It’s The Music, Stupid

9/2/1994

What comes first?

Ah, an age-old question that has perplexed generations for centuries. Was it the chicken or the egg? The horse or the cart? Better yet, what does it have to do with radio?

I have the answer. Not to the age-old question, but to what it has to do with radio.

This past weekend, I took a little trip (“…take a little trip…take a little trip”) to Phoenix. Yeah, I heard “Low Rider” a lot, but that isn’t the point. It was hot (108 degrees), but that wasn’t the only comparison with hell. I had the opportunity (?) to listen to some of the worst sounding radio stations I’ve ever heard.

Something happened on the way from Marconi, through McClendon, past Drake and Drew to where we are today…and it doesn’t sound very pretty.

I heard more deejays trying to be hip and failing miserably than I thought was possible. I guess it proves that some people can’t aim too low. I swear, some of the people I heard on the radio made whale shit look like stardust!

I know, some of you are saying that it’s easy to be hard (okay, so I listened to a lot of Oldies), but I’m not writing just to be critical. (That’s only when I write about R&R). I’m just concerned about the state of radio.

Let me be quick to point out that not every station in Phoenix was guilty of bad radio. KKFR and KVRY sounded good. And Phoenix isn’t the only city afflicted with this epidemic. It’s national.

Oh, yeah, the original question: What comes first, the music or the deejay?

Let me share a couple of breaks and let you decide.

“That’s Little Feat. They haven’t had a hit since lead singer Lowell George split. Now that he’s back, you can hear the group heading for the top again.” (FYI, Lowell George is dead.)

“And you can check out the exhibit on Abraham Lincoln. He was the first President born in a log cabin he built himself.”

“It’s a shame Eddie Vedder committed suicide, but Nirvana’s music will live on without him.”

I’m leaving out the incredible stupid jock bits.

How did we get here? At what point in time did we begin to hire people who aren’t professionally schooled in the ABCs of good radio and who have no clue about the artists or music they play?

I know I have been an advocate of personality radio. I’ve said that to survive and grow, radio must offer more than music. But the key here is more…not less.

Except in extremely rare cases, the Top 40 audience tunes in to radio to hear their favorite music. What deejays do between the breaks is important only if it adds to that fact. But the key ingredient is music. So many on the air today have no respect for the music they play and their ratings show it.

There was a time in radio when the deejays did all their bits over song intros. Hey, you always hit a vocal or at least the post. But even in the weenie days of Top 40, we never talked over music that mattered. The Osmonds? You betcha. The Beatles? Never.

Too many deejays now have no connection with the totality of their audience. Because a liner card is put in the studio, few do any homework about the artist they’re featuring. Logs are done by computer so jocks, in many cases, don’t even listen to the music. There is no respect for the music…and the audience can hear it.

A jock has no excuse not to know everything about a group that is new on the station. There’s so much in print about music that one must be incredibly ignorant not to spend what little time is needed to be in the know.

Jocks who do stupid bits over the endings of records should be taken from the radio station and killed. You have your time to talk…while the music is on, let it play.

The main reason for the lack of professionalism among air talent is a lack of direction. It wasn’t long ago that some programmers began hiring “street” people instead of professional announcers. Not a bad idea. However, too often these “deejays” were given very little instruction on the basics of radio. That’s not a bad thing in some instances, because in the beginning, their knowledge of the music and the “scene” was more important than the basics. So, for a while, it worked.

But after a bit, the street wears thin and because they’re busy being deejays, their knowledge of the “scene” and the music isn’t on the cutting edge. The very things these people had to offer in the beginning are no longer there and instead, you wind up with unknowledgeable, unhip people who have no idea of the basics.

It ain’t working.

Jocks need to be schooled in the basics. Of course, for this to happen, programmers need to know what to tell them to do. Too often, programmers are too busy with sales meetings, research analysis or budget seminars to spend time doing aircheck sessions.

Aircheck sessions?

Yeah. The basics.

A good programmer shouldn’t let a week go by without an aircheck session with each member of the staff. Programming techniques should be required and reinforced constantly.

Too many deejays are trying to be too hip for the room. And you know what? They’re succeeding! Three elements should be in every break: (1) call letters or moniker, (2) time, and (3) title and artist of the song. If you’re too hip to convey these three elements to your audience, you’re too hip for most of them to listen to.

If a deejay is good, everything the ego dictates to be cool can fit in…but no one should let ego get in the way of giving the audience the things they want most. You’ll be more successful trying to fit in than stand out.

Programmers who have a problem getting their talent to following programming basics should schedule Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” and hope their talent gets it. If they don’t, blow them out!

Which bring us to another problem. It’s harder to fire someone for incompetence these days. You have to build a case. Don’t forget, it’s still legal to terminate an employee for “just cause.”

In this case, just cause they suck!