10 Dec 2014: it's... 1992

[CapnJack]

The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. featuring Michelle Visage "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day"

[RGMike]

The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. featuring Michelle Visage "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day"

I think we heard this once before (it was a bustout at the time). Hard to fault AL for good intentions but if she wanted snoozy/feelgood, your Vanessa Williams suggestion or Shanice's "I Love Your Smile" woulda been swell.

[Big Fingers McGee]

The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. featuring Michelle Visage "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day"

I think we heard this once before (it was a bustout at the time). Hard to fault AL for good intentions but if she wanted snoozy/feelgood, your Vanessa Williams suggestion or Shanice's "I Love Your Smile" woulda been swell.

Concur. BOS Soul System for not being snoozy. And yeah, as much as I hate to say it, we seriously need to move away from this rut.

[urth]

The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. featuring Michelle Visage "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day"

I think we heard this once before (it was a bustout at the time). Hard to fault AL for good intentions but if she wanted snoozy/feelgood, your Vanessa Williams suggestion or Shanice's "I Love Your Smile" woulda been swell.

Concur. BOS Soul System for not being snoozy. And yeah, as much as I hate to say it, we seriously need to move away from this rut.

Yep. Song selection aside, the power of the message she's putting across is being diluted by the fact that we are hearing it every day.

[Here'sToYa!]

The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. featuring Michelle Visage "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day"

I think we heard this once before (it was a bustout at the time). Hard to fault AL for good intentions but if she wanted snoozy/feelgood, your Vanessa Williams suggestion or Shanice's "I Love Your Smile" woulda been swell.

Concur. BOS Soul System for not being snoozy. And yeah, as much as I hate to say it, we seriously need to move away from this rut.

Yep. Song selection aside, the power of the message she's putting across is being diluted by the fact that we are hearing it every day.

There is an element of properly-directed anger in today's protests, as well as in the events surrounding the Rodney King verdict (of course, the rioting and its massive scale in LA, where I lived then, were not properly-directed anger), that sense of frustration and protest has been absent in the political "discourse" on recent 10@10's, and I feel that KFOG's listeners could handle some musical acknowledgement of those difficult types of feelings. I'm not sure if that's what you all were getting at in your posts, but what I wrote in the previous sentence was my main takeaway from today's set. Also, I think the preponderance of white artists coming out of clips that have racial injustice at their heart amounts to a silencing of black voices on the issue. Clearly KFOG isn't going to play Ice Cube or The Geto Boys, but there must have been some black artists not on the metaphorical DNP list that weighed in the subject.

ETA: I looked back at the 1973, 1968, 1971 and 1989 sets from the past two weeks, and, as usual, there is more diversity, both racial and viewpoint, in the '60's/'70's sets than in the '80's/'90's. So, I'll modify my above comments to focus on today's set and yesterday's Replacements, Sundays and Bob Mould songs coming out of the Do the Right Thing clips instead of Public Enemy's Fight the Power.

[Big Fingers McGee]

The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. featuring Michelle Visage "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day"

I think we heard this once before (it was a bustout at the time). Hard to fault AL for good intentions but if she wanted snoozy/feelgood, your Vanessa Williams suggestion or Shanice's "I Love Your Smile" woulda been swell.

Concur. BOS Soul System for not being snoozy. And yeah, as much as I hate to say it, we seriously need to move away from this rut.

Yep. Song selection aside, the power of the message she's putting across is being diluted by the fact that we are hearing it every day.

There is an element of properly-directed anger in today's protests, as well as in the events surrounding the Rodney King verdict (of course, the rioting and its massive scale in LA, where I lived then, were not properly-directed anger), that sense of frustration and protest has been absent in the political "discourse" on recent 10@10's, and I feel that KFOG's listeners could handle some musical acknowledgement of those difficult types of feelings. I'm not sure if that's what you all were getting at in your posts, but what I wrote in the previous sentence was my main takeaway from today's set. Also, I think the preponderance of white artists coming out of clips that have racial injustice at their heart amounts to a silencing of black voices on the issue. Clearly KFOG isn't going to play Ice Cube or The Geto Boys, but there must have been some black artists not on the metaphorical DNP list that weighed in the subject.

