There are three reasons to explain why your favorite song mysteriously disappeared from the radio:
1. Other people got sick of hearing your song.
2. People didn't really like the song as much as you.
3. People forgot about your song because a bunch of new, shinier songs became available.
Occasionally bizarre circumstances doom a song's shelf life (think Dixie Chicks "Travelin' Soldier") but for the most part radio stations will pull off a song for one of those three reasons. Let's focus on the third one this week.
Imagine songs as products and radio stations as a store shelf. It's a cruel metaphor, but you'll see where I'm heading. There is only so much room on any shelf for different brands of the same product before customers start to glaze over and forget what they're looking at. Nothing would stand out if the space was infinite, hence the "playlist," which in our case is controlled by listener opinions not some corporate overlord.
Now let's say your favorite song (product) is gaining some popularity because it's a great song. But the dominate brand of that product announces an upgrade or a new version of that product and puts a ton of money into promotion
.
They've already got a recognizable and reputable name brand, so it doesn't take much for that brand to overshadow smaller brands regardless of how great those smaller brands were.
Sales (requests/listener demand/etc...) begin to drop on the smaller brands, and eventually retailers (radio station decision makers) pull it from their shelves. Loyal customers go "What the heck?"
That's what happened in country music recently. A hurricane of great new songs from artists like Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts, Brad Paisley, Sugarland, George Strait, and Zac Brown swallowed all the shelf space. Great songs by Chuck Wicks, James Otto, David Nail, and Gary Allan didn't make it.
No one is really to blame. It's just a bummer for a few newer artists. They'll bounce back with new music and hopefully one day reach a spot where they're the one's bumping, not being bumped.
1. Other people got sick of hearing your song.
2. People didn't really like the song as much as you.
3. People forgot about your song because a bunch of new, shinier songs became available.
Occasionally bizarre circumstances doom a song's shelf life (think Dixie Chicks "Travelin' Soldier") but for the most part radio stations will pull off a song for one of those three reasons. Let's focus on the third one this week.
Imagine songs as products and radio stations as a store shelf. It's a cruel metaphor, but you'll see where I'm heading. There is only so much room on any shelf for different brands of the same product before customers start to glaze over and forget what they're looking at. Nothing would stand out if the space was infinite, hence the "playlist," which in our case is controlled by listener opinions not some corporate overlord.
Now let's say your favorite song (product) is gaining some popularity because it's a great song. But the dominate brand of that product announces an upgrade or a new version of that product and puts a ton of money into promotion
.
They've already got a recognizable and reputable name brand, so it doesn't take much for that brand to overshadow smaller brands regardless of how great those smaller brands were.
Sales (requests/listener demand/etc...) begin to drop on the smaller brands, and eventually retailers (radio station decision makers) pull it from their shelves. Loyal customers go "What the heck?"
That's what happened in country music recently. A hurricane of great new songs from artists like Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts, Brad Paisley, Sugarland, George Strait, and Zac Brown swallowed all the shelf space. Great songs by Chuck Wicks, James Otto, David Nail, and Gary Allan didn't make it.
No one is really to blame. It's just a bummer for a few newer artists. They'll bounce back with new music and hopefully one day reach a spot where they're the one's bumping, not being bumped.
No comments:
Post a Comment