Running RIP thread for musicians who died in 2022

[Jake from State Farm]

Wow. You didn't truly make it in Nashville until you got booked for an interview with Ralph. RIP.

Nashville Now was a great show

 

[Hermes]

I never watched TNN, but any time you were flipping through the channels Nashville Now seemed to be airing.

 

[matt_garth]

Dallas Frazier Dead: Country Songwriter Behind 'Elvira' Was 82 – Billboard

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

I partially blame Drake Chenault and other automated production houses who provided reels of tailormade programming to stations. The rest of the blame goes to iHeart Radio and the other conglomerates who make every station sound the same. Radio programming is so homogenized now that even XM has a limited number of "oldies" in their rotation. They've stripped away anything that doesn't neatly fit into the boxes they've deemed the "60s sound," the "70s sound" or the "80s sound."

I totally get why the novelty songs and instrumentals don't get played. But there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of solid songs that reached the top 10 during their history that have completely fallen off the face of terrestrial radio, either because they were country crossovers or deemed unusually slow or fast by the programmers who want to cater to a particular range of listeners. That means no Carpenters/Freddie Fender/Donna Fargo/Charlie Rich or disco outside of the Bee Gees/KC/Donna Summer bloc.

That's one of the reasons why I loved the heyday of Top 40 AM Radio so much, both as a listener and as a jock. You never knew what song might be coming next.

The conglomerates are to blame for sure, but it's industry-wide now. You can't have more than 200 songs in rotation, to give the people what they want.
That trend will just continue, with the use of PPM to measure audience listening habits. The consolidation and tight playlists are why I went to SiriusXM a couple years back.

 

[dixiehack]

Ralph Emery by all accounts was an incredibly nice man. I feel bad now saying that I found his weekday morning show on Channel 4 to be dishwater dull.

 

[maumann]

The conglomerates are to blame for sure, but it's industry-wide now. You can't have more than 200 songs in rotation, to give the people what they want.
That trend will just continue, with the use of PPM to measure audience listening habits. The consolidation and tight playlists are why I went to SiriusXM a couple years back.

Even a 400-500 song library creates a two-day burn through rate at 12-14 songs an hour. I remember when stations had libraries of thousands of albums, particularly country. But I was born before the U.S. had 50 states, too.

 

[Jake from State Farm]

Rachel Nagy, Detroit Cobras' Lead Singer and Co-Founder, Has Died

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

Fred Paris who wrote In the Still of the Night has died at 85. Legend has it the group could never recreate the sound they had in a church basement on the original recording.

New Haven's Fred Parris, writer of 'In The Still Of The Night,' may be gone — but the song and his legacy will live on

 

[BTExpress]

Radio programming is so homogenized now that even XM has a limited number of "oldies" in their rotation.

Station in my neck of the woods plays all 80s tunes. I have never heard a U2 song played. Have heard "She Blinded Me With Science" two dozen times, as well as "Come On Eileen."

 

[Jake from State Farm]

 

[justgladtobehere]

The conglomerates are to blame for sure, but it's industry-wide now. You can't have more than 200 songs in rotation, to give the people what they want.
That trend will just continue, with the use of PPM to measure audience listening habits. The consolidation and tight playlists are why I went to SiriusXM a couple years back.

The conglomerates aren't to blame. If a company could make money playing a free form style or whatever somebody thinks should be played, they would do it. Tight playlists make money, regardless of how many stations a company might own.

I listen to KCRW, KCSN, and KEXP. What do they have in common? They are all public radio.

 

[Hermes]

The ability to tap on almost every song ever recorded for $10 a month has a little to do with their downfall.