Interesting. Sirius XM's soft-rock channel, The Bridge, plays "Same Old Lang Syne" and another non-Christmas song with a Christmastime setting, Jim Croce's "It Doesn't Have To Be That Way," year-round, but I don't recall ever hearing them outside the season back when we had a number of AM and FM stations that still played Fogelberg and Croce. I wonder if iHeart's Breeze stream plays either; it's only been on HD here since the spring and I haven't listened to it enough to get deep into its playlist.
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Christmas music vs. winter music
- Thread starter frankberry
- Start date
Interesting. Sirius XM's soft-rock channel, The Bridge, plays "Same Old Lang Syne" and another non-Christmas song with a Christmastime setting, Jim Croce's "It Doesn't Have To Be That Way," year-round, but I don't recall ever hearing them outside the season back when we had a number of AM and FM stations that still played Fogelberg and Croce. I wonder if iHeart's Breeze stream plays either; it's only been on HD here since the spring and I haven't listened to it enough to get deep into its playlist.
Gotta love Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Wizards In Winter" (from their "The Lost Christmas Eve" album), but aside from its title, the music may not be what some would associate with either Christmas or winter.
I was in Lowe's yesterday, myself, but did not notice any "Christmasy" music. But then again, I probably wasn't in there long enough to notice.
Somewhat ironic, but this seems to be the ONLY Fogelberg song that ever gets played, anymore. He really has not held up all that well over the years. That actually comes as a bit of a surprise to me.
It was back to regular AC yesterday with no Christmas music at all. Perhaps they were testing on Monday.
Do you mean at Christmas, or ever? WEZV Myrtle Beach SC plays a lot of Dan Fogelberg. I can't recall what America's Best Music plays of his, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did.
WRVR 104.5 in Memphis switched to Christmas music yesterday.
Haven't heard Fogelberg outside of Christmas in years.
It appears that Mix 92.9 has switched over today. The FISH played Christmas music yesterday, but that is typical of them on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Not sure if they have switched over just yet.
His prime hit-making years were in CHR's nuclear winter of the late '70s and early '80s. Disco had pushed most other music, especially rock, off CHR playlists, and when the public suddenly got tired of it there was really nothing in the pipeline to take its place. The result was two or three years of soft rock that just hasn't aged well. Look at the playlists of most classic hits stations and you'll find very little from 1979-80, and only slightly more from 1981. Of course, MTV came along in mid-1981 and by 1982 it was pushing a substantial amount of fresh-sounding, uptempo rock into viewers' ears and, in turn, onto CHR playlists, triggering a new golden age of CHR that lasted through much of the decade until grunge and rap started to polarize the audience.
Dan Fogelberg was one of my favorite artists of the 1970s/80s. His music is too old and soft for AC stations to play anymore. But I think he airs on the handful of Soft AC stations around the country. He died in 2007 from prostate cancer, age 56. Did he get his PSA checked every year?
Wikipedia lists his Top 20 hits as...
Longer
Hard to Say
Leader of The Band
Language of Love
Run for The Roses
with my favorite, Heart Hotels, peaking at 21.
And yes, Same Old Lang Syne topped at #9. But I hear that one so much during the holidays, and it's so down, that I don't like it.
Wikipedia lists his Top 20 hits as...
Longer
Hard to Say
Leader of The Band
Language of Love
Run for The Roses
with my favorite, Heart Hotels, peaking at 21.
And yes, Same Old Lang Syne topped at #9. But I hear that one so much during the holidays, and it's so down, that I don't like it.
Some of it was. In a way, he was the original new age artist. He did an album with flautist Tim Weisberg. He also influenced Garth Brooks.
There was a tribute album to Fogelberg a couple of years ago, and Garth was part of it. Here's an interesting interview with Garth about it:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...th-brooks-zac-brown-honor-late-singer-124374/
The sad thing about it all is that he really WASN'T a "polarizing" performer. It's just that most of what he did was (in my opinion) unnecessarily "soft." This was during my high school years, and a lot of what I remember does indeed still get played, Michael Jackson and Journey, especially. If I had a soft-rock or soft-AC station in my market, I might be hearing a bit more of Fogelberg than I am currently. I have an appreciation for his talent; it's just that I was never a hardcore fan of his. Agree about the post-disco void. Seems like most of that was filled with lame country crossovers ("Elvira," anyone?) that also haven't aged all that well.
At least everyone who was around then still remembers it, and it does get plenty of classic country airplay. But you also had Alabama and Eddie Rabbitt visiting the upper reaches of the Hot 100 regularly with scarcely recalled hits like "Feels So Right," "Love in the First Degree," "Suspicions" and "Step By Step," that don't get played hardly anywhere these days. Funny thing was, all this Hot 100 gravy for country acts died in 1983. Rabbitt and Crystal Gayle hit the top 10 with "You and I" in '82, but his follow-up, "You Can't Run From Love," was a CHR stiff. Even more amazing was Alabama's fall from pop grace. "Take Me Down" -- No. 18 pop in 1982, "The Closer You Get," which had as non-country a production as any of their singles -- dead in the water at No. 38 in 1983. But the acts MTV was breaking in those years, everything from Rick Springfield to Duran Duran to Men At Work to Culture Club, exposed country crossover as a placeholder until edgier product came along.
Can't forget that "huge" country / pop crossover 1981 hit by the Oak Ridge Boys, "Elvira" (Firepoint mentions it). You had an upswing in country pop back then with Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Bob Seger, Eddie Rabbit and the likes. Same thing happened in 74-75 with Denver and Fender. Even "Sister Golden Hair" sounds like a country pop song to a degree.
By 82, you had the new wave British Invasion beginning. Soft Cell had "Tainted Love" medley, Missing Persons had "Words", Tears For Fears with "Mad World" late that year or early 83. Unless you wanna count The Clash for hard rock or Quiet Riot, not much rock to show forth, just numerous good softer ballads which are ignored today.
Yes, that was the song I was commenting on.
Oldies76, you're still under the impression that there's no such thing as math or limits to the amount of time that people spend listening to radio, and that radio can keep every song that ever made the charts at top-of-mind-awareness for every listener. That's not even remotely possible
I still remember "The Closer You Get." But I don't believe that Alabama had anything to do with that not being more of a pop hit than it was. (Although it still outrocked most of their other songs.) No, it was 1983, and by then, Michael Jackson was casting a loooonnnnnnnnnnnnggg shadow on the pop charts, and overshadowing nearly everything else. (I believe that that was what fueled the "re-release craze" of the late '80s, which I posted about on the '80s board, but I digress.) If I remember right, "The Closer You Get" was written by the guys from Exile, which led to THEM also going country later in the '80s.
Eddie Rabbitt came out with this great cover version of "The Wanderer" sometime in the late '80s, which I believe would have been a decent pop hit, had it come out earlier in the decade.
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