Got it, but I fail to see where taking more chances is even an option. Play unfamiliar, un-researched music on the radio and risk getting crushed. No option to play unlicensed music, so again, what are these 'taking chances' options for a pop station?
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2023: Fewest Consensus Hits
- Thread starter TheBigA
- Start date
This is where big radio companies can help. This year, iHeart got behind the new Beatles song and played it on about 700 radio stations. The song itself wasn't all that great, but the organized airplay gave it a lot of attention, and relieved the stations of the responsibility of playing unfamiliar music. Had it been a better song, it might have had more impact.
That's a great example of how being a group can help, but it's only one song, and just happens to be from one of the biggest musical groups in history, which in itself amounts to a promotional boost. Assuming a pop station plays between eleven and fifteen songs per hour, I'm still struggling with the recommendation that pop stations need to take more chances by not waiting around for record companies to anoint hits. Where is these future hits supposed to come from which substantially reduce the need for so many recurrents?
This is where point 2 in my OP comes in, of playing multiple currents by the same artist. If Taylor Swift is so prolific that she has enough songs to have multiple songs in the chart at the same time, then play them. Don't worry about songs canceling each other out.
Maybe part of the problem is lack of talent. Schools have been cutting their music departments for decades. Creative writing skills are disappearing. "Fast Car" was not written by Combs. It's unlikely he could write anything that compelling. Talent is no longer a requirement to "become popular".
What record companies are still in business? How do they anoint hits?
You Tube or Spotify spins? The point of this thread was dealing with dwindling ratings. Radio can plod along its well worn groove, but that won't get better results...
The talent exists. We see it on reality TV and YouTube. The problem is it's not taken seriously. Everyone's a critic.
Sony, Universal, and Warner. The first two are foreign companies. They're as perplexed about this situation as everyone else. It used to be easier 30 years ago.
It all gets back to finding consensus with popular taste. It's up to audiences to become more tolerant and less negative.
I would counter with there appears to be lots of undiscovered talent out there on social media as we type. As BigA said; the labels apparently aren't paying enough attention. That said; I'm not sure what the big deal is about Fast Car. Artists have covered other artists songs for decades. Including rock to country and the other way around.
It's not a big deal. It was just one example I gave of songs that were unintended hits.
I think I'd want to offline test that theory first. For as popular as Taylor Swift is, I think one would have to be careful not to schedule two different Taylor or Beyonce' songs in consecutive quarter hours. That, and one should still need to avoid stacking more than two female artists back to back. Ultimately your idea might help shake things up, but that still leaves (assuming eleven to fifteen songs an hour) ten more predictable recurrents in the hour
The problem is that in the 1960's radio was where music was discovered by consumers. And a lot of music consumers used radio for a lot of their music consumption (until they went out and bought the record or tape). That model doesn't apply so much anymore.
Now it's the internet, and the music consumer doesn't need radio either for a) music discovery or b) music consumption. They use the internet for both processes. Radio is being bypassed. The record companies are also being increasingly bypassed for similar reasons.
Radio wasn't where music was discovered. It was the ONLY place where music was discovered. There was no other place. Now it has competition. But to say people don't discover music on the radio ignores how many artists have depended on radio to put their music in FRONT of people. That's the difference between radio and the internet. The internet is the proverbial haystack in which people are trying to find a needle. Radio puts a focus on certain songs and artists. Radio makes discovery cheap and easy. There's a market for that. Granted it's not the ONLY market. There are other ways to do it. But when it's done well, it works, and artists know it.
Wrong. In the 60s, people discovered bands and their music by going to concerts. San Francisco and LA were big music scenes. Record Stores were another place that people went to mingle with other music fans and discover new artists. Radio played a part, but it was not the ONLY source as you say...
What you're talking about was very small and existed before the 60s. Sure artists could play lots of concerts. Just like artists today who don't get airplay can travel in a van and play lots of concerts. But radio is a mass medium and can bring your music to large numbers of people, and do it without the artist doing any work. That's why artists in the 30s and 40s wanted to appear and perform on the radio. One appearance on the Opry was worth more than a month or even a year of concerts. It was more efficient, and it got your music in front of more people. There was no better way to do it. Even today, if you want to fill a stadium, the best way is to have radio hits.
Dave Matthews Band fills stadiums and they get almost no Radio airplay.
They are just one example. In the 60s, many bands were not played on Top 40 Radio. After Woodstock, it became obvious that Boomers would be a huge demographic due their huge numbers. Radio can play a part, but many people find out about artists that get no airplay...
Not any more. But it all began with Too Much. He can't do a show without playing that song. It was a cross-genre radio hit.
He had non-stop radio airplay for ten years. Now he doesn't need it. But it all begins somewhere.
Absolutely. I said that in my post. But it's one-to-one. Not mass audiences. Artists can feel the differences in their shows.
Woodstock came after Monterey. Monterey is where Clive Davis heard and signed Janis Joplin. Other acts were signed to record deals at these festivals. Then the record labels worked their music to radio. Thousands of people saw these artists at Monterey or Woodstock. Millions heard them on the radio. Understand the difference?
But nearly nobody spent money on concerts to see a band or artist they had never heard of. That statement makes no sense at all.
Yes, lots of local club bands began by playing in tiny venues where the objective was to sell booze.
And what percentage of the population there went to concerts with artists they had never heard before?
That's just BS. Maybe a person would hear a song being played at a record shop or record department at a department store back in the day, but such retail outlets were not sites of discovery.
In fact, those of us who used employees at record shops to report sales in the 60's and 70's were very familiar with the environment and we can all say that it no "statistical impact" at all on record familiarization. You are trying to defend a point by making things up on the fly.
Kids who had friends over and played music they owned had a much greater influence, but it was still small. And in the 50's and most of the 60's Top 40 stations were driven by the popularity of 45's and it was teens for the most part that bought them.
Which is why Alan Freed got a record store (Record Rendezvous) to sponsor his radio show in Cleveland. Yes, record stores could preach to the choir, but it was radio that got the uninitiated masses in the door.
You are talking about Top 40. During that decade, Top 40 stations used Gavin to "discover" what songs were moving the most. They used the request lines and things like "make it or break it" on the air to find out which songs listeners wanted to hear the most.
Boomers were the main influence on Top 40 from the later 50's through the 60's. They did not "become"... they "were" the driving force that format in the days when major stations depended on a great music directors to find potential hits. If you don't know who Betty Breneman, Rosalie Trombley and Ruth Meyer were, do some web searching.
And Freed was totally guilty of taking money from the store and record labels to push songs on the air.
And that brings up payola. If radio were not the overwhelming driving force in record introduction and record sales, labels would not have engaged in the widespread bribing of DJs and PDs to try to get airplay.