Blogs

There aren’t a lot of stories about galvanizing records these days. But a few weeks ago, when the song was about a week-and-a-half old, the topic of Kesha’s “Praying” came up in my office. Three of my colleagues, all female, raved about it. The fourth hadn’t heard it yet. Once she did, she went under the headphones and listened to it several more times. Not every CHR station reacted as quickly. At the outset, the immediate airplay for “Praying” was mostly in medium markets and heavily concentrated in the Midwest. Both CHRs in Kesha’s hometown of Nashville were also on board. The big market leader was KIIS-FM Los Angeles, which supported the song immediately, but KIIS was the outlier. Two weeks later, you could see many of the majors rushing to catch up. There’s always something galvanizing...Read More

When I asked programmers to name the songs they wished they could play on Classic Hits radio last week, there was a wide swath of titles. Some were favorite stiffs—songs that made it as far as the high teens maybe, but never went to current, or songs that never got anywhere near that far. Some were top 10 chart hits, but songs that nevertheless feel lost now. And some were records whose hit status was never in question at the time—especially from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Nobody disputed whether “Strawberry Letter 23” by the Brothers Johnson was a hit. But at Classic Hits and Urban AC, it’s like it never happened. For those who haven’t friended me on Facebook, here’s a sampling of the songs that programmers wish they could play. I’ve divided them into three rough piles; (you’ll dispute...Read More

  I’ve never seen Electric Light Orchestra’s “Turn to Stone” do well in music testing. Or “Sweet Talkin’ Woman.” Or “Livin’ Thing.” Or “Do Ya?” The band that had five years as one of pop music’s greatest hitmaking machines is now often represented at Classic Hits radio by two songs, “Evil Woman” and the goofy outlier that it is “Don’t Bring Me Down.” (Who was Brrrrruuce? What did Jeff Lynne have against him? And even if they really were singing “grooose,” as they insist, that doesn’t make any sense either.) But “Turn to Stone” got nearly a hundred BDS spins this week. Nearly a decade ago, former WCBS-FM New York PD Brian Thomas nurtured it from a few spins a week to playing almost daily. (It got five spins there this week.) WGRR Cincinnati Keith Mitchell tells me it “does well enough ...Read More

I’ve been on the road again this week. The place I am now is lovely and temperate—perfect summer weather. The market I was in earlier this week was sticky and hot—undeniable summer weather. And in each of them, the unavoidable song on the radio was “Stay” by Zedd & Alessia Cara, which was the unavoidable song of my Memorial Day road trip as well. “Stay” has just been pushed out of No. 1 on the CHR chart by “Despacito.” So it may not be at this level of exposure for the second half of the summer. But it’s not going away by Labor Day. If anything, in late August, “Stay” will be the song going from No. 7 to No. 8 in the top ten. I’m not anxious to anoint “Stay” as Summer Song 2017. It’s undeniable, but it’s not up, it’s not fun. It’s a holdover from spring.  And it raises this question ab...Read More

Quick, which is more uptempo? “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2? Or “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”? “I Still Haven’t Found” sort of floats, wraith-like, through its four-and-a-half minutes. “Sunday” rocks. But their tempo is essentially the same, just under 101 BPM (beats per minute). Ron Gerber’s “Between the Songs” is billed as “a step by step guide to creating radio magic,” specifically putting on a specialty show like his syndicated “Crap From the Past,” based at KFAI Minneapolis. It has a lot for music junkies as well. And my eye went immediately to one of the book’s appendices. That’s where Gerber catalogs hundreds of songs — some enduring hits, many forgotten ones on the order of “Cross My Broken Heart” by the Jets — by their BPM count. The results may not surprise anybody ...Read More

I don’t think it’s going to be long now before somebody just gives the summer song battle to “Despacito.” It’s July. “Despacito” has more momentum than “I’m The One.” (It’s all relative, they’re No. 2 and 3 this week respectively; but “Despacito” is up +1167 spins and “I’m The One” is “only” +488 spins.) And if another song is going to explode into contention, it needs to be in the next few weeks. And today, anyway, the new summer contender pipeline is barely rumbling. But don’t write off Shawn Mendes’ “There’s Nothing Holding Me Back.” You don’t hear about it as much, but that song was the most obviously calibrated of the Summer Song of 2017 candidates. It’s also holding at No. 12 (in a tough patch of charts where it’s nevertheless +655 spins, according to Mediabase). “There’s Nothing Hol...Read More

A few notes from some of the July 4 weekend format changes.  WISX (Real 106.1) Philadelphia  Some of the trades positioned it as a head-to-head battle for throwback Hip-Hop and R&B with Radio One’s WPHI (Boom 103.9) Philadelphia, but keep up, people! WPHI modified its Classic Hip-Hop format to a more adult-leaning Mainstream Urban late last year. At the outset, there were both currents and ‘90s titles, sort of an Urban version of WKTU New York. Boom has continued to evolve since then, and is now mostly “today.” Boom debuted with a lot of local Philly Hip-Hop and with some first generation hip-hop that had never crossed over. Real 106.1, which replaced AC “Mix 106.1” last Monday, is more (but not entirely) crossover. A lot of what it played is the rhythmic music heard on Top...Read More

Early on in the summer of 2012, I annoyed some readers by giving a week in the Summer Song derby to “Brokenhearted” by Karmin. That song was the sort of second-tier turbo-pop that made great radio fodder but rarely got to power rotation. It wasn’t important enough to be the Song of the Summer, and I knew that all along. But for a week in early summer, it was certainly the unavoidable record. I’m out of town this week in a major-market where the CHR is both rhythmic-leaning and recurrent-driven. I’ve heard “Something Just Like This” more than I’ve heard any of the summer song candidates, which prompted this larger commentary. I’ve even punched between stations and heard “Can’t Stop the Feeling” on both. But I’ve also heard Drake’s “Passionfruit” a lot this week. Created and timed to recreat...Read More