Lack of Rock music in pop stations

[70jack90]

It seems like these days that many pop stations across the country chose to ignore guitar-driven rock as a popular genre on the pop charts. The latest charts show, since there is very few rock songs that appear on the top 40 charts, but most of them consist of overrated rappers (Drake), EDM music, and bad trap music. When rock songs get airplay, they only get played on the Alternative or Active Rock charts, and mostly never to the pop charts. What are some ways to tell pop stations to start incorporating some pop friendly rock music on to the charts, like Greta Van Fleet?

I know, I'm sick and tired of all of the trap music over-saturating the music market.

[tomgsinger]

Oct 14, 2018 22:48:36 GMT -5 70jack90 said:

It seems like these days that many pop stations across the country chose to ignore guitar-driven rock as a popular genre on the pop charts. The latest charts show, since there is very few rock songs that appear on the top 40 charts, but most of them consist of overrated rappers (Drake), EDM music, and bad trap music. When rock songs get airplay, they only get played on the Alternative or Active Rock charts, and mostly never to the pop charts. What are some ways to tell pop stations to start incorporating some pop friendly rock music on to the charts, like Greta Van Fleet?

I know, I'm sick and tired of all of the trap music over-saturating the music market.

Hot AC has become the new, mass appeal pop format, spinning rock, EDM, and some rap and country crossovers. Some hot ACs are more AC-driven (like WSNE), some are more CHR (like WBZZ), and some lean rock (like KTCZ). The majority are more balanced, though, playing mostly adult-friendly pop and compatible crossover hits.

Pop has become "the new rhythmic", with few rock/AC-influenced tracks and artists like Post Malone, Drake, Travis Scott, Juice WRLD and more becoming common. Rock songs occasionally appear if they do well at hot AC. This is the case of the recent string of Imagine Dragons singles, "Broken", "Feel it Still", "Sober Up", "Wish I Knew You", Weezer's "Africa" and the 21 Pilots singles of recent years. Even Bad Wolves' cover of "Zombie" got a handful of CHR spins, more due to the sudden passing of the Cranberries' frontwoman than anything.

Rhythmic and urban are basically the same, with the exception being that rhythmic spins a handful of pop songs that do well on streaming and urban spins soul records.

And AC is no longer the ballad-driven format it once was, as the top tracks are "Delicate", "Girls Like You" and "The Middle" at the said format.

[craziaskowboi]

Oct 15, 2018 13:47:42 GMT -5 tomgsinger said:

Oct 14, 2018 22:48:36 GMT -5 70jack90 said:

It seems like these days that many pop stations across the country chose to ignore guitar-driven rock as a popular genre on the pop charts. The latest charts show, since there is very few rock songs that appear on the top 40 charts, but most of them consist of overrated rappers (Drake), EDM music, and bad trap music. When rock songs get airplay, they only get played on the Alternative or Active Rock charts, and mostly never to the pop charts. What are some ways to tell pop stations to start incorporating some pop friendly rock music on to the charts, like Greta Van Fleet?

I know, I'm sick and tired of all of the trap music over-saturating the music market.

Hot AC has become the new, mass appeal pop format, spinning rock, EDM, and some rap and country crossovers. Some hot ACs are more AC-driven (like WSNE), some are more CHR (like WBZZ), and some lean rock (like KTCZ). The majority are more balanced, though, playing mostly adult-friendly pop and compatible crossover hits.

Pop has become "the new rhythmic", with few rock/AC-influenced tracks and artists like Post Malone, Drake, Travis Scott, Juice WRLD and more becoming common. Rock songs occasionally appear if they do well at hot AC. This is the case of the recent string of Imagine Dragons singles, "Broken", "Feel it Still", "Sober Up", "Wish I Knew You", Weezer's "Africa" and the 21 Pilots singles of recent years. Even Bad Wolves' cover of "Zombie" got a handful of CHR spins, more due to the sudden passing of the Cranberries' frontwoman than anything.

Rhythmic and urban are basically the same, with the exception being that rhythmic spins a handful of pop songs that do well on streaming and urban spins soul records.

And AC is no longer the ballad-driven format it once was, as the top tracks are "Delicate", "Girls Like You" and "The Middle" at the said format.

The thing is, all the "rock" songs you mentioned are largely synth-driven, not guitar-driven. It'd be like CHR in the 1980s playing nothing but "new wave" to cover rock music. There's still a market for traditional, somewhat heavier rock that's just not being accounted for on either CHR or Hot AC. I don't see why Greta Van Fleet, Bad Wolves, or even a song like, say, "Dance Macabre" by Ghost, can't cross over simply for the sake of variety. (In fact, "Dance Macabre" is very danceable, even without remixing it.)

