In the ‘60s, nearly every hit song is “lost,” at least in terms of its presence on today’s large-market broadcast radio.
In Classic Rock, there are 35 songs from 1969 or before, out of the Nielsen BDSRadio top 1000 most-played songs, that received 100 spins a week or more last week. At least a third of those are songs from Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix Experience, and others that weren’t Top 40 hits to begin with.
In Classic Hits, where even some ‘70s warhorses are getting less airplay these days, there are only four songs from the ‘60s that receive 100 spins or more: “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Come Together,” “Down on the Corner,” and “Sweet Caroline.” All but the latter are songs shared with Classic Rock.
That’s why a lot of our research on the “Lost Factor” of various hit songs has centered thus far on 1978-89. The ‘80s are the center lane of most major-market FM Classic Hits outlets with clear winners and losers, including the oft-cited example of Olivia Newton-John’s now-faded “Physical” vs. the ascent of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” to most-unavoidable-song-in-the-universe status.
But, as with our decision to delve into the late ‘70s, there was a request from a reader. Veteran programmer Marlin Taylor, whose programming history goes back to the Beautiful Music/Easy Listening format that often dominated large markets, even as late as the mid-‘80s, asked about “Love Is Blue,” the 1968 hit that was the second-biggest hit of Easy Listening.
“Love Is Blue” was the No. 2 song of the year. Last week, according to Nielsen BDS, it received no airplay at their monitored stations in the U.S. and Canada. That gives it a “lost factor” of 99. We determine those lost factors by assigning points for a song’s year-end placing when it was a hit and dividing them by the number of songs it gets today. By comparison, the highest “Lost Factor” of any song we’ve looked at between 1978-89 is a 61.
But “Love Is Blue” is not the highest “lost-factor” song of the ‘60s. That would be Percy Faith’s “Theme From A Summer Place,” probably the biggest hit of the genre. In 1960, it was the biggest hit of the year in any genre from a movie whose “young love” theme gave the song appeal to all ages at a time when Top 40 had by no means shed all vestiges of the pre-rock past. “Theme From A Summer Place” also got no spins in the last seven days, giving it a Lost Factor of 100.
We haven’t calculated every song from every year of the 1960s yet. But we did look at the very biggest songs of each year, specifically in search of high year-end finishers that might have no airplay now. We found nearly 20 songs which were No. 18 or higher for the year, but get no airplay now.
All but three of the songs are from the time before the Beatles, an era that disappeared from most Classic Hits radio back in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s, back when it was still known as Oldies. Eight of them are instrumentals — a genre whose relative disappearance from pop music is an extensive discussion unto itself. Some are by MOR acts or by the early ‘60s teen-pop stars who courted Vegas respectability at the time and are thus remembered as MOR acts now (Bobby Darin, Connie Francis).
It’s important to remember that broadcast radio — at least the major-market stations monitored by Nielsen BDSRadio — has mostly surrendered its place as the arbiter of “enduring” for ‘60s music by abdicating so much of it to SiriusXM’s ‘60s on 6 channel (and in the case of some of these songs, ‘50s on 5). In other decades, a 1.0 score is often a reliable dividing line between a “lost” song and one still getting airplay proportionate to its hit factor of the time. When it comes to the ‘60s, even such once-ubiquitous titles as “Build Me Up Buttercup” (1.2), “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” (1.3) or “My Guy” (2.8) are above a 1.0. One reader who got an early look at the data responded, “I can’t believe that ‘Help’ (2.4) doesn’t test anymore.” But the real issue is that radio chooses not to test it now.
Here are the 18 highest “lost factor” songs of the 1960s:
- Percy Faith, “Theme From A Summer Place” (lost factor 100, spins last week 0) (1960)
- Paul Mauriat, “Love Is Blue” (99, 0) (1968)
- Highwaymen, “Michael (Row the Boat Ashore)” (98, 0) (1961)
- Chubby Checker, “Pony Time” (94. 0) (1961)
- Hugo Montenegro, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” (93, 0) (1968)
- Sensations, “Let Me In” (93, 0) (1962)
- String-A-Longs, “Wheels” (93, 1) (1961)
- S/Sgt. Barry Sadler, “The Ballad of the Green Berets” (91, 0) (1966)
- Connie Francis, “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” (90, 0) (1960)
- Brothers Four, “Greenfields” (88, 0) (1960)
- Jack Scott, “What in the World’s Come Over You” (87, 0) (1960)
- Al Martino, “I Love You Because” (86, 0) (1963)
- Mar-Keys, “Last Night” (86, 1) (1961)
- Rebels, “Wild Weekend” (85, 0) (1963)
- Bobby Darin, “You’re the Reason I’m Living” (84, 0) (1963); Chubby Checker & Dee Dee Sharp, “Slow Twistin’” (84, 0) (1962); Connie Francis, “My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own (84, 0) (1960), Ferrante & Teicher, “Exodus” (84, 0) (1961)
jaxxalude 
radiomatt1 
Sean Ross 
pjmartone2 
irv 
kent 
semoochie 
Charles Everett 
Chubby Checker’s radio presence was always limited to “The Twist” and “Let’s Twist Again”, anyway. All his other songs became “lost” even before the 60’s were relegated to satellite and/or webcasts.
