Why did AC stop being soft?

[DavidEduardo]

The Wikipedia article reads like it was written by someone who wasn't there at the time. The earliest practioners of AC (WGAR, Cleveland, KFMB, San Diego) were huge steps away from MOR stations, playing most of the same records as Top 40 and taking their gold from the rock and roll era.

And the format, early one, was often called "Chicken Rock" and derived directly from CHR, not Beautiful Music / MOE / Easy Listening.

 

[Music Lover]

And the format, early one, was often called "Chicken Rock" and derived directly from CHR, not Beautiful Music / MOE / Easy Listening.

These two also fall in line with Wikipedia:
http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/adult-contemporary-ma0000004445
http://oldies.about.com/od/oldieshistory/g/adultcontemp.htm

This one mentions about the Chicken Rock but also mentions that AC serves the same purpose as MOR:
http://www.udel.edu/nero/Radio/readings/acontemp.html

I think it's dependent upon whatever sources were used to compile the articles.

 

[vchimpanzee]

The Wikipedia article reads like it was written by someone who wasn't there at the time. The earliest practioners of AC (WGAR, Cleveland, KFMB, San Diego) were huge steps away from MOR stations, playing most of the same records as Top 40 and taking their gold from the rock and roll era.

No one person writes Wikipedia articles. I have contributed to that article myself and I think I've corrected some things that were wrong.

Broadcasting Yearbook, as it was called, didn't even use the term "adult contemporary" for stations that were soft rock. They called those MOR. "Adult contemporary" in those days was used for stations which we would call Hot AC today, stations that were almost Top 40.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I wouldn't describe it as soft, but K-104.7 in a mall I walked in yesterday sure sounded more like it once did. Maybe that Hot AC sound with Hall & Oates and Jimmy Buffett making it sound weird is just at night. Hard to believe I heard so much 80s music.

Or would have. At least I could hardly hear the music. The mall is nearly empty (county offices are mioving there) but for some reason the music isn't blasting like it once did. Plus one ear is stopped up.

 

[Music Lover]

No one person writes Wikipedia articles. I have contributed to that article myself and I think I've corrected some things that were wrong.

Broadcasting Yearbook, as it was called, didn't even use the term "adult contemporary" for stations that were soft rock. They called those MOR. "Adult contemporary" in those days was used for stations which we would call Hot AC today, stations that were almost Top 40.

This is one we had in my neck of the woods: http://www.roanokeradio.com/wpvr/

I remember from my youth in the 80s, the station's playlist still consisted of 60% instrumental with vocals by artists like Jim Croce, the Fifth Dimension, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, John Sebastian, Barbra Streisand, Gordon Lightfoot, Bread, America and the Carpenters. During my middle school years in the early 90s, WPVR had dropped the instrumental music in favor of the soft vocals. Like other 90s AC, they had incorporated currents by Celine, Whitney, Mariah into the mix. When I graduated high school in the late 90s, the station briefly became Classic Rock and became Country in 2000.

Maybe the articles are more familiar with ones like this example.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I remember WPVR too.

It was amazing how long it took them to go soft AC. WSLQ certainly wasn't soft, playing "Sweet Child O'Mine".

 

[Music Lover]

Definitely agree about WSLQ. From what I learned, they were album oriented rock in the 70s. When I listened in the 90s, they were AC but were the edgiest I knew of for that time period.

Besides WPVR, there were some other soft ACs my family and I listened to during the 80s and 90s, but I'm not familiar with their format history like I am with WPVR.

In the Soft AC/EZ Listening/Standards forum, I saw a discussion about some Beautiful Music tribute stations being put online. Maybe some former soft ACs from the 80s and 90s will eventually be put online as tribute stations. http://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?669353-Here-s-our-latest-EZ-BM-tribute-station

 

[Music Lover]

I've always been an anxious person. The Soft AC's in the 80's and 90's helped calm my anxiousness. Today's AC's aggravate my anxiousness.

 

[vchimpanzee]

The same is true for me, except soft AC stopped making me feel better around 1988. That's when I found standards.