[70jack90]

You know, When I was in Los Angeles, KIIS FM rarely or never plays any Imagine Dragons songs!

[70jack90]

Well for one thing, I hope the band Greta Van Fleet gets any attention on the CHR charts. They are described as the new Led Zeppelin!

[tanooki]

A lot of Shinedown songs could do great on pop radio, idk why they aren't pushed there.

[thelegends]

Oct 18, 2018 20:30:44 GMT -5 70jack90 said:

You know, When I was in Los Angeles, KIIS FM rarely or never plays any Imagine Dragons songs!

WHAT? A radio station never playing a #1 song?

[70jack90]

Oct 19, 2018 0:08:14 GMT -5 thelegends said:

Oct 18, 2018 20:30:44 GMT -5 70jack90 said:

You know, When I was in Los Angeles, KIIS FM rarely or never plays any Imagine Dragons songs!

WHAT? A radio station never playing a #1 song?

Yeah, I don't know why KIIS doesn't play any Imagine Dragons songs. What? Did they blacklisted that band on KIIS? I would rather listen to that rather than bad trap songs!

[thelegends]

Oct 19, 2018 3:56:42 GMT -5 70jack90 said:

Oct 19, 2018 0:08:14 GMT -5 thelegends said:

WHAT? A radio station never playing a #1 song?

Yeah, I don't know why KIIS doesn't play any Imagine Dragons songs. What? Did they blacklisted that band on KIIS? I would rather listen to that rather than bad trap songs!

Like you know, KIIS FM is a big radio station so they influence the charts a lil bit. Plus, they played Jake Paul songs last year, so why didn't they play Imagine Dragons' songs. (Obviously they are more talented than Jake Paul)

[tomgsinger]

Oct 19, 2018 5:28:59 GMT -5 thelegends said:

Oct 19, 2018 3:56:42 GMT -5 70jack90 said:

Yeah, I don't know why KIIS doesn't play any Imagine Dragons songs. What? Did they blacklisted that band on KIIS? I would rather listen to that rather than bad trap songs!

Like you know, KIIS FM is a big radio station so they influence the charts a lil bit. Plus, they played Jake Paul songs last year, so why didn't they play Imagine Dragons' songs. (Obviously they are more talented than Jake Paul)

WHAT? They played the untalented Jake Paul who gets next to no airplay elsewhere and didn't play Imagine Dragons, a band who has scored 2 number ones and had all but one of their singles go top 3 at CHR?! That's insane. No, that's an understatement. That's blasphemy.

[thelegends]

Oct 19, 2018 10:47:57 GMT -5 tomgsinger said:

Oct 19, 2018 5:28:59 GMT -5 thelegends said:

Like you know, KIIS FM is a big radio station so they influence the charts a lil bit. Plus, they played Jake Paul songs last year, so why didn't they play Imagine Dragons' songs. (Obviously they are more talented than Jake Paul)

WHAT? They played the untalented Jake Paul who gets next to no airplay elsewhere and didn't play Imagine Dragons, a band who has scored 2 number ones and had all but one of their singles go top 3 at CHR?! That's insane. No, that's an understatement. That's blasphemy.

It feels like that, but that is true. I could not believe it when I heard that.

[nickd]

Oct 15, 2018 13:47:42 GMT -5 tomgsinger said:

Oct 14, 2018 22:48:36 GMT -5 70jack90 said:

It seems like these days that many pop stations across the country chose to ignore guitar-driven rock as a popular genre on the pop charts. The latest charts show, since there is very few rock songs that appear on the top 40 charts, but most of them consist of overrated rappers (Drake), EDM music, and bad trap music. When rock songs get airplay, they only get played on the Alternative or Active Rock charts, and mostly never to the pop charts. What are some ways to tell pop stations to start incorporating some pop friendly rock music on to the charts, like Greta Van Fleet?

I know, I'm sick and tired of all of the trap music over-saturating the music market.

Hot AC has become the new, mass appeal pop format, spinning rock, EDM, and some rap and country crossovers. Some hot ACs are more AC-driven (like WSNE), some are more CHR (like WBZZ), and some lean rock (like KTCZ). The majority are more balanced, though, playing mostly adult-friendly pop and compatible crossover hits.

Pop has become "the new rhythmic", with few rock/AC-influenced tracks and artists like Post Malone, Drake, Travis Scott, Juice WRLD and more becoming common. Rock songs occasionally appear if they do well at hot AC. This is the case of the recent string of Imagine Dragons singles, "Broken", "Feel it Still", "Sober Up", "Wish I Knew You", Weezer's "Africa" and the 21 Pilots singles of recent years. Even Bad Wolves' cover of "Zombie" got a handful of CHR spins, more due to the sudden passing of the Cranberries' frontwoman than anything.

