Welcome to the Holiday Edition of Mason’s Observations! In that dark time of the year when major artist or breaking new releases are almost non-existent, we talk about the reaction program directors and listeners have shown towards “the same old songs”, those wonderful “hype” records and Christmas songs!
Last week, we talked about “Criminals” by Meghan Trainor for which I received many specific responses about. Many of them consisted of “that was so harsh”, “what do you have against Meghan Trainor?” and “you really don’t care what the label thinks?!”… Though NOBODY disagreed with my statements, they just didn’t expect someone to point out the obvious hype and payoff, which is her performing at the Christmas music festivals. I heard from many PDs that they’re all gonna drop it as soon as the events are over. While these favors and deals aren’t new at all, it’s very concerning to see how high these songs are able to get on the chart because of the major radio companies controlling so much airplay, which influences the smaller ones to get on it too because “everyone else” and the “major markets” are playing it. ALWAYS look to see when, where and why a station is playing a questionable song a lot. These days, it’s probably NOT because of a streaming breakthrough or that the program director thought it was a “great song”.
This is always the worst time of year for Top 40 radio. Major artists aren’t releasing new music and everyone seems to be doing the bare minimum to get through the holidays. As a result, the charts freeze for weeks at a time, making everything stale and tired.
On Liveline, like most radio, we’re not adding new songs until after Christmas. Of course, if Justin Bieber or Dua Lipa decided to release something tomorrow, that would be a different story. But our “New” category has been replaced with a dozen Christmas songs, which only plays once an hour and is surrounded by Top 40 hits. So instead of committing to a crappy song that midcharts in a month and dies in 3 or 4 weeks, it’s the tested trusted Holiday music and Golds that people know and love.
Only One Artist to Consider This Week
Kendrick Lamar – GNX: Without a question, “Not Like Us” was the biggest rap record of 2024. His beef with Drake is STILL a hot topic. He’s headlining the Super Bowl Halftime show. He just announced a major tour with SZA. Gen Z considers him the greatest rapper of the past 10 years.
Since the release of his multi-country #1 album “GNX” on November 22nd, all 12 songs have held strong in the Spotify Top 50 (if you subtract the Christmas stuff). Last week, the first single “tv off” featuring Lefty Gunplay finished at #17 on our top requests list for Liveline. No Top 40 station (or us) had ever even played the song yet. On Spotify, it’s #2, while “luther” featuring SZA is #1. “squabble up” is #5 and actually most-played out of them all on Top 40 (#42) with San Francisco’s KMVQ at 75 spins and KYLD at 69 spins. KZZP/Phoenix 38 spins, KDDB Honolulu 26 spins and KCRZ/Visalia 60 spins. It’s already #9 on Rhythmic.
In a time where NO songs are breaking through, this is showing all the signs of a passionate future Top 40 hit. It may be little harsh for Hot AC and daytime Top 40 compared to everything else, but that’s exactly what Gen Z needs to hear to make radio sound relevant, cool and trendy. Rap is and has been the most popular genre of music for two decades and emerged as a major art form 45 years ago! Besides, it’s literally the ONLY rap record other than “Timeless” by The Weeknd that Top 40 is playing… the format is very white right now.
Just an update: Yet another week has passed and we’ve still never had a single request for The Weeknd – “Dancing In The Flames” #6 on Top 40, Jelly Roll – “I Am Not Okay” #10, Addison Rae – “Diet Pepsi” #12 or “Akon’s Beautiful Day” #19. Why are stations playing these songs so much?
Just like Meghan Trainor last week, there are NO streaming, sales, or requests showing any passion from listeners!
The major action? Gigi Perez – “Sailor Song”, Chappell Roan – “Pink Pony Club”, The Weeknd – “Timeless” or Gracie Abrams – “That’s So True” which we pointed out as hits WEEKS ago from their major numbers on the Spotify charts. Now all four have major airplay increases, big streaming numbers, and are receiving Top 10 requests.
Buried Treasures of The Week
Ed Sheeran, Elton John – Merry Christmas: A Liveline Christmas classic that really fits today’s top 40 and Hot AC since its release in 2021. Mariah aside, it really captures the spirit and joy of 21st century Christmas better than any other song released in the past 30 years . We get requests for it as well and many people told us they heard it for the first time on Liveline and instantly loved it.
Check out the big budget video on YouTube. Almost every major artist has a Christmas song or album, most of which are forgettable and cheesy. Not this one. Listen and read the lyrics simultaneously. It’s a great addition to the Christmas category if you don’t wanna be stuck with just those 50 year old chestnuts.
Bob Rivers – Walkin’ ‘Round In Women’s Underwear: This is one of the only songs we’ve ever played that gets INSTANT reaction. From his 1993 album “I Am Santa Claus”, this radio legend is mostly known for his parody “The 12 Pains of Christmas”. Bob did mornings on KJR-FM in Seattle for 25 years. We throw it in every year as a joke, but people immediately call and text saying how funny it was and asking for the title. It’s only 2 minutes long, but so silly and memorable. People really react and remember stuff like this and come back to your station when you offer something they can’t hear anywhere else.
