Classic rock stations and program lineup. (XM, best, popular, station)
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A classic rock station is the ultimate example of a "self-fulfilling prophecy". They figure if people aren't complaining they must be playing the right music.
The classic rock station in Kansas City is 101 The Fox.
They basically play twenty bands. They are:
Pink Floyd AC/DC Led Zeppelin Boston Tom Petty Rush Van Halen The Rolling Stones Lynard Skynard Eric Clapton ZZ Top The Eagles Aerosmith Styx CCR Heart The Doors The Who Bad Company Foreigner.
Don't believe me? Go ahead and google the station and look at the "last songs played".
Twenty bands. Wow. They play stuff from 1970 to the present. According to my math that's 1/2 of a band per year!. Those must be some pretty good bands.
I'm sure if I got into an argument with the program director I would be assured that he or she only plays "what the people want" or "you can't argue with the numbers". I'm sure they have a computer bigger than HAL spitting out the playlist every day.
I'm not buying it. I think there is alot of personal bias that goes into their playlist. Listening to this station you'd think that ZZ Top has sold more albums than the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and Elvis combined! They play all the ZZ Top also: the big hits and the more obscure marginal hits as well. Most of these songs didn't even register on the Billboard when they were new.
Again, I'm sure the program director would assure me that "If we didn't play ZZ Top at least ten times a day we would get all sorts of angry calls!" O really? Why don't you just admit that you are a dyed-in-the-wool ZZ Top fan. Unless people call in and say "Damn, could you give it a rest with the ZZ Top?", you'd never change. (I don't think you would change even then).
The opposite is also true. I'm not a huge fan of "The Clash" by any means. Their music, however, is pretty classic rock friendly and safe. "Should I stay or Should I go" and "Rock the Casbah" isn't going to offend anyone. The program director probably just doesn't like them. No surveys, no focus groups...just a bias.
Bottom line: If the program director likes Lynard Skynard, you'll hear the whole catalog: A to Z. If he's luke-warm on U2, he might play "New Year's Day" once a month while holding his nose. "But everyone loves Lynard Skynard - haven't you heard?"- again, that "self-fulfilling prophecy".
One last thing
Do you know how crazy it is to play Boston six or seven times (probably more) a day? Think about this for a minute. You could google "Curt Cobain" and find some fan sites. I guarantee you that the webmasters of these fan sites don't listen to Nirvana EVERY DAY, MULTIPLE TIMES PER DAY! I grew up with a card carrying member of the KISS Army. I hung around him every day in high school. Even he didn't listen to KISS every day. Not even close. Yet, if you had the misfortune of working in a warehouse that played this station every day, you would listen to the same twenty bands for the rest of your life. It's just crazy man.
A classic rock station is the ultimate example of a "self-fulfilling prophecy". They figure if people aren't complaining they must be playing the right music.
The classic rock station in Kansas City is 101 The Fox.
They basically play twenty bands. They are:
Pink Floyd AC/DC Led Zeppelin Boston Tom Petty Rush Van Halen The Rolling Stones Lynard Skynard Eric Clapton ZZ Top The Eagles Aerosmith Styx CCR Heart The Doors The Who Bad Company Foreigner.
Don't believe me? Go ahead and google the station and look at the "last songs played".
Twenty bands. Wow. They play stuff from 1970 to the present. According to my math that's 1/2 of a band per year!. Those must be some pretty good bands.
I'm sure if I got into an argument with the program director I would be assured that he or she only plays "what the people want" or "you can't argue with the numbers". I'm sure they have a computer bigger than HAL spitting out the playlist every day.
I'm not buying it. I think there is alot of personal bias that goes into their playlist. Listening to this station you'd think that ZZ Top has sold more albums than the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and Elvis combined! They play all the ZZ Top also: the big hits and the more obscure marginal hits as well. Most of these songs didn't even register on the Billboard when they were new.
Again, I'm sure the program director would assure me that "If we didn't play ZZ Top at least ten times a day we would get all sorts of angry calls!" O really? Why don't you just admit that you are a dyed-in-the-wool ZZ Top fan. Unless people call in and say "Damn, could you give it a rest with the ZZ Top?", you'd never change. (I don't think you would change even then).