Rhythmic and urban are basically the same, with the exception being that rhythmic spins a handful of pop songs that do well on streaming and urban spins soul records.

And AC is no longer the ballad-driven format it once was, as the top tracks are "Delicate", "Girls Like You" and "The Middle" at the said format.

I think there were a couple songs that went #1 on Rhythmic recently and peaked noticeably lower on Urban but I can't remember which. Maybe Post Malone? Oh and that definitely happened with Boo'd Up too, so there are some distinctions between Rhythmic and Urban despite there being a lot of overlap.

I agree with AC though, the main difference from HAC is that they play more recurrents. Technically the Josh Groban, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart and Train songs would be an example of what sets it apart from HAC as they're top 15 but top 15 on AC still doesn't translate to that much airplay compared to the Ed Sheeran, P!nk, Adele, Taylor Swift and Shawn Mendes recurrent/gold songs.

[tomgsinger]

[quote author="nickd" source="/post/6772783/fI think there were a couple songs that went #1 on Rhythmic recently and peaked noticeably lower on Urban but I can't remember which. Maybe Post Malone? Oh and that definitely happened with Boo'd Up too, so there are some distinctions between Rhythmic and Urban despite there being a lot of overlap.

I agree with AC though, the main difference from HAC is that they play more recurrents. Technically the Josh Groban, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart and Train songs would be an example of what sets it apart from HAC as they're top 15 but top 15 on AC still doesn't translate to that much airplay compared to the Ed Sheeran, P!nk, Adele, Taylor Swift and Shawn Mendes recurrent/gold songs.[/quote]

Train went top 20 on hot AC with that song (or am I confusing this with “Drink Up” from last year?

[nickd]

Oct 19, 2018 15:07:12 GMT -5 tomgsinger said:

@nickd said:

I think there were a couple songs that went #1 on Rhythmic recently and peaked noticeably lower on Urban but I can't remember which. Maybe Post Malone? Oh and that definitely happened with Boo'd Up too, so there are some distinctions between Rhythmic and Urban despite there being a lot of overlap.

I agree with AC though, the main difference from HAC is that they play more recurrents. Technically the Josh Groban, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart and Train songs would be an example of what sets it apart from HAC as they're top 15 but top 15 on AC still doesn't translate to that much airplay compared to the Ed Sheeran, P!nk, Adele, Taylor Swift and Shawn Mendes recurrent/gold songs.

Train went top 20 on hot AC with that song (or am I confusing this with “Drink Up” from last year?

Looks like #21 on kworb. Still not that big of a hit on HAC. I see it a bit like Backstreet Boys' single, HAC/AC thought their demographic would be interested in hearing it because they were big 10-20 years ago but it never really caught on.

I seems the AC audiences often prefer bops and upbeat sing-alongs to ballads but only the tried and tested non-urban ones. Perhaps their listeners don't listen to music as much as Pop radio listeners, so they don't have time to familiarize themselves with all the hits - hence why recurrent hits don't burn out as much on them and they only listen to a limited subset of current hits?

[70jack90]

Oct 19, 2018 10:47:57 GMT -5 tomgsinger said:

Oct 19, 2018 5:28:59 GMT -5 thelegends said:

Like you know, KIIS FM is a big radio station so they influence the charts a lil bit. Plus, they played Jake Paul songs last year, so why didn't they play Imagine Dragons' songs. (Obviously they are more talented than Jake Paul)

WHAT? They played the untalented Jake Paul who gets next to no airplay elsewhere and didn't play Imagine Dragons, a band who has scored 2 number ones and had all but one of their singles go top 3 at CHR?! That's insane. No, that's an understatement. That's blasphemy.

I don't recall Jake Paul getting any airplay on KIIS on the Radio.
(Well believe it or not, when I was getting in to my car, they recently played an Imagine Dragons song, and it's Radioactive!)

[thelegends]

Oct 20, 2018 3:20:14 GMT -5 70jack90 said:

Oct 19, 2018 10:47:57 GMT -5 tomgsinger said:

WHAT? They played the untalented Jake Paul who gets next to no airplay elsewhere and didn't play Imagine Dragons, a band who has scored 2 number ones and had all but one of their singles go top 3 at CHR?! That's insane. No, that's an understatement. That's blasphemy.

I don't recall Jake Paul getting any airplay on KIIS on the Radio.
(Well believe it or not, when I was getting in to my car, they recently played an Imagine Dragons song, and it's Radioactive!)