ETA: I looked back at the 1973, 1968, 1971 and 1989 sets from the past two weeks, and, as usual, there is more diversity, both racial and viewpoint, in the '60's/'70's sets than in the '80's/'90's. So, I'll modify my above comments to focus on today's set and yesterday's Replacements, Sundays and Bob Mould songs coming out of the Do the Right Thing clips instead of Public Enemy's Fight the Power.

File under “What is the purpose of 10@10?” Is it to:
1.   Simply entertain
2.   Educate listeners on what a particular year was like, musically/culturally/politically
3.   Increase listenership so they can sell more ads
4.   Drive home message(s)

I would say #3 most definitely, with #1 being a necessary subset of that. Ideally #2 as well. #4, as long as it doesn’t violate #3….

Thanks to RGM and the good Captain posting the 10@10s from other stations around the country, I am happy that KFOG still seems to have far and away the best effort, even with the influence of Cumulus/Constatine/Renee, etc. That being said, we have to remember that it is a corporate station, so we have to be realistic in our expectations.

What would be a fascinating experiment for someone to do: Look at the database to see songs that have been played exactly once (I would suggest limiting to pre-Y2K sets), and try to categorize:

a)   Lesser hits from well-known artists
b)   Songs that fit a particular theme/promo show, and nothing else
c)   Other obvious novelty hits
d)   Songs that might have caused listeners to call in and say “Don’t ever play that again”

I wonder how many times d) has been employed…

[Here'sToYa!]

The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. featuring Michelle Visage "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day"

I think we heard this once before (it was a bustout at the time). Hard to fault AL for good intentions but if she wanted snoozy/feelgood, your Vanessa Williams suggestion or Shanice's "I Love Your Smile" woulda been swell.

Concur. BOS Soul System for not being snoozy. And yeah, as much as I hate to say it, we seriously need to move away from this rut.

Yep. Song selection aside, the power of the message she's putting across is being diluted by the fact that we are hearing it every day.

There is an element of properly-directed anger in today's protests, as well as in the events surrounding the Rodney King verdict (of course, the rioting and its massive scale in LA, where I lived then, were not properly-directed anger), that sense of frustration and protest has been absent in the political "discourse" on recent 10@10's, and I feel that KFOG's listeners could handle some musical acknowledgement of those difficult types of feelings. I'm not sure if that's what you all were getting at in your posts, but what I wrote in the previous sentence was my main takeaway from today's set. Also, I think the preponderance of white artists coming out of clips that have racial injustice at their heart amounts to a silencing of black voices on the issue. Clearly KFOG isn't going to play Ice Cube or The Geto Boys, but there must have been some black artists not on the metaphorical DNP list that weighed in the subject.

ETA: I looked back at the 1973, 1968, 1971 and 1989 sets from the past two weeks, and, as usual, there is more diversity, both racial and viewpoint, in the '60's/'70's sets than in the '80's/'90's. So, I'll modify my above comments to focus on today's set and yesterday's Replacements, Sundays and Bob Mould songs coming out of the Do the Right Thing clips instead of Public Enemy's Fight the Power.

File under “What is the purpose of 10@10?” Is it to:
1.   Simply entertain
2.   Educate listeners on what a particular year was like, musically/culturally/politically
3.   Increase listenership so they can sell more ads
4.   Drive home message(s)

I would say #3 most definitely, with #1 being a necessary subset of that. Ideally #2 as well. #4, as long as it doesn’t violate #3….

Thanks to RGM and the good Captain posting the 10@10s from other stations around the country, I am happy that KFOG still seems to have far and away the best effort, even with the influence of Cumulus/Constatine/Renee, etc. That being said, we have to remember that it is a corporate station, so we have to be realistic in our expectations.

