We’ll be right back after this musical interruption…
Do jocks really ‘introduce’ records anymore? This is the value in knowing a bit about radio’s ‘Top 40’ history. The way a record should be introduced is as if the personality was introducing the band live from the stage they were playing on. Jocks used to have a lot of experience in this.
Songs and artists, as entertainment features on a music station, often don’t get the same attention and respect they would if you were introducing the artist live; when it’s “all about the music”.
It’s the ‘mystique’ of radio, again. The audience hasn’t lost the ability, or desire, to suspend their disbelief for the sake of entertainment… far from it, and just think of the possibilities of what you can conjure from behind a microphone that, for example, a music video can’t.
I remember a listener calling one time to single me out as playing better music than the other jocks on our station. I played the same ‘top 40’ as every one else, with the exception of a few ‘day parted’ songs, but I believed it was because I presented it differently; maybe made a tired, old song new again by putting it in a different light (can you say Can Con?). I also believe it had to do with the freedom to mix the music we had to chose from the way we saw fit, as opposed to having a computer do it, but that is another story…
Really putting a ‘spotlight’ on the music often seems to be secondary to whatever jumble of activities the station is promoting. ‘Back-selling’ a half dozen songs is wrong anyway, when the prevailing philosophy should be what’s happening now and what’s going to happen next. Now a ‘performance’, a song by an artist on the radio, is often treated almost as an inconvenience instead of as if it were actually an important part of the show.
Think of a late night talk show with a musical guest. It’s not “…joke, joke, banter, banter… oh and here’s so and so”. It’s more like”… joke, joke, banter, banter and oh… and now here is something really special…” .
It’s not “all the music”. It’s all about playing as much music as possible, with as few interruptions as possible. With the tight formatics, clocks and sweeps, you can’t introduce every record but when you do, make it special.Tell me why you are playing a song, something about the song; ask me to listen from a different perspective; show some passion about the music… get into it!.
In the culture of read the liner; get in and get out; shut up and play the music; station handle and positioning statement must go here, (regardless of whether it is logically placed in a passionate enthusiastic introduction of an artist) it just seems that logic has been bred out of ‘DJ’s, and their sense of mission has been lost. Why does music often seem incidental even on a music station?
Personality and passion for the music as an ingredient in presentation is the very thing that can rejuvenate and differentiate terrestrial radio from every other form of music delivery available today.
It’s the one thing you can’t get on your iPod… oh crap, yes you can, the new one talks. Well, if we don’t waste any more time, we may have small window of opportunity before it develops a personality, too.
Spot on KJ.
Radio seems (with a few exceptions) to have lost it’s soul. This is all IMHO of course.
I have always blamed an increase in the number of stations being programmed by an ever smaller number of consultants but now you have me thinking. Is music an inconvenient requirement between time, temp and spots?
It often feels like the jocks don’t care at all about what music they are playing let alone LIKE it! It used to drive me nuts when announcers talked right to the post (on a song with a 40 second intro), but I now wonder how many people actually retain that skill.
And yes, I would tell you if you had spinach in your teeth!
Ruth