The Songs That Bog Down Classic Hits

If it were up to readers and Facebook friends, the ’90s song they’d most like to hear on the radio is “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals. That song should be perfect for Classic Hits. It’s fun and uptempo, despite its lyrical edge. “You Get” is a ’90s song that invokes the ’80s (if you think of it as a Daryll Hall & John Oates homage) or the ’70s (if you notice the Todd Rundgren resemblance instead). Some do play it. “You Get” had a not insignificant 455 Mediabase spins last week; about a third of them from Classic or Adult Hits stations.

The ’90s song that radio plays much more — coming in with 2,584 spins last week– is the much statelier “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls, one of the safest songs you can play in any format. WLS-FM Chicago played “Iris” 29x last week. Recently, LiveLine’s Mason Kelter suggested in his RadioInsight column that CHR stations could still play it (and some CHR stations did in fact hang on to it for longer than other comparable titles).

Currently, the top four ’90s songs at Classic Hits are “Iris,” “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt, “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M., and “Under the Bridge” by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Only “Losing” is not a ballad, and it’s not so happy (or shiny) itself. Before “Iris” took hold, “Under the Bridge” was the song with which Classic Hits pushed into the ‘90s. It feels wrong on Classic Hits to me in every way — dirge, downer topic, goes on forever — but I know many people just hear it as one of the greatest songs ever. (Maybe the Classic Hits connection is its odd momentary resemblance to this Partridge Family album cut — listen at :35.)

Much of what the Classic Hits station has to deal with from the ’90s is music grouped together now as “Modern AC” or “pop/alternative.” Those can be the Gin Blossoms or Soul Asylum from 1993. They can be Third Eye Blind or Matchbox 20 from decade’s end. Often, they include poppier songs like “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia or “Lovefool” by the Cardigans that were “Alternative” mostly because labels tended to take any song they could to Alternative radio first, in hopes of getting more cred and selling albums, not singles.

Some of the enduring Modern AC hits — “Lovefool,” “Semi-Charmed Life” – are fun and uptempo, comparable in feel to ’80s powers such as “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” or “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” Some tend to remind you of why teen pop made a comeback in the late ’90s — because listeners were tired of being bummed out. (S-Curve’s Steve Greenberg tells the story about how Soul Asylum’s “Misery” sent him looking for a Hanson to sign, but “Runaway Train,” the bigger, enduring hit, is pretty morose itself.)

As a 20-year music researcher, I want to listen to the audience. “Iris” usually tests. “You Get What You Give” squeaks through occasionally, although some of the PDs playing it this week are those I know to be research-conscious. But as stations give a greater portion of their hour to the ’90s — up to 40% at some stations I’ve heard — I’m more concerned about some similar secondary titles that sneak through, also including some early-’90s doldrums songs that have taken hold at the format as well. When you hear “Walkin’ in Memphis” by Mark Cohn two songs away from “If You Could Only See” by Tonic, it does affect both the feel and strength of the station. When those songs achieve critical mass, it feels like they bring the format to a halt more than they should.

To some extent, gold-based radio stations have always hewed to a model of fun older songs and more recent ballads. In the early ’80s, it was common at AC radio to hear “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” by the Hollies, followed by an Air Supply current. The songs that brought the ’70s into the oldies format were “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac and “Just the Way You Are” by Billy Joel. “Dreams” became a center-lane song for years. It could certainly sap the energy out of “Louie Louie” or “Get Off of My Cloud” at first, though.

When the Adult Hits format took hold in the early ’00s, the newest song was usually Santana’s “Smooth.” It was uptempo (enough), by a heritage artist, and a massively beloved song. “Smooth” was the safe record in an hour that likely contained an ’80s oddity or two, the song that allowed you to get away with “I Ran (So Far Away)” by A Flock of Seagulls. But there was nothing fun about hearing it. When Classic Hits pushed into the ’00s, “Smooth” was also the gateway song, and we would eventually go way beyond that.  

In most ways, the question of whether the ’90s and even the early ’00s fit at Classic Hits is long resolved. For some PDs, even 30-year-old songs are old, and the original template of the format (playing the ’50s in the ’70s) dictates that Usher’s “Yeah” should be the center. Some of the most successful stations in the format are those that have moved most aggressively forward, from KXKL (Kool 105) Denver to KOLA Riverside, Calif. 

One of the most read Ross on Radio columns is “What Classic Hits Added” each year, and few readers sharply disagree. That was also the story when I asked Facebook friends what ’90s/’00s songs they liked on the radio, and which they didn’t. Besides the readers who wanted to hear “You Get What You Give,” “Smooth” was the easy winner of that category, although Rich Marino is tired of it and wishes PDs would move on to “The Game of Love.”

By contrast, there were far fewer songs that got cited for not quite fitting at Classic Hits. Often, those songs were as likely to be at the harsher end of the Alternative format (Radiohead’s “Creep,” Alanis Morisette’s “You Oughta Know”) as the soft end. Veteran PD Jerry Noble likes hearing Matchbox Twenty at Classic Hits; the one that pushes too far into Soft AC territory is Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.”

For some programmers, the once-defining “good times, great oldies” mindset of the Classic Hits format is as distant as the word “oldies” itself. Reader Jason Steiner bemoaned how “Classic Hits has become AC without currents.” I often agree, but I recognize that for KOLA that’s been the successful game plan all along. Whether that’s right for you depends in part on what the market gives you. KOLA doesn’t have a Mainstream AC competitor.

But what if you do want to maintain tempo or avoid grade inflation on some secondary and tertiary ballads?

• Be less concerned with era overall. Virtual Jock’s Jason Kidd tells how his 14-year-old daughter’s tastes span from the ’60s to now. Classic Rock has made inroads in recent years, even with younger listeners, by being able to play the late ’60s/early ’70s as Classic Hits PDs flee the decade. There are always some songs that work for event jocks and not radio, but often the wedding reception model works.
• Be more open to the pop and rhythmic ’90s. “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan struggled for airplay at a Top 40 format that was mostly Modern AC in 1995. But songs like that or Bell Biv Devoe’s “Poison” or TLC’s “No Scrubs” are usually consistent testers when included. I’ve seen a few stations where Europop and Eurodance test well beyond Ace of Base.
• Cultivate a few songs. I personally believe there is room to cultivate a somewhat familiar song that just sounds good on the radio for a while to see if it eventually performs in research, particularly if you’re playing enough other hits. If you can take responsibility for “You Get What You Give,” play it.
• Embrace the ’00s more. My Facebook friends got into a side discussion of whether Lady Gaga fit. “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” are at least fun and uptempo. Even for somebody who chose Classic Hits over Mainstream AC or Top 40, I have to believe that those songs win the button punch over a second-tier Modern AC title (even if the concept of winning the punch is also increasingly abstract).

Modern AC, whether its individual titles, or as a format, cast a long shadow over all of pop and Alternative radio in the ’90s. There are programmers who believe we are ready for a gold-based format with a large helping of those songs; SiriusXM’s PopRocks is close to that now. If I were doing that format, “If You Could Only See” would be a power, and Tonic’s “You Wanted More” would be one of my secret weapons (as it was for many stations at the time). For the most part, though, the songs that bring radio to a halt are most effective when they really stand out.