What would be a fascinating experiment for someone to do: Look at the database to see songs that have been played exactly once (I would suggest limiting to pre-Y2K sets), and try to categorize:

a)   Lesser hits from well-known artists
b)   Songs that fit a particular theme/promo show, and nothing else
c)   Other obvious novelty hits
d)   Songs that might have caused listeners to call in and say “Don’t ever play that again”

I wonder how many times d) has been employed…

I hear ya, though I still think, "KFOG's listeners could handle some musical acknowledgement of those difficult types of feelings," and "there must have been some black artists not on the metaphorical DNP list that weighed in on the subject."

ETA: There is some understandable loyalty to KFOG's 10@10 considering it's our station from our area, and it was the original. Realistically, though, I don't see how one could say KFOG's sets now are superior to The Peak's. Equal to, sure, but there is at least as much variety and surprise on the Peak's set lists as KFOG's. Also, the month/year approach the Peak employs cuts down on repetition within the confines of its own 10@10, anyway. Also, the BOBs play a greater variety of genres than KFOG in the late '80's-early '00's timeframe, although they have a higher percentage of mind-numbingly awful songs and a total lack of mind-blowing obscurities.

I was also thinking that, besides the obvious commercial radio constraints, the other factor in 10@10 stagnation is lack of DJ time. It doesn't seem possible to produce new clips and play a high rate of debut songs during the DJ's regular work hours. To find those new clips and fish out the new songs, a DJ has to use her own personal time, something Renee, for example, never did, and it showed. It seems like one could create an entire show while also performing one's other DJ duties by cutting and pasting 7-8 tried and true favorites from past set lists and recycling all the clips. AL began by devoting what seemed like several hours a day of her personal time to crafting original 10@10's, but doesn't seem to be doing that anymore, which, at this point in her tenure, is perfectly understandable.

[Big Fingers McGee]

The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. featuring Michelle Visage "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day"

I think we heard this once before (it was a bustout at the time). Hard to fault AL for good intentions but if she wanted snoozy/feelgood, your Vanessa Williams suggestion or Shanice's "I Love Your Smile" woulda been swell.

Concur. BOS Soul System for not being snoozy. And yeah, as much as I hate to say it, we seriously need to move away from this rut.

Yep. Song selection aside, the power of the message she's putting across is being diluted by the fact that we are hearing it every day.

There is an element of properly-directed anger in today's protests, as well as in the events surrounding the Rodney King verdict (of course, the rioting and its massive scale in LA, where I lived then, were not properly-directed anger), that sense of frustration and protest has been absent in the political "discourse" on recent 10@10's, and I feel that KFOG's listeners could handle some musical acknowledgement of those difficult types of feelings. I'm not sure if that's what you all were getting at in your posts, but what I wrote in the previous sentence was my main takeaway from today's set. Also, I think the preponderance of white artists coming out of clips that have racial injustice at their heart amounts to a silencing of black voices on the issue. Clearly KFOG isn't going to play Ice Cube or The Geto Boys, but there must have been some black artists not on the metaphorical DNP list that weighed in the subject.

ETA: I looked back at the 1973, 1968, 1971 and 1989 sets from the past two weeks, and, as usual, there is more diversity, both racial and viewpoint, in the '60's/'70's sets than in the '80's/'90's. So, I'll modify my above comments to focus on today's set and yesterday's Replacements, Sundays and Bob Mould songs coming out of the Do the Right Thing clips instead of Public Enemy's Fight the Power.

File under “What is the purpose of 10@10?” Is it to:
1.   Simply entertain
2.   Educate listeners on what a particular year was like, musically/culturally/politically
3.   Increase listenership so they can sell more ads
4.   Drive home message(s)

I would say #3 most definitely, with #1 being a necessary subset of that. Ideally #2 as well. #4, as long as it doesn’t violate #3….

Thanks to RGM and the good Captain posting the 10@10s from other stations around the country, I am happy that KFOG still seems to have far and away the best effort, even with the influence of Cumulus/Constatine/Renee, etc. That being said, we have to remember that it is a corporate station, so we have to be realistic in our expectations.