One of these ACs that is not soft was playing a song with words something like "dance dance dance like it's the last last last time in your life life life." Very annoying song, whatever it was.

 

[Music Lover]

The same is true for me, except soft AC stopped making me feel better around 1988. That's when I found standards.

With me, it's not just the music that's aggravating, but the chatter, specifically in the mornings. That's why, when I seek out Internet Soft AC's, I like to find some that are chatter-free. One Soft AC I've been checking out described it as non-intrusive imaging.

 

[Unregistered]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is 'MOE'?

 

[passtheword]

Definitely agree about WSLQ. From what I learned, they were album oriented rock in the 70s. When I listened in the 90s, they were AC but were the edgiest I knew of for that time period.

Besides WPVR, there were some other soft ACs my family and I listened to during the 80s and 90s, but I'm not familiar with their format history like I am with WPVR.

In the Soft AC/EZ Listening/Standards forum, I saw a discussion about some Beautiful Music tribute stations being put online. Maybe some former soft ACs from the 80s and 90s will eventually be put online as tribute stations. http://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?669353-Here-s-our-latest-EZ-BM-tribute-station

Our online station, Lite 99, is a tribute station for the former soft AC WLTB-FM/Lite 99 (99.5) here in Birmingham which was on the air from 1985-'88 (Today, Birmingham's 99.5 is doing country as "99-5, Nash Icon"). We have brought the music forward in time from where the FM left off in 1988 and added those particular titles that were "grafted" into the soft AC format during the early 90's, in order to approximate how the original station would sound today (or at least that's our intentions with it, anyway). As far as someone doing a group of former soft AC's from the 80's and 90's, I'm not aware of any such project, but it's an Interesting idea.

 

[CurtisNEPA]

One might assume that within the next couple of years, right around the end of the decade, perhaps some of the soft 80's songs might disappear from the format too.

I wouldn't be surprised if top AC stations purge well known artists like Elton John, Celine Dion, Chicago, Mariah Carey, and Phil Collins in favor of newer artists such as Taylor Swift, One Direction, Bruno Mars, etc.

Let's face it, the upper end of the demo is aging out. This is why you will be seeing significant changes within this popular format.

 

[Music Lover]

One might assume that within the next couple of years, right around the end of the decade, perhaps some of the soft 80's songs might disappear from the format too.

I wouldn't be surprised if top AC stations purge well known artists like Elton John, Celine Dion, Chicago, Mariah Carey, and Phil Collins in favor of newer artists such as Taylor Swift, One Direction, Bruno Mars, etc.

AC's in my neck of the woods are already doing that. That's one reason why I no longer listen to them.

 

[semoochie]

One might assume that within the next couple of years, right around the end of the decade, perhaps some of the soft 80's songs might disappear from the format too.

I wouldn't be surprised if top AC stations purge well known artists like Elton John, Celine Dion, Chicago, Mariah Carey, and Phil Collins in favor of newer artists such as Taylor Swift, One Direction, Bruno Mars, etc.

Let's face it, the upper end of the demo is aging out. This is why you will be seeing significant changes within this popular format.

No one ever heard of Mariah Carey until the '90s, which she owned!

 

[vchimpanzee]

The Grammys would be the last place I would expect to hear so much music that would qualify as soft.

This year, with the exception of Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, and of course Sam Smith, I wouldn't expect or want to hear most of the performances on my favorite pop radio station, but so many songs I actually liked and would accept on another station if it existed if I was out in the country without the ability to listen (temporarily) to my kind of music, or at night or during a sports event.

Even a clip from Coldplay when they were nominated!

Beck? Seriously?

Also Ed Sheeran. Adam Levine and Gwen Stefani. Juanes. Tom Jones and Jessie J.

ELO reminded me of being in high school, though most songs I liked from that era I've heard so many times on the radio they don't remind me of high school any more. But why were they there exactly? Were any of them nominated?

AC/DC didn't seem all that evil any more, but why were they even there?

