Posted by Josh M on July 18, 2004 at 15:28:53:
In Reply to: Re: Joe McCoy: Another Opinion posted by Craig on July 18, 2004 at 13:11:43:
"And my last tip of the hat to McCoy (which most of you will likely disagree)... I thought the introduction of 80s hits to the CBS-FM playlist was a good idea. I thought McCoy chose the right 80s music that was compatible with the 60s and 70s hits. I felt that adding Every Breath You Take by the Police, Maneater by Hall & Oates and Little Red Corvette by Prince sounded fine amidst the Supremes and Beatles and Turtles and Beach Boys songs. Maybe 1980 was a dividing line for some of us, when we left college for a real job or got married. Maybe our interest in music ended as the 70s ended. But younger listeners who might also enjoy CBS-FM didn't have such a major life event. To them, the 80s is an oldies decade too. And the songs they danced to at their high school proms deserve to be on New York's oldies station too, if it's compatible with the 60s and 70s material."
I agree with you on this, Craig. The problem with the 80's songs that McCoy added was that too many of them were sappy ballads that were incompatible with the Oldies format and mellowed out the station's sound innapropriately. The songs you mentioned are great songs that I agree fit on CBS-FM, but McCoy seemed to think that maudlin 80's ballads by Whitney Houston, Gloria Estefan and the like were good fits. In attempting to swing the station A/C for the workday audience, McCoy lost the oldies sound. People were already listening at work, so there was no need to do this. And it made even less sense to play so many sappy ballads from the 80's at the same time that so many of the sappy 70's ballads had been dropped or minimized on the playlist. So while I agree that 80's music, at least from 1985 and before, fit on CBS-FM, I believe that McCoy picked mostly the wrong 80's music. which was a huge mistake. As was amping up the 80's music at the same time that the 50's music was dropped, rather than gradually, which caused a listener backlash which the station has not recovered from.
JOSH