MUSICAL MUSINGS
by Josh Hosler
January 18, 2005
EXTREME RESEARCH
So I was in a new place on Broadway today called Extreme Pizza. (Don't they realize you can't call anything "extreme" anymore? It's so passé.) I go in there often, first because the food is kickin', and second, because it's the closest restaurant to my workplace, a mere six blocks' walk.
The point of this is not that I tried to eat pizza while still suffering the effects of my dentist's anesthetic, although I'm sure that could be a column to make Bill Cosby proud. No, the point is that I heard some sort of satellite mix in there that would probably be defined as "adult top 40" or something, and they actually played "I Go to Extremes" by Billy Joel.
What is it about retail satellite channels that allows them to play the songs that have a reputation for not testing? Come to think of it, I guess I mean that literally: when was the last time anyone tested "I Go to Extremes"? If you were a music research guru and had an unlimited budget, wouldn't you want to test everything?
A lot of stations' playlists are limited by budget. You can only afford to test the songs you suspect will test somewhat well, so you continue to burn out the same old titles. Every now and then, something you'd never expect comes back, but it usually takes a heavy-rotation commercial or something to make it happen. And, yes, most of the now-forgotten mid-charters deserve to stay that way. But don't you wonder sometimes? You know, when there's that killer track from yesteryear that hypes you up every four or five years when you hear it in Ross Dress for Less? Doesn't somebody still want to hear "I Go to Extremes"?
Well, today I read something in the Billboard Radio Monitor that raised my eyebrows. It seems that a station called WRZA launched in suburban Chicago last summer. WRZA (a/k/a "Nine") isn't monitored by BDS or Mediabase, and the website still hasn't been built, but according to this article, the station's playlist contains a whopping 3,500 songs, compared to the 250 or so titles you might expect to hear on a large-market station. PD Sky Daniels says, "I have never seen such rabid reaction from the press and fans alike."
Add to this the phenomenon of stations called "Jack" or "Bob," combining Classic Rock, '80s, and current Hot AC hits. I had a client several years ago who wanted to play "More Than a Feeling" right up against "Foolish Games." We thought he was crazy, but could it be that, at least in some Midwestern markets, it really works?
I'd like to believe that the era of tiny playlists is finally coming to an end. Something tells me, though, that nobody will spend the money to do this right. Giant playlists will only happen as radio continues to be less and less important to younger generations of music fans. Once radio stops being the primary mode of music entertainment, it begins its inexorable journey to the world of Muzak.
If my hunch is correct, the existence of radio stations that play thousands of songs is evidence of music radio being less and less about the music. It may be that you really can play whatever you want, because people aren't tuning in to radio for the music anymore. They want other local elements: traffic and weather. Wait, scratch that: I use www.weather.com. So that leaves traffic, along with music that doesn't openly offend me.
A lot of broadcasters would like to put their listeners' iPods on the radio, but whose iPod would it be? My mp3 player mixes up Pink Floyd, XTC, Billy Joel, Kanye West, Elton John, Garth Brooks, my brother's high school band called Anatomical Gift, and my friend's band called Math and Physics Club. What if a radio station did the same thing? Wouldn't its cume total exactly one?
In fifty years, maybe we won't even hear music on the radio. Why bother? There will be too many other media for it. Radio technology will still exist, but it'll be used for different things. Maybe the heyday of talk radio is still to come. Or maybe even talk radio will be supplanted by on-demand web broadcasts of people spouting political opinions you agree with.
If this sounds a little bleak, that's because of everything that has happened since deregulation in 1996. You'd think that the existence of a mega-corp like Clear Channel would inspire somebody to use that big budget to go back through the Whitburn books and test everything again. Instead, BDS and Mediabase allow more and more broadcasters to look over each other's shoulders, and as playlists get more and more reactionary, the excitement of radio grinds to a halt.
Come on, people! Let's have some extreme research. Who's up for it?
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