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What songs don't belong on classic country radio?

V

vchimpanzee

I'm guessing once they get old enough, pretty much all the songs will be allowed.

Back in the 90s there were those who said country music was going in a new direction and they liked country the way it was before, so classic country radio started becoming more popular.

A few years ago I heard Joe Diffie's "Third Rock from the Sun" on WBRF Galax VA (Greensboro NC). That was one of the songs that had the "new country" sound I didn't like. But now a bunch of those songs from back then are showing up on WBRF, including "Rodeo" by Garth Brooks. I haven't heard "The Thunder Rolls" by Garth anywhere, which I am grateful for.

Surely not "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" by Shania Twain. No, I heard that one on WAME (suburban Charlotte NC), and it was the version that sounded like rock, if there was such a thing. I may be wrong that there was a tamer version. This one had steel guitar when it went back to sounding country. So, yes, I guess that one is country enough. But please, not "Honey, I'm Home". Part of that song is as country as it gets and part of it is so terribly bad it belongs in the same category as "Old Town Road".

WESC Greenville SC is not a true classic country station but happens to have a lot of the good songs. "Mayberry" by Rascal Flatts is there too. I'm not looking forward to the day Rascal Flatts shows up on classic country radio.
 
But is Dolly Parton's "9 To 5" really any more "Country" than Shania's "Man! I Feel Like a Woman"?

And Shania did release separate "country" and "pop" (a.k.a. "International") versions of all her big hits. Maybe WAME was playing the pop version.
 
How old does a song have to be now before its gets added to a classic country play listing?

God bless you always!!!

Holly
 
I'm really surprised to see the Joe Diffie song listed. I've always thought that one was a bone fide country song. Literally a cheatin' and drinkin' song, and the vocal sounds southern. But I guess you think the instrumentation is too loud to be "country". I've always liked most of Garth's hits too, so I wouldn't mind hearing any of those songs.

I can see your beef with a lot of Shania Twain songs. Most of them never felt very country to me. I don't think I've heard one of her songs on country radio in a solid 15 years.

One song I used to play quite a lot on the classic country I worked for: "Islands in the Stream". Never liked that one. I could also do without ever hearing "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" or "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" again.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I can see your beef with a lot of Shania Twain songs. Most of them never felt very country to me. I don't think I've heard one of her songs on country radio in a solid 15 years.
Click to expand...

The most country-sounding song she ever had a hit with was "No One Needs To Know," and that gets played on SiriusXM's Prime Country ('80s/'90s) channel. We don't have a classic country station here anymore since iHeart bumped its classic country feed off WWYZ in favor of The Breeze, so I have no idea if such stations are more open to that song than some of her "harder" tunes.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I don't think I've heard one of her songs on country radio in a solid 15 years.
Click to expand...

That's because she hasn't had a hit in 15 years, and Shania songs are considered gold.

Her last radio hit was "Party For Two" in 2004. Then she went on tour for a few years, and then dropped out of site to raise her son. She tried making a comeback with new music a couple years ago, but didn't get any airplay.

There are two types of "classic country." There is the real old stuff that's mainly on AM, and then there's 80s-90s.
 
vchimpanzee said:
I'm guessing once they get old enough, pretty much all the songs will be allowed.

Back in the 90s there were those who said country music was going in a new direction and they liked country the way it was before, so classic country radio started becoming more popular.

A few years ago I heard Joe Diffie's "Third Rock from the Sun" on WBRF Galax VA (Greensboro NC). That was one of the songs that had the "new country" sound I didn't like. But now a bunch of those songs from back then are showing up on WBRF, including "Rodeo" by Garth Brooks. I haven't heard "The Thunder Rolls" by Garth anywhere, which I am grateful for.

Surely not "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" by Shania Twain. No, I heard that one on WAME (suburban Charlotte NC), and it was the version that sounded like rock, if there was such a thing. I may be wrong that there was a tamer version. This one had steel guitar when it went back to sounding country. So, yes, I guess that one is country enough. But please, not "Honey, I'm Home". Part of that song is as country as it gets and part of it is so terribly bad it belongs in the same category as "Old Town Road".

WESC Greenville SC is not a true classic country station but happens to have a lot of the good songs. "Mayberry" by Rascal Flatts is there too. I'm not looking forward to the day Rascal Flatts shows up on classic country radio.
Click to expand...


I'm on air currently at several classic country stations overnight.. and all of the songs you mentioned above, we play. Our stuff is centered on 80s and 90s but with plenty of 70s

I worked at a real country station.. 60/40 mix of new vs old and during my nightly 2 hour classic country show, i played Elvis, Leo Sayer and the Everly brothers.

Why? Because i could play WHATEVER i wanted during that 2 hours! And elvis did very well on the country charts!

Paul
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
Why? Because i could play WHATEVER i wanted during that 2 hours! And elvis did very well on the country charts!
Click to expand...