 

[Music Lover]

Here's a list of the winners and nominees.

http://www.mjsbigblog.com/grammy-2015-winners-list-live-blog.htm

http://www.mjsbigblog.com/grammy-premiere-ceremony-2015-winners-live-blog.htm

 

[CurtisNEPA]

With me, it's not just the music that's aggravating, but the chatter, specifically in the mornings. That's why, when I seek out Internet Soft AC's, I like to find some that are chatter-free. One Soft AC I've been checking out described it as non-intrusive imaging.

I totally agree. Some of the ACs tend to run syndicated shows instead of having a local live personality on air. These shows have more chatter and sometimes less music driven, especially during the late morning or early afternoon hours. In fact, one station which is owned by Cumulus has John Tesh that runs from 2pm-7pm, which is then followed by Deliliah from the usual 7pm-midnight timeslot, then afterwards a repeat John Tesh show during the overnight hours. During the Tesh hours, there are no traffic reports between commercial breaks like most AC(and other stations) do. They are starting to become like CHR stations whereas they usually pipe in Seacrest during the drive time hours. The morning hours are the worst in my opinion, and in some cases they don't start playing music until like 10am.

A long time ago, a station calling themselves WINK 104 out of Harrisburg(about 75 miles from my location) used to broadcast a local all-talk show hosted by Bruce Bond during the late afternoon hours. The station at that time was CHR. His show had played very less music during his run from the mid-90's all the way until 2002 when that station tweaked its format and made it AC friendly. Despite having very little music throughout the duration of the show, the station saw huge ratings increase with this all-talk format. Shortly after he was fired by the station, he was then accused of money laundering, identify theft, and fraud and was sentenced to several years in prison. I remembered receiving WINK 104 through enhanced tropo and can listened to parts of his show with almost a fair signal with static. That was WAY before Internet streaming and FM translators filling up the band.

I hope if I am correct, but this AC format is going down the drains. Pretty soon, if they pipe in talk shows like Tesh that tends to play little music, I can see many offices as well as local businesses might switch to Pandora or some other method of music delivery.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I don't know if it's on radio but I like the music playing on the Starbucks commercial with cute couples. I had to watch that commercial many times when I went online to watch TV episodes I missed, though it's a cute commercial and a pleasant song. I'm still seeing at least the start of it on TiVo.

 

[semoochie]

I totally agree. Some of the ACs tend to run syndicated shows instead of having a local live personality on air. These shows have more chatter and sometimes less music driven, especially during the late morning or early afternoon hours. In fact, one station which is owned by Cumulus has John Tesh that runs from 2pm-7pm, which is then followed by Deliliah from the usual 7pm-midnight timeslot, then afterwards a repeat John Tesh show during the overnight hours. During the Tesh hours, there are no traffic reports between commercial breaks like most AC(and other stations) do. They are starting to become like CHR stations whereas they usually pipe in Seacrest during the drive time hours. The morning hours are the worst in my opinion, and in some cases they don't start playing music until like 10am.

A long time ago, a station calling themselves WINK 104 out of Harrisburg(about 75 miles from my location) used to broadcast a local all-talk show hosted by Bruce Bond during the late afternoon hours. The station at that time was CHR. His show had played very less music during his run from the mid-90's all the way until 2002 when that station tweaked its format and made it AC friendly. Despite having very little music throughout the duration of the show, the station saw huge ratings increase with this all-talk format. Shortly after he was fired by the station, he was then accused of money laundering, identify theft, and fraud and was sentenced to several years in prison. I remembered receiving WINK 104 through enhanced tropo and can listened to parts of his show with almost a fair signal with static. That was WAY before Internet streaming and FM translators filling up the band.

I hope if I am correct, but this AC format is going down the drains. Pretty soon, if they pipe in talk shows like Tesh that tends to play little music, I can see many offices as well as local businesses might switch to Pandora or some other method of music delivery.

In Portland, KKCW ran John Tesh for many years. I don't remember talk segments being particularly long. He did mostly short snippets of advice and back into music.