KSUR is a throwback station. Whether history or entertainment, they are enjoying the music (except the 80's it seems....). I am too, online that is.
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K-Surf 1260 growing playlist
- Thread starter oldies76
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KSUR is a throwback station. Whether history or entertainment, they are enjoying the music (except the 80's it seems....). I am too, online that is.
I knew KSUR would listen to all the negative feedback they’d been getting, and that the 80s wouldn’t last long on that station. As the saying goes, there’s strength in numbers. The greater the number of people who complain, the greater the likelihood it will make a difference. And K-Surf’s listeners’ voices have been heard.
As I’ve said, I’m turning 33 in about a month and a half, but I like music of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I know it’s unusual, but everyone has their own tastes, regardless of age.
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Sounds like my kids
I like that music too. But when I downloaded the app and tuned in for about an hour this afternoon, I was rather surprised to encounter really lousy audio. It was almost as if I had tinnitus. On top of that, I was hearing too many "downers" (slow and/or depressing songs).
Admittedly a small sample size, and maybe what I heard today was an anomaly. If it's true that Saul is going to "focus" the format, ditch the odd pre-Beatles to eighties segues, and liven the thing up, then he'll have me as a fan singing his praises. The K-Surf identity suggests a fun listen. So give me one! And don't forget improving the audio.
Sirius XM just launched a couple tof "Xtra" online channels in the same space as the K-Surf format. One is "Oldies Party" one is "60s-70s Mash Up" (softer. but still relatively upbeat), Both have very nice, relatively deep playlists. Aside from sounding like an ipod, the music mixes are very well done. Plus the audio....especially on high-end headphones....is clear and bright.
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Good for you.....not unusual, just unique. A lot of people enjoy the classics. Anyways, the trend is liking older music, so enjoy it while you can. KSUR won't disappoint.
I believe that is because the rhythmic music that comprises the most popular pop music these days sounds so homogeneous, that some young people start looking for alternatives and when they come across some of the great older music that has so many different styles like early rock, blues, beach tunes, Motown, and even AOR and country, they get intrigued and want to find out more.
Even some of the "throw away" tunes that Oldies mentioned are great too. Shadapayah Face was great for a laugh then and would be for a new person discovering it today. The song has things a lot of songs today don't - a point of view, character (doesn't sound like any other pop song, then or now), and a laugh line.
Lou Monte's seasonal hit "Dominick The Donkey" is a fairly close relative.
You know that Joe Dolce song managed to reach #1 in Los Angeles in June of 1981. It did get lots of airplay I recall. Great novelty.
http://www.las-solanas.com/arsa/surveys_item.php?sv=83067
I find it interesting that the playlist you posted is from a station that was well known to program their currents for sound, not for sales or other indication of relative "hit-ness".
But what is more interesting lies in an analysis of one of the songs...
I Wanna Mary You – Jonny Chingas
The market has changed so much that in no form or fashion, today, would that song be played. The market is now nearing 50% Hispanic in the under-50 demos. And the term "chingas" means "You F--k". It's not a term open to interpretation... it is the straight forward second person use of the vulgar term for fornication.
That little... and obscure... point shows the bigger issue: the LA market is not the same as it was 40 years ago. The audience for a classic hits station is not the same. The songs that people like are not the same.
From a 2013 article in the Dallas Observer by Gustavo Arellano:
"But who was Jonny Chingas? Real name Raul Garza, recorded mainstream Chicano tracks with a bunch of East L.A. Chicano rock bands during the 1960s and 1970s under the names Raul Garcia and Ruly Garcia, but achieving immortality with the Jonny Chingas persona. J-Vibe of Dragon Mob Records produced some of Chingas' last recordings — and, yep, Chingas is now cruising alongside Jesus in that dropped '64 Chevy Impala in the sky."
The dirty Spanish-language rap recordings were made in the '80s and '90s and apparently targeted at a West Coast Latino audience as "party records," much like the off-color recordings of black artists in earlier years (e.g., Redd Foxx's raunchy comedy records). The article mentions some song titles and most are either double entendres or flat-out obscene. Garza's stage name was intentional. Surely there must be similar raunchy rap being recorded and purchased in Los Angeles today, no? And wouldn't the audience for it be well under 50 and 100 percent Hispanic? So how does the increasing Hispanic population of Los Angeles work against a Jonny Chingas getting airplay there?
In 45 years of doing Spanish language radio off and on in LA, with it being full time for the last nearly 30 years, I never heard of Johnny.
Of course, for the staff of KRTH, the peculiar name would not have set off an alarm. Today, of course, it would as there are Hispanics in every business and some would have known one of the most common vulgarisms there is.
