Since the inception of “Mason’s Observations” in October, we’ve called attention to many songs with big streaming numbers and validated audience reaction, all of which have become real Pop radio hits and remain our top requests. They will evolve into strong recurrents and golds.
The following is a list of songs that were huge way before radio airplay, but huge on Spotify and Liveline requests since their release, still big or moving up the Top 40 chart:
- Sabrina Carpenter – Taste (her third #1)
- ROSÉ & Bruno Mars – APT (soon to be #1 on Top 40)
- Gracie Abrams – That’s So True (#7 this week)
- Chappell Roan – Pink Pony Club (finally Top 10 after 10 weeks, we were getting top 5 requests for it when it was #45 in airplay)
- The Weeknd & Playboi Carti TIMELESS (#13, +628 spins (after 13 weeks radio finally realized that Dancing In The Flames was a stiff)
- Gigi Perez – Sailor Song (#23 after 13 weeks, but STILL in the Spotify and Liveline Top 10)
Conversely, these are upward moving songs in the airplay Top 30 for which we’ve never received a single request:
- Addison Rae – Diet Pepsi (#8)
- Damiano David – Born With A Broken Heart (#15)
- Akon – Akon’s Beautiful Day (#17)
- LISA – Moonlit Floor (#20)
- Teddy Swims – Bad Dreams (#21)
Ross on Radio’s Sean Ross notes that some well-researched stations like New York’s Z100 and San Francisco’s Now 99.7 have moved up “Diet Pepsi” recently and still have significant airplay on the Weeknd’s “Dancing in the Flames,” Overall, though, I believe that songs that don’t generate requests or stories in Spotify, Apple Music, or Shazam regardless of airplay rankings are not hits and certainly nobody’s favorite songs.
Bad/weak songs destroy music radio’s relevance. What would stations be playing if there was no airplay data? Where would program directors look to find the hottest emerging new music? How could any other data source show or even predict the long-term, listener-passionate songs, without knowing who else is playing it on the radio? Voila – Spotify, Apple Music, Shazam…and if you’re in a big market reaching a large audience, research and requests!
Back when he was the PD who successfully launched Z100 (from worst to first in 90 days), Scott Shannon called these kinds of programmers “penguins,” people who just follow others around. Legendary Top 40 programmer Bill Drake conceived several breakthrough programming concepts we universally take for granted today; among them “stopsets”, “music sweeps”, and most significantly the concept of “tune-outs”, those songs which turn off listeners and motivate them to turn off the station. Using these concepts and by restricting stopsets to four minutes each (and only two per hour), the Drake stations dominated in New York, Chicago, LA, and dozens of copycat stations nationwide. The point is that airplay data is not a measure of audience passion. And songs with no demonstrable audience passion are gambles and open cracks in the armor of power hit programming.
What’s New:
Billie Eilish – “WILDFLOWER”: From the highly acclaimed HIT ME HARD AND SOFT album, “Birds of a Feather” has become Billie’s biggest pop radio hit to date. Now starting its 33rd week in the Top 40, Interscope is apparently pushing “Chihiro” as the album’s third single. Odd considering the consistent strength of the album’s “Wildflower” which hasn’t left the Spotify Top 50 since its release in May 2024 (currently #18). “Chihiro” is #122 and we’ve never had a single request for it. As far as radio airplay goes, “Wildflower” is #40 on Pop with KMVQ/San Francisco, KJYO/Oklahoma City, KLLY/Bakersfield, WVBX/Fredericksburg, and both KKRZ and KBFF/Portland, as the only stations playing it more than 25 times this week, while “Chihiro” has one spin in all of America. It’s nice to see radio choosing the right cut. Let’s just hope it picks up! Women seem to LOVE it.
Bad Bunny Update: Last week, we mentioned “DtMF” from the new album by Puerto Rico’s Bad Bunny. Cuts from the album still occupy most of the Spotify Top 20, with #1, #4 and #5 being held by him. We still haven’t received any requests for the songs yet, but he IS extremely popular and there’s something to learn from an all-Spanish language album being the biggest musical release of 2025 in America so far. What will radio do with it? Every so often a non-English song hits the mainstream top 10, ever since Kyu Sakamoto’s 1963 Billboard #1 hit “Sukiyaki” (sung in Japanese). It was the world’s biggest single of all time, selling 13 million. And who can forget megahits “Gangnam Style” (in Korean) and “The Macarena” (in Spanish). You just never know.
