It’s troubling that “Babydoll” isn’t getting more support, since the insanely big streaming and request numbers show that this is the song with the highest interest to Pop listeners. There’s nothing weird about it aside from the fact it’s only 94 seconds long, making it what might be the shortest song ever on the format. But these aren’t the days of vinyl and manual playback when stations would complain about songs being too short because it didn’t give them enough time to prep for the next thing.
Radio needs to forego obvious mid-chart stiffs and focus on what millions are actually choosing right before our eyes. Songs like “Babydoll,” “Stateside,” “Choosin’ Texas,” and “iloveitiloveitiloveit” need to get as much attention as a song like Justin Bieber’s “Yukon,” which is not in the Spotify Top 200 and hasn’t received a request on Liveline in months. The audience’s preferences are right before our eyes! Listeners are telling us exactly what to play.
Also crackling its way into the Liveline Top 20 Requests this week is Dominic Fike’s other great song “White Keys”. It’s #17 on Spotify in the US. It came out November 14 and started blowing up following the success of “Babydoll”. The most interesting thing about this is that we’ve never played it on Liveline and at this writing, is receiving zero spins on any Mediabase monitored radio station. So why are the show’s Top 40 and Hot AC listeners calling us to play it? Simple: They expect us to play it, because they hear the other streaming hits on Liveline. To them, it’s just a great new song. It’s new. It’s something they and their friends are listening to.
Clearly, Fike’s two songs are both extremely big on Spotify, getting millions of streams every day. We brand stations as playing “all the hits” or being “the #1 station for the best new music” but if you’re just following the airplay charts, you’re not reflecting true audience appeal. We in radio don’t set the music trends; to succeed we must reflect the trends. Otherwise we enhance the notion that radio is old and out of touch when the songs a typical 18-44 year old REALLY love take months to get radio airplay, then get introduced as “new music” after listeners have streamed it hundreds of times.
HEADS UP! These are throwbacks that are still big requests on Liveline and get consistent high streams on Spotify. Instead of playing “Espresso” and “Beautiful Things” again, here are burn-free alternatives that are big in both streaming and Liveline requests:
Zara Larsson – “Lush Life”: Currently on tour around the world, this song is the standout track of her whole show because she brings a random fan from the audience on stage to perform the TikTok-viral dance with her and the dancers. I attended her sold-out show at House of Blues in Boston last weekend. We interviewed her backstage and will air the interview Friday night on Liveline. She’s extremely easy and fun to talk to so it just flew by flawlessly.
“Lush Life” wasn’t that big in the US in 2017 when it came out, only getting to #39 on Top 40, though it topped the charts in many European countries. Now #48 on Spotify in the US and receiving pretty good airplay on major stations like KHKS/Dallas (43x), KYLD/San Francisco (40x), WIHT/DC (34x), WXKS/Boston (43x) and WKSS/Hartford (55x). The Zara wave is in full effect! Here we are together.
Goo Goo Dolls – “Iris”: Currently #31 on Spotify and hasn’t left the Top 50 in over a year, though it came out in 1998 and was the most played song that year. In terms of longevity and generational appeal, it’s arguably one of the ten biggest songs of all time. Newly heard again on WXKS/Boston and WBLI/Long Island. In and out of our Top 20 requests every week!
The Killers – “Mr. Brightside”: Currently #12 on Spotify, with a similar story to “Iris”, though this isn’t quite as old (2005) and doesn’t give off the “old people” vibe that some radio people seem to think “Iris” does. One of our five biggest throwback requests of all time, right up there with “Lose Yourself”, “Baby”, “No Scrubs” and “Party in the USA”. How this isn’t one of radio’s overplayed staples like “Yeah”, “Low” and “Give Me Everything” (which like it or not still get tons of requests) is strange. Look back at our old Top 20 lists. You’ll see “Mr. Brightside” on a lot of them over the past three years!
Drake – “Headlines”: In the past couple months, we’ve been playing this almost every single night because people request it. When we say that, we really mean that someone called us up and we put them on the air and then played the song. Every single time. One of Drake’s finest pieces and currently #45 on Spotify. A huge party classic from the golden era of modern pop music. It’s melodic and mainstream, even more so than his most-streamed “One Dance” from 2016 which far fewer requests. It was #1 on Rhythmic and the most-requested song of 2011 on John Garabedian’s Open House Party.
