anymore as I am 31 going on 71 when it comes to music, so I don't know if they're still using that slogan. I usually listen to online streams of oldies or AC from other cities because they play the older music I like. Right now I'm listening to KGDE in Dallas to see what it's like, and the first song I heard when I opened the player after the commercial break was "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars, and although it was edited, there were still some pretty suggestive lyrics that you probably wouldn't want to hear your little kid singing along with at the top of their voice.

I'm not trying to sound prudish, but it has got me curious. Has AC discontinued the family-friendly claims, or do they tone down their playlist when the soccer moms they are presumably targeting would be listening? If they are not, which stations would fill that gap?

I haven't heard a "family friendly" claim in years on any station in any format. It's not a concern for modern parents.

Well I guess it would shorten the list of songs they could play if they made that claim. Back in the 90s there were certainly a lot of explicit songs, but there were also pop songs that were kept PG, or if there was innuendo, it was understated. Back then we had "I'll Make Love to You". Now they just go ahead and give you the whole play-by-play.

I have yet to meet a parent who's concerned about AC music, and "family friendly" is in the eye of the beholder. There's nothing on AC today that I wouldn't deem generally suitable for my family, coming from an era when songs were about "afternoon delight," "making love out of nothing at all," et al.

PTBoardOp94 said:

I haven't heard a "family friendly" claim in years on any station in any format. It's not a concern for modern parents.

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I've heard it said about Christian radio. Of course, I wouldn't listen to that garbage.

I might have heard such a claim made about adult standards.

AbrahamJSimpson said:

I have yet to meet a parent who's concerned about AC music, and "family friendly" is in the eye of the beholder. There's nothing on AC today that I wouldn't deem generally suitable for my family, coming from an era when songs were about "afternoon delight," "making love out of nothing at all," et al.

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Oops. Those last two are on America's Best Music, so there goes that idea.

My local AC tends to market itself as family-friendly by editing out certain words. They censor "hell" on Taylor Swift's "Your Wildest Dreams" where sh says, "He's so tall and handsome as hell".

Mix 92.9 here in Nashville dropped the whole "family friendly" thing years ago, although their sister station B 97.5 in Knoxville kept it for a while longer. Not sure if B 97.5 still makes that claim.

I thought of one example. "Jack and Diane", according to one newspaper article I read, got played on some stations but not others. There was a soft rock FM in my area at the time but I don't think it was mentioned in the article. However, it was too loud for that station. The AM that also played soft rock and now has Rush Limbaugh wouldn't play it because of suggestive lyrics, but I imagine it was also too loud for the station.

WEZV Myrtle Beach SC sounds like soft rock stations did in the 80s and plays some songs from after 1990. It is played there.

gr8oldies said:

I remember playing an acoustic version of Mellencamp's "Small Town" when it was current at an A/C station.

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I think that was on the B side of the single. Not sure why. Perhaps to get extra spins in other formats?

gr8oldies said:

I remember playing an acoustic version of Mellencamp's "Small Town" when it was current at an A/C station.

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WEZV is playing that one right now (not necessarily an acoustic version, but I'm pretty sure the original). But that song would surely be family friendly. The station does play "Hurts So Good", which doesn't seem like it would be.

I have the 45 of "Authority Song," which has the acoustic version of "Pink Houses" on the B-side. (They didn't really call it "unplugged" yet.) I remember this version of "Pink Houses" getting some airplay while it was a hit, but not lately. It is so soft in places that it is almost impossible to get a "good play" on it unless the record is completely clean. Any dust on there, and you WILL hear it! I suppose that that was no longer a problem once it came out on CD.

The local oldies station, WTDK "The Duck" has a spot that says "You'll hear nothing foul (fowl) here" with the insinuation that the music is "safe" though that's always up to interpretation.

Had you tried to stream KISQ 98.1 The Breeze from San Francisco? It's a Soft AC by iHM. They emphasized on softer tracks from the 70s, 80s, and 90s like "You Are so Beautiful", "It Might Be You", "Don't Know Much", "Even the Nights Are Better", "All out of Love", "After All", "Next Time I Fall", "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan, "Longer", and many more. They do play a few recurrents though. I'm not sure about the lyrics of all the songs they play, but given the way KISQ leans on their music, I have a better feeling that KISQ music would be much more family-friendly than most other AC and Soft AC around the U.S.

How about songs from rock band Queen like "Another One Bites The Dust"? Although there are no objectionable lyrics that most parents find concerning, it can be considered "hard rock" and does not fit to AC standards. 30 years ago you don't hear this song played on a soft rock station, I guess it was a big "no-no" since it's very aggressive, but now with corporate media taking over radio in recent years as well as changes in our listening habits, many programmers tend to get away with it.

CurtisNEPA said:

How about songs from rock band Queen like "Another One Bites The Dust"? Although there are no objectionable lyrics that most parents find concerning, it can be considered "hard rock" and does not fit to AC standards. 30 years ago you don't hear this song played on a soft rock station, I guess it was a big "no-no" since it's very aggressive, but now with corporate media taking over radio in recent years as well as changes in our listening habits, many programmers tend to get away with it.

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I don't know. I read a newspaper article about an AC station in my area moving closer to what was considered AC in response to the debut of another station. While neither station was technically "soft rock", the Queen song was on the station that was making the change.

vchimpanzee said:

I don't know. I read a newspaper article about an AC station in my area moving closer to what was considered AC in response to the debut of another station. While neither station was technically "soft rock", the Queen song was on the station that was making the change.

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To be honest, so what? It's one situation, and that does not an overall trend make nor break.