He got very little airplay for It's Everyday bro on KIIS FM when it got released. Still more than they play Imagine Dragons.

[Daryl the Beryl]

Oct 18, 2018 11:50:06 GMT -5 craziaskowboi said:

Oct 15, 2018 13:47:42 GMT -5 tomgsinger said:

Hot AC has become the new, mass appeal pop format, spinning rock, EDM, and some rap and country crossovers. Some hot ACs are more AC-driven (like WSNE), some are more CHR (like WBZZ), and some lean rock (like KTCZ). The majority are more balanced, though, playing mostly adult-friendly pop and compatible crossover hits.

Pop has become "the new rhythmic", with few rock/AC-influenced tracks and artists like Post Malone, Drake, Travis Scott, Juice WRLD and more becoming common. Rock songs occasionally appear if they do well at hot AC. This is the case of the recent string of Imagine Dragons singles, "Broken", "Feel it Still", "Sober Up", "Wish I Knew You", Weezer's "Africa" and the 21 Pilots singles of recent years. Even Bad Wolves' cover of "Zombie" got a handful of CHR spins, more due to the sudden passing of the Cranberries' frontwoman than anything.

Rhythmic and urban are basically the same, with the exception being that rhythmic spins a handful of pop songs that do well on streaming and urban spins soul records.

And AC is no longer the ballad-driven format it once was, as the top tracks are "Delicate", "Girls Like You" and "The Middle" at the said format.

I don't see why Greta Van Fleet, Bad Wolves, or even a song like, say, "Dance Macabre" by Ghost, can't cross over simply for the sake of variety. (In fact, "Dance Macabre" is very danceable, even without remixing it.)

Bad Wolves and Ghost are heavy metal bands. CHR has rarely touched heavy metal bands, like it or not, regardless of how CHR/HAC-friendly a song by them can be. "Zombie" was a fluke, and I don't recall much heavy metal bands charting on pop in the 2000s either.

[musiciscool]

Oct 21, 2018 9:13:45 GMT -5 Daryl the Beryl said:

Oct 18, 2018 11:50:06 GMT -5 craziaskowboi said:

I don't see why Greta Van Fleet, Bad Wolves, or even a song like, say, "Dance Macabre" by Ghost, can't cross over simply for the sake of variety. (In fact, "Dance Macabre" is very danceable, even without remixing it.)

Bad Wolves and Ghost are heavy metal bands. CHR has rarely touched heavy metal bands, like it or not, regardless of how CHR/HAC-friendly a song by them can be. "Zombie" was a fluke, and I don't recall much heavy metal bands charting on pop in the 2000s either.

I remember that the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus charted on CHR back in 2007. Are they considered metal or rock?

[Daryl the Beryl]

Oct 21, 2018 12:12:27 GMT -5 musiciscool said:

Oct 21, 2018 9:13:45 GMT -5 Daryl the Beryl said:

Bad Wolves and Ghost are heavy metal bands. CHR has rarely touched heavy metal bands, like it or not, regardless of how CHR/HAC-friendly a song by them can be. "Zombie" was a fluke, and I don't recall much heavy metal bands charting on pop in the 2000s either.

I remember that the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus charted on CHR back in 2007. Are they considered metal or rock?

Rock

[Deleted]

Oct 19, 2018 0:08:14 GMT -5 thelegends said:

Oct 18, 2018 20:30:44 GMT -5 70jack90 said:

You know, When I was in Los Angeles, KIIS FM rarely or never plays any Imagine Dragons songs!

WHAT? A radio station never playing a #1 song?

KIIS never played Lips Of An Angel (thank god) in 2006 and it made it to number 1 on Pop anyways.

[thelegends]

Oct 21, 2018 17:16:30 GMT -5 @walker9 said:

Oct 19, 2018 0:08:14 GMT -5 thelegends said:

WHAT? A radio station never playing a #1 song?

KIIS never played Lips Of An Angel (thank god) in 2006 and it made it to number 1 on Pop anyways.

KIIS is a bit out of touch.

[Walking Contradiction]

I looked at the KIIS top 100 out of curiosity. There's one Imagine Dragons song listed, all the way down at #92, and it's an old one: "Radioactive". (They actually list the remix with Kendrick Lamar, but I'm not sure if that's actually what they play.)

But they do also list Panic At The Disco, Weezer's "Africa", Twenty One Pilots, Portugal The Man, lovelytheband, and even Blink 182's "All The Small Things". So it's not like Alt crossovers are getting completely shafted. Your mileage may vary on how "rock" these artists are.