From what I could tell, he was a "Pocho" artist who recorded in English with street Spanish words. A Pocho is a later generation Mexican American who does not usually speak correct Spanish and, instead, prefers to speak a street English full of local slang. Think of a later generation Zoot Suit character.
Some of his songs were delightful ones like "It got hard" set to the tune of old doo wop tunes.
The current street music is reggaeton and trap... done by the likes of Bad Bunnay and Daddy Yankee and Maluma from PR and Colombia. No real LA street music. The reggaeton station is KXOL, now the #1 Spanish station in the market.
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David: 1981 was an interesting moment in K-EARTH history. Bob Hamilton took over as PD in the first quarter of 1977 and took it from oldies to what RKO called "Adult Contemporary" but what R&R rightly saw as another Top 40 station---and listed it as such over RKO's protests. While KTNQ siphoned off pre-teens, KMET teens and KFI what few adults KHJ had left by that point, KRTH took younger women by playing 90% of KHJ's playlist in stereo with less talk and fewer commercials.
By 1981, with KHJ having flipped to Country, K-EARTH was RKO's L.A. winner and Hamilton, rather than playing it safe, decided to stretch a little---or a lot, really. And part of his strategy was a deliberate, overt appeal to the Hispanic citizens of Los Angeles. Summer of '81 saw billboards up in heavily hispanic neighborhoods---orange with the K-EARTH globe logo in the center and the words "Jugando sus favorotos. K-EARTH 101".
I don't have 1980 numbers, but KRTH was #8 in the fall '79 Arbitron book, #11 in the fall '81 and wouldn't see the Top 10 again until Bill Drake, Robert W. Morgan and the Real Don Steele arrived in the early 90s. Hamilton was gone by '86 and the station went oldies again.
Just YouTubed it, never heard of that song, even in 1981. And no chart position nationally either that I can find. Most likely a local hit back then. You can find several KRTH surveys on that site. Here's another from the spring of 1980:
http://www.las-solanas.com/arsa/surveys_item.php?sv=44962
There are select surveys from as early as 1979 to early 1984 on that site.
This was a very interesting time for that station, the station playing currents, ranking them as such and referencing these for some of their huge weekends back then. I believe when Phil Hall took over, is when the switch to oldies occured, in 1986 and the currents stopped airing, as Michael mentioned also.
Another local band which did great (and reaching #1) in Los Angeles later in 1980 would be Tierra's "Together". A lot more familiarity with that one, of course.
You'll see it falling to position 14 in this survey:
http://www.las-solanas.com/arsa/surveys_item.php?sv=29525
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This is a great song that I believe is still very popular in the Hispanic community but not anywhere else. I know Art Laboe still gives it many spins on his weekend show even to this day.
They also run it Tuesday nights. But some of the increased number of repeats followed Martha Quinn’s departure, which left them with more hours to fill making it sound like the VJs were there most of each day (yeah, yeah, voicetracked, whatever). They already have Marc Goodman doing another show on Volume and Alan Hunter on Classic Rewind, so adding some repeats and other nips and tucks made it sound less obvious they were down a body.
As a periodic listener, there is zero personal correlation between the number of times they repeat it and “enjoyment.” Even years were I might care for the majority of the songs, the god-awful dreck in between is too much to stomach.
Sounds similar to the classic AT40 shows that air on a lot of iHeart stations.
That is good information.
I did a little more "research" with some friends who have lived in LA since the 60's and are or were in Spanish language radio. While somewhat embarassed to admit it, they acknowledged knowing of "Jony Chingas" and told me that he was a classic Pocho stereotype, well exaggerated and intentionally off-color. In fact, if someone made an inappropriate remark in public, they'd be called a "Jony Chingas" for the indiscretion. But in their world of native Spanish speakers, nobody listened to his songs or went to the barrio shows.
Even today, there is a separation within the Hispanic community of those older, later generation "pochos" and those who have a better command of Spanish and the traditions from México. This can be, in many cases, a "two different worlds" difference.
KRTH obviously was looking for later generation Hispanics in the tradition of Art Laboe. But I hope they did not actually put "Jugando sus favoritos" on the billboard... it likely was "Tocando sus favoritos". Unfortunately, Nielsen did not do Hispanic breaks back then as it would have been interesting to analyze the results of the focus on Hispanics.
LA ratings from 1976 to 2002 are in the Duncan American Radio reports on www.americanradiohistory.com and the R&R ratings reports through 2008 are there too.
How could such an obscure song then reach the KRTH surveys that year? Which would imply, since it was in their top 20 songs for that week, it would have gotten airplay on KRTH back in 1981. Do you really think it did? The higher ranking songs by Joe Dolce or Air Supply did under the AC format back then. Interesting.
David:
No, it was "Jugando". I believe it coincided with Arbitron weighting ethnic diaries.
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