Thursday, February 18, 2010

WHO CARES ABOUT SONG LYRICS?

This week in Stark Country, Phyllis commented on the rather rural feel of Country song lyrics and a few Country programmers sounded off. The same thesis was on Sean Ross' - Ross on Radio today. Song lyrics are not going make or break a genre of music and style. When we start taking the format apart to explore the lyrics, we have too much time on our hands.

Mike Krinik PD of KBWF San Francisco said "I never met anyone who worked on a farm or drove a tractor". I like Hip-hop, but you won't find me at the club. These style of Country songs work an appeal for the music and lyrics into a woven pattern of familiarity and success.

This reminds me of the heated debate between Lance Tidwell and Mandy McCornack in 2000 at CRS concerning the lyrics of Goodbye Earl. They were taking the song apart like surgeons. Arguing about why you shouldn't play the song. Again, we are not musicologists, only radio programmers.

Kids, there are way more important problems to focus on in this format than the lyrics of the songs.


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2 comments:

  1. Well Mike Krinik never met anyone who worked on a farm or drove a tractor because he's always with a record rep who bought him dinner, a trip, or whatever. But I digress.

    Mike, have you ever heard of the Beach Boys? Fairly popular group from before your time, I realize, but pretty well known as hitmakers, as I recall. Lots of hits. Which is strange, because I'd say 99% of the people who liked and/or bought their music didn't live at the beach nor did they surf. They probably didn't even know someone from the beach or a surfer. And imagine that, the Beach Boys still became popular, even though many of their songs were about that stuff. Now how could that be.....

    I could go on and on with many similar musical examples, and more recent ones, but you get the point. It's about imagery, things people wish for, think would be cool, etc. Hallmark commercials do it perfectly. Does anyone REALLY have that kind of Christmas or family event? Do people WISH they did?

    Way to make yourself look foolish. If you don't like rural areas or people who live there, that's your perogative. But to extrapolate that to make it like the songs are dumb - well THAT is dumb. My testing of songs shows you're wrong.

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  2. Wow! Great article! I find it very interesting how the programmers on this page can honestly sit there and type what they hate about country music, yet their jingles and sweepers brag on their airwaves how great their songs/station is. Can you honestly sell a product you don't believe in? Because that's what you're doin as we speak. You're telling the listeners how great you are, yet you're sitting at your desk scheduling the music with the lyrics you don't like. Okay, so it's not whether YOU like them or not, it's what the listeners like, so basically what I'm hearing is, you have no faith in your listeners (they don't know any better than to accept the crappy lyrics). Seriously. Oh, but you LOVE your listeners when your ratings go up.because of them listening to your music you play with crappy lyrics... " woo whooo, they LOVE us..we're playing the hits, that's why!, They love the music we play...." and so forth. Either you love what you do and leave the lyrics up to the artists who create them and sing about them, or "Just get you a guitar and learn how to play. Cut up some jeans, come up with a name, When you’re living in a world that you dont understand, Find a few good buddies, start a band. Start a band, Start a band" best advice i can give on this article, and that came from Brad Paisley and Keith Urban. Two boys from opposite sides of the world. I only have one question for the programmers involved in this discussion. What would your play list look like if you took out all the songs with the cliche's in them you didn't like? It would be very slim, I'm sure. Seriously, look it over..if anything, if you remove those songs, you wouldn't have to spend so much time scheduling music.....would you?

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