Posted by Steve Green on July 30, 2007 at 11:02:10:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: same songs posted by Mike Seaver on July 30, 2007 at 10:23:20:
Some balancing is being done as well regarding how much weight the station itself it putting on the listen-at-work approach when contratsed with what the station envisions as its average time-spent-listening. But if you tend to listen with a critical ear, and are faced with, say, an 800 song library, even if each song is given equal rotation weight, you'll hear repeats after just two days. A station such as this wants to expose the station's aegis to as many people on the fringe as sensibly possible but such has to be done without stretching the middle of the supply line too thin. As a result, you'll hear gripes about the paucity of Fifties *and* the choices for the Eighties under the critique of 'repetition'.
And one of their perplexing issues has to be that the format 'fringe' songs from the newer Eighties are longer than the 50's fringe songs. Those two generations represent the frame; the rest of the playlist is the portrait. We can argue until doomsday as to which song is more important or influential -- 'Jack and Diane' or 'Rama Lama Ding Dong'. (The muse here, assuming that 40-45 is the target, is that neither song is considered irreplaceable but that neither song will cause much consternation, either).
DO agree that deeper early- to mid-Seventies adds might smooth over a few bumps for both extremes of audience age. But as ever, once you get that only-pop-nostalgia-game-in-town turf staked out, you have to sieze it thereafter with confidence. What's the expression -- 'You can't make an omelette you don't break some eggs' ?