The opposite is also true. I'm not a huge fan of "The Clash" by any means. Their music, however, is pretty classic rock friendly and safe. "Should I stay or Should I go" and "Rock the Casbah" isn't going to offend anyone. The program director probably just doesn't like them. No surveys, no focus groups...just a bias.
Bottom line: If the program director likes Lynard Skynard, you'll hear the whole catalog: A to Z. If he's luke-warm on U2, he might play "New Year's Day" once a month while holding his nose. "But everyone loves Lynard Skynard - haven't you heard?"- again, that "self-fulfilling prophecy".
One last thing
Do you know how crazy it is to play Boston six or seven times (probably more) a day? Think about this for a minute. You could google "Curt Cobain" and find some fan sites. I guarantee you that the webmasters of these fan sites don't listen to Nirvana EVERY DAY, MULTIPLE TIMES PER DAY! I grew up with a card carrying member of the KISS Army. I hung around him every day in high school. Even he didn't listen to KISS every day. Not even close. Yet, if you had the misfortune of working in a warehouse that played this station every day, you would listen to the same twenty bands for the rest of your life. It's just crazy man.
The formula of a tight playlist of very familiar songs and artists does work for radio stations. The station you mentioned The Fox in KC is ranked #1 in the ratings (except in December when they were #2 behind a station that played all-Christmas music). They are one of the highest rated classic rock stations in the U.S, Stations that have tried havng a deeper music library tend to fail. So radio is just giving what the (average) listener wants..familiar songs to sing along to. I know that can be frustrating to true music fans but thankfully in this era there are many non-radio alternatives to get music from.
I think joenmarks has hit it accurately my feelings...instead of me saying they play the same 20 songs over and over, I should have said the same 20 bands...
I also think that JF is (unfortunately) right...the tight play list does work because people like things that are familiar to them. I understand that. And heck, I LIKE quite a bit most all the bands he listed on that stations playlist--but even those bands had songs that were good that weren't necessarily top 10 hits.
I guess my wife is right...I'm just odd. I'd love the hear something (ANY thing) from The Band, Foghat, King Crimson, Little Feat, Buffalo Springfield---just some variety from that era.
Our radio is pretty limited in this area. And I know that I can listen to the type of music I like in other venues, but that way we aren't often exposed to new (to us) music that we might find we like.
Thank goodness I have 20-something age kids that help keep me up with some newer decent stuff. I'm a geezer that likes Them Crooked Vultures, Black Keys, that kinda stuff.
My classic rock station plays "Fool for the City" and "Slow Ride" Never "I Just Wanna Make Love to You". I've heard "Dixie Chicken" and "Cripple Creek" on the radio before--but that's pretty dang rare. Couldn't name you a single King Crimson song--but I think members of that band went on to Bad Company, which I hear all the time.
King Crimson's biggest hit was 21st Century Schizoid Man. It isn't played on my local classic rock stations. I don't know that any King Crimson members ended up in Bad Company, but maybe. The styles are entirely different.
Slow Ride and Cripple Creek are great songs, IMO! Possibly just associations that I connect with them.
The classic-rock station I listen to is becoming wishy-washy. They used to play more tracks by Hendrix and Lennon but they're phasing out that good stuff and playing more late '70s and '80s stuff. Once in a while they'll spin a good Zeppelin tune but that's becoming more rare. Lately it's more of the Cars, Foreigner, Eagles, Mellencamp than the real classics.
"Classic rock" stations have/are becoming the "golden oldies" stations of my youth. When I was young there were lots of stations that still played Benny Goodman, big band-type stuff, Frank Sinatra, etc.
You don't hear that so much any more as that demographic is gone or going.
When I first heard the term "classic rock" in radio, they were playing a lot of 60's stuff and some late '50s stuff. Of course, that demographic is aging, so now I'm hearing more classic rock stations playing a lot more '80s and '90s stuff and less and less (to almost none, at least around here) '60s stuff.
I figure I'll be the old man making the kids laugh by cranking up my old "stereo" and playing "records" and blasting The Who...
...of course, IMO, that's better than the guys coming along after me that'll be blasting "songs" about nailing 'hos and shooting cops and dealing drugs..."Yes, I remember when your granny was a ho. She had back!"
My main complaint is that Top 40 stations aren't diverse enough anymore. They're heavy on the pop and urban, and light on the rock, techno and country.
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