Christmas Music This Year
With two weeks until the 25th, we thought we’d offer our view of which Christmas songs have been getting the most streams and requests so far. For decades, this list hasn’t changed much. The first week of December was kinda dead in terms of Christmas requests but it drastically picked up this past week, with one major surprise: Mariah Carey isn’t even in our Top 5! Perhaps people are finally getting tired of her after 30 years (though on Spotify she’s still #3. From tabulated calls, texts, and social media, here are the Liveline Top 5 Christmas songs this year so far:
#1. Wham! – “Last Christmas”
#2. Bobby Helms – “Jingle Bell Rock”
#3. Ariana Grande – “Santa Tell Me”
#4. Brenda Lee – “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”
#5. Justin Bieber – “Mistletoe”
…and the Spotify Top 5
#1. Brenda Lee – “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”
#2. Bobby Helms – “Jingle Bell Rock”
#3. Mariah Carey – “All I Want For Christmas Is You”
#4. Wham! – “Last Christmas”
#5. Andy Williams – “It’s the Most Wonderful Time”
Some stations have gone all Christmas, while others refuse to play any. A little bit goes a long way, so it’s always important to play the best and biggest ones. One sometimes forgotten one from the Tom Hanks classic film “Polar Express” (and my personal favorite) is “Believe” by Josh Groban from the 2004 Polar Express movie. It’s so inspirational and one of the only songs that make me genuinely choke up.
Merry Christmas everyone!
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Your candor once again bowls me over!
I doubt GNX will go down as my favorite Kendrick album in the long run (admittedly a very high bar!) but it has many instant classic moments, singles and album cuts alike. I honestly think radio should get started to some extent on all three of the current big ones. I don’t expect CHR to help much, frankly, even if it might do them good! There will simply always be one excuse or another as to why any success these songs demonstrate is simply not relevant to or reflective of “our audience” (wink/eyeroll). Not ONE hit from ANY of his albums has reached the top 10 at the format! Perhaps if he’d sampled a 90s Eurodance hit on “Squabble Up” instead of “When I Hear Music” CHR programmers would give it a look, but it seems they were not so fortunate. Oh well!
Kendrick’s labelmate Doechii has one hit to date. It was ultimately a radio-driven hit despite having solid streams early on, and it went down even better on CHR stations than it did on the Hip Hop stations that played it weeks or months earlier. It actually has many of the same hallmarks of A&R’ing and consultant influence that I find so tiresome in other hits (and stiffs), but nonetheless I really enjoy the song and liked hearing it on radio! Doechii has made it increasingly clear recently, simply through the excellence of her live/televised performances, that she’s going to be a big deal in some way or another. People watching those performances have learned more about her, and become more convinced of her stardom, than people who heard “What It Is” on CHR did from its entire tenure there. CHR programmers should be worried that an artist whose first hit was mostly with y’all is now actually more likely to make her mark without you, and the best opportunity she could find in the world you believe to be relevant to “your listeners” was a guest spot on the third dud single from Katy Perry’s dud album.
Very excited to see Kendrick and SZA when they come to my city! ^_^
Thank you for calling out the bad and shameless practices some radio stations have decided to obviously perform in recent years, beyond embarrasing how evident it is, and this is only accelerating Pop radio’s ongoing decay.
I believe “I Am Not Okay” is performing pretty well on callouts and sales, so it has those in its side. Regarding Akon’s Awful Song is unfourtanely showing pretty solid callouts scores, it seems, it is a shame, but in these days, where new material usually struggle to have a good callout story, it is worth noting.
Have you thought about it this way: Should all music decisions take charts or chart position into consideration? I think not. PDs (with the exception of those in syndication) should be prioritizing their markets and their listeners; if their station is bringing an artist to town it’s practical to play the single. It makes sense to spin a song for the sake of building familiarity/event promotion. And if everyone is truly programming for their market (instead of being a lemming), artificial growth shouldn’t be an issue because the stations spinning one single, that as you might say doesn’t deserve the exposure, would be the exception and not the rule.
Mason…I always appreciate those who “tell it like it is”. You are correct on the lack of “rhythmic” hits at Top 40 currently. Aside from Kendrick Lamar and a few others, modern hip hop is pretty awful. That same “rat-a-tat-tat” beat with mumbled lyrics is not “art” in my opinion. Even at the 45 year mark, hip hop is still polarizing to enough Top 40 listeners to be careful with what you play and when you play it. Playing the hits will never do you wrong even if the format doesn’t have the variety of sounds it should. I wish we had some upbeat R&B dance songs. That sound is missing. Mainstream melodic rock is another. Let’s hope 2025 will surprise us those kind of hits!