Posted by chicagomedia.org on August 06, 2009 at 19:47:50:
When is an oldie Truly a surprise?
ROR's "Oh Wow" Issue
In the mid-'90s when Cox's WYSY (Y108) Chicago debuted, during the height of the all-'70s format rush, my then-boss Marv Dyson came into my office at WGCI-AM Chicago raving about them. "You know what I heard them play yesterday? 'Rikki Don't Lose That Number' by Steely Dan! I haven't heard that song in years!"
As a rookie manager, I made the mistake of trying to dispute any notion that "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" might be an "oh wow" song. In 1994, it still made the cut at many Classic Rock and gold-based AC stations (in a way that it doesn't today). Besides, "Rikki" was a top 5 record. It inherently could not be an "oh wow" song. "Get Your Lie Straight" by Bill Coday (No. 1 R&B in Chicago in 1971) was an "oh wow" record.
I thought of this recently when I was helping two different radio stations I work with put together the list for their "oh wow" weekends. As an Oldies fan, I was always skeptical about what stations tried to pawn off as "oh wow" songs. But six years in radio research will definitely tamp down the alacrity with which one puts together the special weekend list. Because no matter how great you think "Little Willy" by the Sweet is going to sound coming of that special stager, no matter how well you think you've explained why you're playing it, and no matter how many safe songs you're surrounding it with, you've also been confronted with ample evidence that most listeners would, under typical circumstances, rather hear something else.
But I've taken some encouragement recently from the success of Scott Shannon's True Oldies Channel and its flagship WLS-FM Chicago. Shannon has shown his facility for finding reaction records over the years. And seeing that WLS-FM played "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" by Mac & Katie Kissoon on Tuesday night makes me feel that maybe I can spike in "Little Willy" and live to tell about it. (PD Michael LaCrosse emphasizes that songs like "Chirpy" play just often enough that listeners won't start to question the station's judgment.) WCBS-FM New York doesn't surprise me as often as they did a year or so ago when it was still possible to hear "YMCA" and "Chug A Lug" by Roger Miller within the same 20 minutes. But they used their "Hall of Fame" feature this weekend to play "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)" by Aretha Franklin, very possibly the most perfect single of all time, but by no means a safe choice -- even at an Urban AC.
Then there's the supermarket in my neighborhood that plays Sirius XM's "70s On 7" channel; that station is also less obscure than it was at the outset, but is still capable of busting out the songs that don't usually research well. Retail has usually been a safe haven for music that doesn't work on the radio, but that's usually because it floats harmlessly over the head of non-industry people. To spend 25 minutes shopping with "70s On 7" in the background is to pass somebody singing along to Barry Manilow's "Copacabana (At The Copa)" on the way to the cashier, who is by now doing the "whoa, oh, oh, oh" part of Boz Scaggs' "Lido Shuffle." And nobody seems particularly concerned that those songs don't test.
There's also Bob- and Jack-FM, which helped make the world safe for songs that don't test in 2003. Not all of what the Adult Hits stations played qualifies as an "oh wow" song. There's no element of savor or goofiness to "Don't Lose My Number" by Phil Collins. You don't hear that song much on the radio these days, because the audience is indifferent to it. But it would surprise anybody who grew up with it in the '80s to realize that "Don't Lose My Number" was gone from the radio. Indeed, one of the hardest judgment calls of putting together a weekend list for one station was trying to decide whether "Cruel To Be Kind" by Nick Lowe still constituted an "oh wow" when the Jack station in town also plays it once a week. What about "Black Betty" by Ram Jam, which was heard on several other stations in the market, but always seems to duly surprise somebody hearing it for the first time in 32 years?
Then again, the first lesson of "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" is that an "oh wow" is in the ear of the beholder. If I think the Hot AC station I heard recently was a little cynical for passing "Electric Avenue" by Eddy Grant off as an "oh wow," there's clearly a listener somewhere who was more impressed. It's hard to evoke an "oh wow" on songs that people haven't heard, although there are a few songs like Electric Light Orchestra's "Fire On High" that will prompt the "what did you just play" phone call, even from somebody hearing it for the first time.
Other observations about "oh wow" songs:
Any one hit wonder, or even an act with multiple hits but only one enduring song, may qualify for permanent "oh wow" status. Cutting Crew's "(I Just) Died In Your Arms" actually endures in many places. Rupert Holmes' "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" is again an AC staple in many places. And both acts had more than one hit at the time. But those songs still seem to be "oh wow"s.
Anything by a teen idol is a permanent "oh wow," even if it's "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield.
All things being relative, recency is often the difference between too obscure and just tasty enough. One PD I was discussing "oh wow" songs with had varying reactions to songs that I thought were at similar levels of depth. And generally, the songs that he was comfortable with were newer than the ones that seemed too deep to him. But one lesson of music research is definitely that it's hard for many songs to recover from being off the radio for 30 years -- no matter how many people grew up with them. (That said, the song that always makes the phones ring at WLS-FM is the Flamingos' 1959 "I Only Have Eyes For You," which never lost its currency in Chicago.)
And I'm happy to say that I still hear songs that surprise me on the radio. And hearing them on the radio is still more exciting than hearing them on the iPod, otherwise "I Never Loved A Man" wouldn't be an "oh wow" at all for me. It was also nice to hear WRXP New York -- reliable for this sort of thing -- play Bruce Springsteen's "Cadillac Ranch" this weekend.