There is at least one (unmonitored) market left on earth where both “Theme From A Summer Place” and “Love Is Blue remain in heavy rotation: Palm Springs, where both 92.3 KWXY and 107.3 Mod FM (itself descended from the original KWXY) keep pre-rock era music alive and well.
Nowadays when it’s rare for a market to even have an Adult Standards or a B/EZ station, not only does Palm Springs have two of them, KWXY bashes Mod FM with a fervency reminiscent of 1980s CHR battles.
Thanks for the reminder. Listening to KWXY for the first time in years–and through headphones (not earbuds) for the full experience!
7 of these 15 songs are instrumentals. No surprise! I loved most of the instrumentals from the8 1950’s and 60’s,but obviously very few people today like instrumentals because they are too young to remember them!
What no Acker Bilk?
“Stranger On The Shore” had a *relatively* low “Lost Factor” of 17!
How many of these songs were lost long ago? I’m 45 and, thus, wasn’t around in the 60’s, but my parents listened to oldies a lot and tortured my friends and me with that kind of music when driving us to school. I only recognized three of those songs.
Even when my parents frequently listened to KLUV, KQLL, KOQL, and KOMA, the only time I ever heard “Let Me In” was the second semester of my freshman year in college when I transferred from Memphis State to Arkansas. The Unistar/Westwood One oldies affiliate that I’d occasionally flip on when KKEG went stupid played it once-in-awhile. About two months after I got there, KOLZ “Oldies 98.3” became “Soft Rock Z-98.3,” and I never heard that song on the radio again!
“Love Is Blue” was an enigma. Both my friend and I bought the song, when we were 15. We didn’t buy any other instrumentals and were smack in the middle of the usual Beatles, Beach Boys, Stones, Supremes crowd. 16 years ago, when the local Oldies station dropped “…Summer Place”, they tried to replace it with “Love Is Blue” but it didn’t take and was soon gone. I sang it in high school choir and still like the song.
It’s not hard to see why terrestrial radio chooses not to test anything from the 1960s. Millennials and Generation X regard the Beatles as their parents’ music. GenZ sees the Beatles as their grandparents’ music.
This Baby Boomer can understand that even if the oldies freaks don’t.
Classic Rock throws the time/space continuum a little. If you’re a 17-year-old going through a Classic Rock phase, it’s all before-your-time and you’re more likely to start with Hendrix & Zeppelin than hair bands, even though they’re more recent. If Classic Hits weren’t hung up on staying young(ish), it could probably find an all-ages quorum for “Come Together,” “Mrs. Robinson,” and CCR, but there’s no impetus.
One addendum to all of this. Regular “Ross On Radio” readers don’t need any help in finding the ’60s on the radio. Beyond ’60s on 6, I asked Facebook friends where they hear the ’60s and they named about 50 different choices from online (Pop Gold Radio) to smaller rated markets (WMID Atlantic City) to Soft AC and outlets that have evolved from Adult Standards (KIXI Seattle, AM740 Toronto) . It’s gratifying to note that some stations that staked out the niche nearly 15 years ago like WMTR Morristown, N.J., have been able to stay with it.
There are a few “oldies” stations that are just doing the format as it existed on major-market FM 15 years ago, but most are not playing the safe list. I started making my way down the list of friends’ recommendations at 8a and by mid-morning I had heard “If I Could Build My World Around You” twice. I still think something like “You’re The Reason I’m Living” is probably another magnitude of lost even in that universe. Then again, one reader has already mentioned hearing “Wheels” on SXM ’50s at 5 this week.
I’m in what would likely be considered a small market in the U.S., city of 300,000, trading area of 500,000. Our Classic Hits FM, 98Cool, does spin a few select 60’s tunes on a regular basis and has a 4-hour Oldies show called the Sockhop every Sunday where anything goes from the 50’s and 60’s including all the great so-called “lost” instrumentals. The show tops the ratings during that 4-hour period, even in the coveted 25-54 demo. There are some timeless “time proven” songs from that era as against “time worn”. Vic Dubois, General Manager, 98Cool FM, Saskatoon, Canada.