Basically, it comes down to the fact that radio is a business, run by a public company, that demands ever-increasing profit ratios. In order to do this, it has to appeal to the maximum # of listeners, and to attract those listeners, stations use a combination of DJ personalities and pre-selected music choices reflecting popularity in ratings and surveys.
When classic rock radio first came into being, it was "everything that wasn't oldies, wasn't disco, wasn't 'mellow music', but pre-dated the 80s". And that was pretty much it for restrictions. Stations played long, deep tracks (e.g., Yes's And You And I, Starship Trooper), they played obscure album-only tracks that weren't singles (BoC's Veteran of the Psychic Wars), they played long jams (Live Dead, or the live version of CSNY's Southern Man). They appealed at first to a broad base that wasn't interested in 80s AOR or Metal, but needed something besides pop and/or oldies. Things were happy for a while.
2 things hit at the same time that killed it. 1) the death of AOR as a format due to Nirvana -- even in Rock, the hit single is all that mattered. 2) the great consolidation of radio stations. The latter is the most devestating. With stations going public, and then to increase profits (you don't increase profits in your own listening market because there's a limited # of listeners and you've probably already attracted them), buying more stations in other markets...and to keep the profits up, buying MORE stations, 'til you hit the max that ClearChannel is currently at (and pissing Wall St. off because they can't get any bigger, but can't incrase profits any other way...lousy business plan, IMHO).
So to maximize listeners, they turned to the issue of what causes people to leave your station and channel-surf (besides commercials), and decided it came down to hearing songs they didn't like. So to react to that, they continued the "market research" and came up with the idea of only playing the most popular song from any group deemed "classic rock". In many cases, this reduced a groups 30+ year career to 1 song (BoC only get "Don't Fear the Reaper"). Maybe 2 (Journey gets Wheel in the Sky and Don't Stop Believing). Yes is high on the list with three (All Good People, Roundabout, Owner of a Lonely Heart). The only exceptions are the Beatles, Led Zep, and the Who (also the top three groups in these market surveys). Groups that didn't even make the top 50-100 of all groups were dropped entirely.
Frampton's live album now has only one song in CR rotation : Show Me the Way. Do You Feel Like I Do is 15 minutes long and mostly jamming, which could cause people to change the station, and Baby I Love Your Way is now labeled adult contemporary (i.e., mellow music) and shows up on those stations (if not replaced by the Ashford and Simpson version).
DJ's don't pick the music. They are only their as personalities to attract listeners. The demographic research shows certain DJ's attract listeners who like a certain type of music, so they become tied together (e.g., a DJ with a female following will tend to play more arena-rock music and rock-ballads, but again that's a programming choice by the manager, not by the DJ).
Basically, its like asking for the Discovery Channel's content when you only have network TV. What you do get from TDC is the watered-down version like the for-kids edits of "Walking With Dinosaurs" on saturday morning NBC. The unfortunate fact (for people on typical budgets) is that to get what you want out of radio, you're likely going to have to pay for it. Satelite is the only option left (at $100+ for a kit, and $10 / month).
A recent article in the Post describes the "magic" of FM radio as that moment where you just turn it on and exactly the song you needed to hear is what's playing and your entire day is perfect as a result...that hasn't happened to me since 1987. So I gave up. I control or cater to my own mood through music, not some ratings-dependent programmer in some office in Illinois, handling 5 stations in 2 markets with 3 different formats.
lets try this again...
When classic rock radio first came into being, it was "everything that wasn't oldies, wasn't disco, wasn't 'mellow music', but pre-dated the 80s". And that was pretty much it for restrictions. Stations played long, deep tracks (e.g., Yes's And You And I, Starship Trooper), they played obscure album-only tracks that weren't singles (BoC's Veteran of the Psychic Wars), they played long jams (Live Dead, or the live version of CSNY's Southern Man). They appealed at first to a broad base that wasn't interested in 80s AOR or Metal, but needed something besides pop and/or oldies. Things were happy for a while.
2 things hit at the same time that killed it. 1) the death of AOR as a format due to Nirvana -- even in Rock, the hit single is all that mattered. 2) the great consolidation of radio stations. The latter is the most devestating. With stations going public, and then to increase profits (you don't increase profits in your own listening market because there's a limited # of listeners and you've probably already attracted them), buying more stations in other markets...and to keep the profits up, buying MORE stations, 'til you hit the max that ClearChannel is currently at (and pissing Wall St. off because they can't get any bigger, but can't incrase profits any other way...lousy business plan, IMHO).
So to maximize listeners, they turned to the issue of what causes people to leave your station and channel-surf (besides commercials), and decided it came down to hearing songs they didn't like. So to react to that, they continued the "market research" and came up with the idea of only playing the most popular song from any group deemed "classic rock". In many cases, this reduced a groups 30+ year career to 1 song (BoC only get "Don't Fear the Reaper"). Maybe 2 (Journey gets Wheel in the Sky and Don't Stop Believing). Yes is high on the list with three (All Good People, Roundabout, Owner of a Lonely Heart). The only exceptions are the Beatles, Led Zep, and the Who (also the top three groups in these market surveys). Groups that didn't even make the top 50-100 of all groups were dropped entirely.
Frampton's live album now has only one song in CR rotation : Show Me the Way. Do You Feel Like I Do is 15 minutes long and mostly jamming, which could cause people to change the station, and Baby I Love Your Way is now labeled adult contemporary (i.e., mellow music) and shows up on those stations (if not replaced by the Ashford and Simpson version).
DJ's don't pick the music. They are only their as personalities to attract listeners. The demographic research shows certain DJ's attract listeners who like a certain type of music, so they become tied together (e.g., a DJ with a female following will tend to play more arena-rock music and rock-ballads, but again that's a programming choice by the manager, not by the DJ).
Basically, its like asking for the Discovery Channel's content when you only have network TV. What you do get from TDC is the watered-down version like the for-kids edits of "Walking With Dinosaurs" on saturday morning NBC. The unfortunate fact (for people on typical budgets) is that to get what you want out of radio, you're likely going to have to pay for it. Satelite is the only option left (at $100+ for a kit, and $10 / month).
A recent article in the Post describes the "magic" of FM radio as that moment where you just turn it on and exactly the song you needed to hear is what's playing and your entire day is perfect as a result...that hasn't happened to me since 1987. So I gave up. I control or cater to my own mood through music, not some ratings-dependent programmer in some office in Illinois, handling 5 stations in 2 markets with 3 different formats.
"All we hear is Radio GaGa, Radio Blah Blah".
and THIS someone doesn't love it anymore.
Joe