Company News · March 24, 2009

We Will, We Will Mock You or Songs That You Hope A Rival Plays

By Edison Research

When WXRK (Now 92.3) New York launched its Top 40 attack on heritage rival WHTZ (Z100), one of the first things it did was try to reimage Z100 and morning host Elvis Duran as old and dated by running promos with “Mickey” by Toni Basil, a song that remains the standard bearer of ’80s cheese for anybody who didn’t help make it a platinum single at the time. (“Mickey” was also used about a decade ago in an ad for a music-related dot-com as an example of what 60-year-old record executives thought the youth of America wanted.)
Of course, Z100 never played “Mickey” as a current. It was already more than six months old in America when Z100 signed on. Any 12-to-24 listener who might want their Top 40 in a shiny new package wasn’t even born when it was a hit, and doesn’t necessarily know what “Mickey” is, except that it sounds like “Hollaback Girl” and Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend.” Whatever your taste in music, there’s a lot that Z100 – like any heritage CHR — has played over the years that could induce just as many groans now from someone, just a few of which include:
* Culture Club, “Karma Chameleon”
* Taco, “Putting On The Ritz”
* Debbie Gibson, “Lost In Your Eyes”
* Gloria Loring & Carl Anderson, “Friends And Lovers”
* Paula Abdul, “The Promise Of A New Day”
* Rod Stewart, “Have I Told You Lately”
* Amy Grant, “I Will Remember You”
* Michael Bolton, “When A Man Loves A Woman”
* ‘N Sync & Gloria Estefan, “Music Of My Heart”
* Celine Dion, “My Heart Will Go On”
* Ricky Martin, “She Bangs”
* William Hung, “She Bangs”
* James Blunt, “You’re Beautiful”
Now 92.3 is also attacking Z100 for playing the decade-old-plus “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls. But, for the most part, the nature of the attack promo usually seems to demand a certain amount of exaggeration. When Z100 signed on, of course, its calling card was a series of vignettes suggesting that WPLJ played “You Light Up My Life” by Debby Boone, another roundly reviled 1977 hit that was probably long-gone from the airwaves at any contemporary major-market station well before then. And WPLJ, having been rock in 1977, would likely never have played it at any time.
Twenty-five years later, WWFS (Fresh 102.7) New York launched with TV commercials trying to establish rival WLTW (Lite FM) as old and stodgy. And the song they used was “You Light Up My Life.” Lite FM had likely never played that song either, since they signed on well after Z100’s WPLJ attacks had furthered Debby Boone’s reputation as radio poison. Again, Lite FM had plenty of songs they were playing that you could have made fun of; even after “Jersey Boys” made the Four Seasons hip again, it still made me cringe to hear them playing “My Eyes Adored You” by Frankie Valli. But Fresh never went after that. Or “I Go Crazy” by Paul Davis. Or “I Just Want To Be Your Everything” by Andy Gibb.
The songs that populate the “you don’t have to sit through this ….. to hear this” promo are rarely real examples either. Hip-hop often figures into that promo, and it’s often the most extreme sort possible – not something that any radio station actually played. Same goes for hard rock.
Usually, however, it’s a little hard to mock a station for something they actually play. For one thing, most major-market stations work very hard not to play anything that might be perceived as goofy. Most Country stations won’t even test “Achy Breaky Heart” – polarizing, but always liked by somebody – for just that reason. Stations have spent a lot of money in research to avoid playing bad records and those that have less to spend these days are likely to take an even harder line about what gets in.
Also, songs dart in and out of legitimacy. You’d think that “Escape (the Pina Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes would have been a natural for an attack promo. But it was out of sight, out of mind for many years, then re-emerged as a surprisingly viable oldie. Same for the Bee Gees’ “Saturday Night Fever” hits. They may have been chased off the radio by the “Disco Sucks” movement in 1980. By 1997, they were newly rehabilitated. And three years ago, you probably could have made fun of Z100 for having played Britney Spears. But Now 92.3 launched with three of her songs in an hour’s time.
There’s also the file-sharing effect, which tends to strip songs of their original context. It’s not rare to see an AC station where the ’70s cheese tests better with younger listeners – they weren’t the ones who knew that they weren’t supposed to like “I Go Crazy” at the time. And when a peer turns you on to a 30-year-old song, as we’ve seen with teens and Classic Rock in recent years, it’s no longer your parents’ music.
Then there’s the relatively conservative taste of today’s teens. I think “Iris” would be a vulnerability to Z100’s young-end, but it’s not so different from “Bubbly” or “You Found Me” or some equally mellow things that teens actually seem to like now. (Not coincidentally, Now isn’t playing those songs either. But it’s not attacking them.) Besides, dull-but-harmless rarely seems worth attacking, which is probably why Now is going after “Mickey” and not, say, Amy Grant.
Bob- and Jack-FM also did a lot to reduce the vulnerability of any one song on a radio station with liners like “come for the good songs, stay for the bad ones to end.” Suddenly, one person’s “bad song” was another’s “oh wow.” Then there’s holiday music. You’d think that playing Johnny Mathis and Andy Williams for 6-8 weeks would make a station vulnerable. But despite the first signs this year that the frost may be off the pumpkin (pie), nobody wants to take on Santa.
You’d also think that with so few stations in any market playing new music that it might be possible to take some of the most overplayed songs of all time – “Jack and Diane,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” “We Will Rock You,” and “Old Time Rock & Roll” – and ask listeners if it wouldn’t be nice to hear something else occasionally. The problem is that listeners, despite their high burn scores, still like those songs. As with Christmas music, you’d have to explain carefully that you’re not attacking the songs, only the way that stations use them. And there’s no room for subtlety in an attack promo.
Now 92.3’s jabs at Z100 have been one of the things that have made the New York CHR battle interesting. And Fresh’s attacks (still ongoing) on WLTW did have, at the very least, the short-term effect of throwing off its competitor. Long-term, however, attack promos have a better track record of tarnishing the other guy than helping the challenger. And listeners do react adversely to too much negativity. In the late ’80s/early ’90s, when Top 40 reached the “don’t be a dickhead” stage in its promos, the listener reaction was ultimately “a pox on both your houses.”
Can you think of any good examples of a song being used effectively in an attack promo? Please leave a comment.

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