Buried Treasures of The Week
OutKast – “Ms. Jackson”: For reasons unknown, a few of their biggest hits have been getting a lot of requests on Liveline the past few months. “Hey Ya!“, “Roses” and “The Way You Move” have become timeless classics, but despite their initial popularity and relevance after all these years, they don’t compare to 2001’s “Ms. Jackson” which finished at #33 on our list of 2024’s most-requested Golds. It’s just a really cool song for all ages, men and women. It reached #1 on Billboard and Rhythmic radio, but only #13 on Top 40 (back in the early 2000s when Rhythmic radio dominated Mainstream in most large markets. Add it to the list of GREAT but forgotten songs, which only people who closely watch the charts, experience DJ parties/clubs and have unique listener-driven data would become aware of how powerful a song like this is. Many successful Mainstream stations DO still play it. In the past week: KIIS/Los Angeles 4x, WBBM/Chicago 9x, WKQI/Detroit 4x, WKFS/Cincinnati 11x. Plus, usually 5 spins on Liveline (once a night, with live phone call requests).
Akon – “Lonely”: Heartbreak. Depression. Abandonment, three things that nearly everyone feels and relates to. Whether you’ve been cheated on or lied to, broken up with, rejected or are dealing with a sad event in your life, “Lonely” is one of Akon’s signature pieces, garnering 775 million Spotify streams. It’s launched his career and is his second most-popular song, right behind “Smack That” featuring Eminem (which has 1.2 billion streams and finished #23 on our most-requested Golds of 2024 list. In 2005, it reached #4 on Billboard, Pop and Rhythmic airplay. In the past two weeks, no Top 40 stations have played it. That’s because they don’t have the benefit of seeing listeners requesting it, sharing their stories and emotions like Liveline does. It would be compelling to know what a music test reveals about these old songs.
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I can’t understand a single word of Spanish that wouldn’t appear in ad copy for Taco Bell but do listen to some Spanish-language music, Bad Bunny included. I would have enjoyed hearing “Dákiti,” “Yonaguni,” “Titi Me Preguntó,” and “Where She Goes” on Anglo radio but apparently we can’t have that unless some corny Spanglish Bieber remix is produced. Unfortunate! “Provenza” by Karol G was also incredible but apparently even rhythmic radio hardly did a thing with it. You all barely tolerated playing the exquisite (and bilingual) “Telepatía”!! Granted, even Spanish-language radio seems to be iffy on some of the songs I like, though. I only heard the (gold-heavy) station in my city play “Gata Only” once. Anyways, I personally haven’t gotten around to Bad Bunny’s new album yet but have heard good things about it.
I love “Sailor Song” but clearly radio people don’t really want to be playing it. A commenter here who apparently couldn’t be bothered to type a few words into a search bar and click play said he thought it sounded bad based on a short clip he heard, so what do I know?
I know “Diet Pepsi” is showing few genuine signs of life lately but I do like it, save for the bizarre modulation at the end that I sometimes skip when I stream it. I still haven’t heard it on radio because even songs in the top 10 nationally are apparently inaudible in major markets now — hooray for power rotation being the only rotation that matters. I bet it would sound good if I did hear it! Meanwhile, “Wildflower” is a bit of a question mark for me. However it is very amusing to see it excel in so many ‘early’ metrics given that it’s exactly the kind of languid song whose success makes radio people seethe with rage, like a “Saturn” or “Creepin'”. Whaddya mean our audience likes this?? Top 40 listeners want TEMPO, I tell you! Instead we need to be playing more “proven hits” (i.e. barely top 50 in 3 European countries) from faceless EDM DJs!
A small correction: Actually, DÁKITI, one of the few good Bad Bunny songs and probably his best, was picked up by radio, it peaked at #19 on Pop radio, which is not bad considering; although, I agree there is lack of support towards non-English speaking music.
Back to Mason’s article, I think both streaming and callouts are needed, it is not untrue that there is an audience not too actively using streaming services that still trusts radio as a music medium. However, I agree radio needs to speed it up backing up songs that show great potential based on streaming data (i.e. “WILDFLOWER”). Plus, trust your guts and ears more, come on.
It’s not the 2000s anymore so reaching #19 at pop radio means very little. Since the mid-2010s especially a song that high on the chart will still be getting spun overnight only by many stations if not completely ignored. “Telepatía” peaked just outside the top 10 and was not played at all by the CHR in the city I lived in at the time despite it having a decent Spanish-speaking population. PDs can’t imagine that anyone would actually like this music unless they spoke the language (and few of them personally like any of the music they play in any language).