Only a few people in both the Country Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hal of Fame. Elvis is one of those people. His early hits weren't considered country. But his later songs, such as Kentucky Rain (written by Eddie Rabbitt, with piano by Ronnie Milsap), did well in country.
 
TheBigA said:
Only a few people in both the Country Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hal of Fame. Elvis is one of those people. His early hits weren't considered country. But his later songs, such as Kentucky Rain (written by Eddie Rabbitt, with piano by Ronnie Milsap), did well in country.
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I even played some of his non country hits.. why? again, because I could.. and because our 3 competitors 40-50 miles out in 3 different directions were all straight up top 40 hot country and in a rural area, with a slightly oler audience.. we got away with it and it worked very very well.d
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I'm really surprised to see the Joe Diffie song listed. I've always thought that one was a bone fide country song. Literally a cheatin' and drinkin' song, and the vocal sounds southern. But I guess you think the instrumentation is too loud to be "country". I've always liked most of Garth's hits too, so I wouldn't mind hearing any of those songs.
Click to expand...
Joe Diffie was too rock-sounding back then, but maybe now it works for classic country radio.
PTBoardOp94 said:
One song I used to play quite a lot on the classic country I worked for: "Islands in the Stream". Never liked that one.
Click to expand...
I always liked Kenny and Dolly, separately and together. A few Kenny Rogers songs didn't appeal to me but that wasn't one.
PTBoardOp94 said:
I could also do without ever hearing "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" or "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" again.
Click to expand...
Me too.
 
James Otto Sweet Heart said:
How old does a song have to be now before its gets added to a classic country play listing?

God bless you always!!!

Holly
Click to expand...
Depends on the type of classic country. Westwood One Real Country plays brand new songs and the photos that go with its stations are usually of artists who are still popular.

There is more and more 90s on WBRF, but WAME has played Zac Brown Band.
 
CTListener said:
The most country-sounding song she ever had a hit with was "No One Needs To Know," and that gets played on SiriusXM's Prime Country ('80s/'90s) channel. We don't have a classic country station here anymore since iHeart bumped its classic country feed off WWYZ in favor of The Breeze, so I have no idea if such stations are more open to that song than some of her "harder" tunes.
Click to expand...
I like that one but I never hear it. WAME was playing "Any Man of Mine". Part of that I didn't care for because it sounded too high-tech but it may have actually been clapping. The rest of it does sound country.
 
The following are who I have no interest in.

Dixie Chicks
Carrie Underwood
Kacey Musgraves
Kelsi Ballerini
Maren Morris

God bless you always!!!

Holly
 
James Otto Sweet Heart said:
The following are who I have no interest in.

Dixie Chicks
Carrie Underwood
Kacey Musgraves
Kelsi Ballerini
Maren Morris

God bless you always!!!

Holly
Click to expand...
I would tend to agree with all of these except Kacey Musgraves. She was known for sounding country when a lot of so-called country music didn't. Now she has done some songs that don't sound country and I don't even care. That's how much I like her.
 
I was hoping WBRF didn't dance. Steel guitar is sufficient to get around the excessive AC airplay, which may not even have the steel guitar.

Now "Living in Fast Forward" is different. It could be a good country song but there's too much of a rock sound for my taste.
 
Please, no, not "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy". I believe this is the song a sports talk station played when it came back from commercials. All I anted was to hear a new station's format in the car, but in the rain (or even not in the rain) apparently under the right conditions a translator can be heard 40 miles away.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I'm really surprised to see the Joe Diffie song listed. I've always thought that one was a bone fide country song. Literally a cheatin' and drinkin' song, and the vocal sounds southern. But I guess you think the instrumentation is too loud to be "country". I've always liked most of Garth's hits too, so I wouldn't mind hearing any of those songs.

I can see your beef with a lot of Shania Twain songs. Most of them never felt very country to me. I don't think I've heard one of her songs on country radio in a solid 15 years.

One song I used to play quite a lot on the classic country I worked for: "Islands in the Stream". Never liked that one. I could also do without ever hearing "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" or "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" again.
Click to expand...
"Islands in the Stream" is a Barry Gibb song.
 
semoochie said:
"Islands in the Stream" is a Barry Gibb song.
Click to expand...

CTListener said:
As was Conway Twitty's "Rest Your Love On Me," but "Islands" got a Bee Gees-style production, especially on the chorus, while Conway simply made a song previously recorded by the Bee Gees into a country song.
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I thought Barry Gibb wrote their songs. Apparently, it was a joint effort among the brothers. Here are two links that show that "Islands in the Stream" is a Bee Gees composition: https://www.songwriting.net/blog/topic/bee-gees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islands_in_the_Stream_(song) P.S. I misread the reply and thought I had to confirm that the Bee Gees wrote the song. I was going to delete everything in the third line but decided that since I had already gone to the trouble of finding the links, I would just "let sleeping dogs lie".
 
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