Thursday, June 11, 2015

Radio Music Programming

In "old" times (1970-90s), radio music directors and DJs were instructed to never, ever play two female artists back-to-back on the air.  It was one of those unspoken rules.  Because there were so few songs with lead female singers, it was best to space them out.  You know, the same way you wouldn't play two instrumental songs back-to-back. 
"Chariots of Fire and Axel F?  Keep those at least an hour apart, 'k?"

At the turn of the millennium, female artists became more popular.  By the time Katy Perry and Britney Spears took over, the "no two females in a row" rule had to be thrown out.  There were just too many females to NOT play them back-to-back... and often.

Today, the challenge is to keep two Taylor Swift songs from playing back-to-back.

Holy cow, that woman is talented and busy.

2 comments:

Bob Lee said...

Today, you can't play two instrumental songs back-to-back because there are no instrumental songs.

Grrrr...

Roses said...

Yeah. I had to make 80s references because I couldn't think of any recent instrumentals.

Come to think of it, if there *was* an instrumental today, some artist would rap over it, anyway.