The knives have been out for Ed Sheeran for a long time. He barely got to enjoy a few years of hits before the critics pounced. In 2018, the Grammys made their statement by overlooking “Shape of You” for Record of the Year to nominate “The Story of O.J.” by Jay-Z. Like Taylor Swift, there were already murmurs about Sheeran’s place at CHR by the time of his duets album in 2019. Those were silenced for a while in 2021 when pop radio most needed hits and he unleashed “Bad Habits” and “Shivers” in close succession.
After that, Sheeran released the deliberately-less-confectionary “Eyes Closed,” which still became a power for many of the successful medium-to-small-market CHRs I follow closely. Then there was a more personal album from which no singles were promoted. This week, his “Azizam,” released less than two months ago, is up 11-9 at CHR at this writing, but has slowed in recent weeks. A second track, “Old Phone,” is up 43-38 at Hot AC but got only a handful of initial spins at CHR.
Things are challenging even for core artists with other current hits. In mid-March, Chappell Roan finally released “The Giver,” a song that had been circulating since she performed it on Saturday Night Live. In early April, Miley Cyrus’s “End of the World” came out a day before Sheeran. Normally, all these major-artist releases would be making their way into our “Song of the Summer” discussions this week. Instead, Cyrus has peaked and “The Giver” is off the CHR chart.
In another era, programmers would only be seeing their first callout research on those songs now and starting to make the decision on whether they were real hits. Instead, all three songs were under scrutiny almost immediately: Sheeran and Cyrus for their early streaming figures; Roan for declining sharply, even by week No. 2. Under those circumstances, it’s hard for a song to be redeemed by callout — particularly when callout moves glacially, even on a megahit like “Die with a Smile.” So what consideration does a name artist deserve from Top 40, particularly a long-running one?
I want artists to earn their hit streaks, but I’m happy when they do. I want CHR to have core acts. I don’t want streaming to be the only determinant of a hit. But I’m buckling a little, the more I talk to streaming advocates like Longboard Insights’ Mike Castellucci, who would tell radio to just play “Shape of You” or “Shivers” again, rather than continue to invest in a new song that isn’t of the same magnitude. The Hit Momentum Report’s Matt Bailey feels that major-artist titles are the ones most easily assessed quickly because of their artists’ huge fan bases. Liveline’s John Garabedian and Mason Kelter have been vocal in their criticism of any chart hits without streaming or request stories, especially when more-active records are struggling.
Garabedian likens the CHR format today to its early ’90s doldrums. In that moment, there were certainly hits that Top 40 avoided, whether “Rump Shaker” or “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The format was heavily populated by veteran hitmakers who had become mostly AC acts (Rod Stewart, Phil Collins), but also by Hip-Hop novelties comparable to some of today’s TikTok oddities. If you remember that era, how you feel about Top 40 now depends on whether you think the early ’90s culprit was Michael Bolton or MC Brains. It could also work both ways, Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” is one of our more enduring hits now; in 1989, he had a hard time proving his relevance at Top 40.
Some artists took years to expend their final goodwill with radio. Bolton, like Barry Manilow a decade before him, and Celine Dion a few years after, faced more opposition earlier on. Each eventually tried to modernize but couldn’t get past artist image with PDs. We’re better on that now, just as we’re better about letting teen artists grow into adult careers. CHR is still giving Sheeran the benefit of the doubt, and he has made a visible effort to evolve from song to song and not settle in as a ballad artist.
If the question is how long an artist can expect to keep making songs that work for contemporary audiences, consider that Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars go back to 2008 and 2010 respectively. Miley Cyrus had her first pop hit roughly six months before Gaga. Sheeran’s US streak goes back to only 2013. Some of us are still trying to process Rihanna’s “Friend of Mine,” but lots of industry people want her to come back with a hit, and few care that her first was in 2005. Maroon 5 goes back to 2003 at Top 40 with “Harder to Breathe.”
It’s conceivable that younger audiences are doing the math on how long artists have been around, but perhaps less so in a week when Connie Francis — whose hitmaking streak was already over well before the Beatles — has the No. 1 song on TikTok. (Here’s Francis from 1965 updating her own sound with the help of Petula Clark’s writer/producer.)
In general, I’m happy to have veteran artists around as long as they can make “records for today.” Often, the issue is that attempting to do so often ends up giving us “records for a year ago.” That said, “Die with a Smile,” the record that gave both Gaga and Mars currency again, is neither of those things. It is tethered in 1968 or maybe in no particular time at all. At this moment, I may be more hung up on that than the audience.
In recent years, my contention has been that we don’t have to have a lot of our “either/or” discussions about Top 40 — Artists vs. Songs; Hip-Hop vs. Country; Streaming vs. Callout; “Keep CHR Fresher” vs. “Pound ‘Lose Control’ forever” — until we reach the point where there are more good records than CHR can play. Maybe a veteran artist is taking Lil Tecca’s slot in the hour. Or maybe it’s a second-tier throwback that doesn’t have the same durability — in terms of artist or song relevance — as a “Yeah!” or “Just Dance.”
My inclination remains giving songs the time to grow on listeners, and to be ratified (or not) by callout. That decision is complicated by the slowness of callout now, and I wonder what radio could do to make it more responsive — more spins right away; more creative ways of getting attention for a record on and off the air; changing screeners or recruitment? The issue of callout proving songs to be hits after their chart peak existed long before streaming, COVID, or CHR’s decline. Now, however, it’s hard for callout to ratify songs that don’t stream because radio won’t put much effort into breaking them in the first place.
Under any scenario, I agree with KMVQ (99.7 Now) San Francisco PD Jim Archer’s strategy — as shared at Radiodays North America — of not over-relying on any single metric. My corollary, presented at RDNA’s closing “30 Ideas in 45 Minutes” panel, is that with so many possible stories, research works best when it’s also used not just to eliminate weaker songs, but find music and ratify your decisions.
Top 40’s song-of-summer excitement last year was, as it should be, driven by a mix of established artists (Morgan Wallen, Billie Eilish), those just breaking through (Sabrina Carpenter, Chappel Roan), re-emerging (Hozier, Charli XCX), and brand new (Shaboozey, Tommy Richman). Neither the alchemy nor the field feels quite as perfect this year, although I’ve become more optimistic over the last month. There are records I love now. It would be even better to have a few more sure things.
At another RDNA panel, on the state of the radio/music industry relationship, label veteran Abbey Konowitch told attendees not to be too nostalgic about the old days of a system that invested tons of short-lived hype in, say, Semisonic and got them one hit in “Closing Time” (albeit an enduring one). But Raye, an artist cited there as an example of music’s current streaming-driven democracy, is a one-hit wonder too, in America, even if fewer label resources likely went into getting her that single hit. Are things better or just cheaper for labels who are less interested in bringing as many songs to radio anyway?
Things still seem to be better for radio when there are more stars — both emerging and veteran. In CHR, the Song of Summer created only momentary excitement, and not a roadmap to anything. In Country, the answer to the established artists vs. post-Morgan Wallen discussion seems to have been “both.” The same for “passive vs. active records”? No artist should get a pass. Every artist should get a fair chance. It just comes down to what you think that fair chance is. And if we want to encourage a new generation of hitmakers, not just veterans, we’re going to have to cultivate those as well, because streaming won’t do it all for us.
