Old Records Have Always Been Among Us

In fall 1977, when callout research was relatively new, KFXM San Bernardino, Calif., PD Jeff Salgo got national attention by announcing that the year-old “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago was his station’s top-testing song. It was the moment of “You Light Up My Life,” “Cold as Ice,” “Brick House,” and “You Make Loving Fun,” but a year-old No. 1 song, pleasant but hardly galvanizing, was bigger than any of them, including Chicago’s current ballad, that fall.

Despite this, KFXM never actually put “If You Leave Me Now” back on its current playlist, as evidenced by this chart from around that time. Programmers quickly came to understand that songs might live on well after their chart run. Knowing which ones were enduring became the foundation of music research. But when callout impacted the charts, it was more because PDs went looking for songs to bring back, resulting in things like Judy Collins’s version of “Send in the Clowns” recharting after two years.

In other words, nobody felt the need to gum up the charts with old records, even enduring ones that they knew to keep playing. In some cases, that might have been because radio stations liked being part of the chart game, with both its legit and illicit perks. But judging from this playlist, KFXM was not that type of radio station, running a typically tight list of the era without a lot of obscurities by then-current standards.

In Fall 1977, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” had run its course on the charts, and follow-up “Don’t Stop” was already on its way down as well. It was single No. 4, “You Make Loving Fun,” that was charting. For anybody doing callout then, I can easily imagine “Dreams” probably still being somewhere in the top five. But the industry still decided to move on and let the Rumours album have its then-uncommon four hit singles sequentially. 

We’re less than a month from Labor Day. I’ve seen three national press stories so far about the disappointing summer song field of 2025. Teddy Swims’s “Lose Control” has notched its record 100^th week on Billboard’s Hot 100. Rumours is the No. 19 album on the Billboard 200 album chart. “Dreams” is the No. 19 most-requested song on the syndicated night show Liveline. The charts are glacial, the consensus hits are few, and the songs that will not die remain above or float back to the surface as if in a flooded cemetery. 

Reporting this news carries with it the responsibility to look for an interpretation. Our new generation of music listeners is less siloed about “their music” vs. that of their parents (or grandparents). Many theorists see a need for musical comfort food in troubled times. Older songs get a boost from repeated streaming that was not reflected by a single purchase in the past. I have suggested that streaming (and an AC radio that no longer plays currents) have given an assist to songs like “Lose Control,” measuring not hip streamers, but the “passive” audience that callout was originally intended to give voice to.

But I’d also like to suggest that older songs and recurrents have been among us always, with certain titles maintaining their currency among listeners. Without having seen callout in that era, I’m guessing that “Dreams” probably could have managed a two-year chart run itself had there been any desire to do so. (That it was the only No. 1 on Rumours probably reflects a greater label interest in selling albums than collecting chart trophies.)

“Under the Bridge” by Red Hot Chili Peppers had what was considered a long chart run by 1992 standards: 26 weeks on a chart that had already been slowed down by the introduction of monitored airplay and more accurate sales data. In that period, like ours, when hits were at a premium, its real lifespan was clearly much longer. When WHTZ (Z100) New York went to an Alternative/CHR hybrid in 1993, “Under the Bridge” was unavoidable. When Top 40 stations began to repopulate a few years later, that song still felt as if it were being used as a current. 

Yet, there was no impetus to keep “Under the Bridge” charted. A few years later, it might not have been on a commercial single at all. (Shout-out to former, present, and recently departed staffers of Warner Brothers, now Warner Records, for a proud history that spans from well before “Dreams” to Red Hot Chili Peppers to, now, Teddy Swims and Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things.”) 

In the early 2000s, as consolidation led to greater scrutiny about whether major groups were instituting homogenized playlists, I looked at every Top 40 playlist and found that stations were still doing their own thing in some way. Most CHR stations had an outlier or two. But that song was as likely to be a lingering recurrent still played as a current as a new song or local hit. 

For years, it was enough for programmers and the industry to know that songs endured. Occasionally, with the help of callout, radio would raid the recurrents for a song or two to cover a lesser week for powers, acknowledge a few songs that were phenomenal, or even bring back a record that had peaked prematurely.  There was also a tacit knowledge that a song or two that had departed from the charts might be bigger than the work record struggling to get from No. 11 to No. 10.

More occasionally, you would see a song well beyond recurrent resurface at current-based formats. (I remember WXKS [Kiss 108] Boston bringing back “Pour Some Sugar On Me” in the mid-’00s.) There have been certain all-ages party songs that could have come back at any time. But contemporary formats and Classic Rock/Classic Hits were happy to maintain distinct identities. Recurrents and older songs could have always gurgled up. For the most part, the industry was just as happy to see the beat go on. This summer, we instead hear the beat go thud.

People have always held on to their favorite songs, but they also like being introduced to their next favorite. Lingering hits and older records are more prominent now because there’s less to get in their way. Labels promote fewer songs to radio. Broadcasters exhibit little enterprise of their own. Streaming alone can not produce a sustained hit or even land a much-publicized outlier like Connie Francis’ “Pretty Little Baby” on the Hot 100.

I understand that there’s a certain fascination in seeing how things happen without the synchronized efforts of the label, radio, and chart machines. However, most of the people writing these “where are the hits” articles don’t sound particularly happy, and they’re suggesting that readers aren’t either. Older music has been with us always. What we’re seeing now is the failure of new music.