Strange song choices format-wise?

umfan said:

Oddly, even though Olivia Newton-John had one of the biggest hits of the 80s, she doesn't get nearly as much play.

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She needs prayers. Her cancer is back for a third time.

For a true Millennial (born in 1980 and beyond) to be exposed to Juice Newton, it would likely come from their parents records, tapes or CDs. Country stations themselves mostly abandoned her by the late '80s as the Garth thing took off, so they weren't old enough to remember her early '80s heyday. The only Juice Newton song that usually gets airplay on the Soft AC and Classic Country stations is her cover of "Angel of The Morning" (likely because it was featured in the opening credits of the movie Deadpool and of course, her most recognizable hit) with the occasional spin of "Queen of Hearts" on Classic Country.

As for strange material on otherwise average stations, there used to be yearly Radio-thons on Seattle stations for charity where listeners could request songs the stations otherwise wouldn't be caught dead playing. It was hosted by KISW for many years, among the odder selections:

"Go Away Little Girl" Donny Osmond
"Friends In Low Places (Live Version)" Garth Brooks
"Yesterday" Mantovani
"Rubber Duckie" Sesame Street
"Touch Me (All Night Long)" Cathy Dennis
"Dead Man's Party" Oingo Boingo
"Rockin' With The Rhythm of The Rain" The Judds
"What's New" Linda Ronstadt
"Everyday Is Halloween" Ministry (when they were still a New Wavey synthpop band before they went industrial metal)

There was only a few rules: The more far out the song, the more you had to donate. This included long songs (someone actually requested the entire double album Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes, so this point had to be driven home.) Also the songs had to be clean (no expletives. Unless you can pony up the potential maximum FCC fines then for each expletive upfront.) No one took them up on that.

What killed it ultimately (besides listener fatigue) were the record labels (it was one of those instances where stark naked payola was legal because the money was going to charity.) And all you heard was their new product and not many far out listener requested songs. The Radio-thon moved to other stations, landing at AC KLSY one year and Classic Rock KZOK in others. But it just wasn't the same.

Oh yeah I remember that. It was like 2001 or 2002 that it was on KLSY. There wasn't much I remember out of the ordinary that year though, except for maybe one song.