What would be a fascinating experiment for someone to do: Look at the database to see songs that have been played exactly once (I would suggest limiting to pre-Y2K sets), and try to categorize:

a)   Lesser hits from well-known artists
b)   Songs that fit a particular theme/promo show, and nothing else
c)   Other obvious novelty hits
d)   Songs that might have caused listeners to call in and say “Don’t ever play that again”

I wonder how many times d) has been employed…

I hear ya, though I still think, "KFOG's listeners could handle some musical acknowledgement of those difficult types of feelings," and "there must have been some black artists not on the metaphorical DNP list that weighed in on the subject."

ETA: There is some understandable loyalty to KFOG's 10@10 considering it's our station from our area, and it was the original. Realistically, though, I don't see how one could say KFOG's sets now are superior to The Peak's. Equal to, sure, but there is at least as much variety and surprise on the Peak's set lists as KFOG's. Also, the month/year approach the Peak employs cuts down on repetition within the confines of its own 10@10, anyway. Also, the BOBs play a greater variety of genres than KFOG in the late '80's-early '00's timeframe, although they have a higher percentage of mind-numbingly awful songs and a total lack of mind-blowing obscurities.

I was also thinking that, besides the obvious commercial radio constraints, the other factor in 10@10 stagnation is lack of DJ time. It doesn't seem possible to produce new clips and play a high rate of debut songs during the DJ's regular work hours. To find those new clips and fish out the new songs, a DJ has to use her own personal time, something Renee, for example, never did, and it showed. It seems like one could create an entire show while also performing one's other DJ duties by cutting and pasting 7-8 tried and true favorites from past set lists and recycling all the clips. AL began by devoting what seemed like several hours a day of her personal time to crafting original 10@10's, but doesn't seem to be doing that anymore, which, at this point in her tenure, is perfectly understandable.

I suppose YMMV w/ respect to comparing the Peak w/ KFOG. The Peak seems to include too many cringeworthy selections for my taste.

Regarding the BOBs, I suppose if one had the choice between 8-9 songs that fall into the FF category with maybe 1-2 semi-interesting selections (i.e. KFOG on a bad day) vs. 6-7 LN Heavies, 1-2 Pop Cheez-Its and perhaps one otherwise interesting selection, that would be a tough call. It's true the BOBs step into pop territory far more often than KFOG does (and I think most of us would agree that playing a Madonna or a Janet Jackson or a Real McCoy or something off of Super Hits of The 70's every now and then isn't going to kill anybody).

I've often felt that a set needs at least one song that most listeners can place, otherwise I can kind of understand why some listeners might go elsewhere.

I do wish that management would at least consent to playing some of the lesser-known cuts from artists we're all familiar enough. I realize this subject has been talked about at length.

[RGMike]

I do wish that management would at least consent to playing some of the lesser-known cuts from artists we're all familiar enough. I realize this subject has been talked about at length.

this is the problem with Classic Rock formats generally: there are lots of songs by core "classic" artists that never get played.  Tons of Queen songs that are instantly recognizable as being Queen but we get "Killer Queen" and "Champions" and "Another one Bites" incessantly while fine lesser-but-hardly-obscure tracks of theirs go begging.

[Big Fingers McGee]

I do wish that management would at least consent to playing some of the lesser-known cuts from artists we're all familiar enough. I realize this subject has been talked about at length.

this is the problem with Classic Rock formats generally: there are lots of songs by core "classic" artists that never get played.  Tons of Queen songs that are instantly recognizable as being Queen but we get "Killer Queen" and "Champions" and "Another one Bites" incessantly while fine lesser-but-hardly-obscure tracks of theirs go begging.

i.e. "Radio Ga-Ga" and "Keep Yourself Alive"

[CapnJack]

12/10/14  Wednesday!!  We are One in....1992!!

   1. 10,000 Maniacs- These Are Days
(News: Rodney King)
   2.  Bruce Springsteen- Human Touch
   3.  Eric Clapton- Help Me Up
(News: L.A. riots/ Rodney King)
   4.  Annie Lennox- Why (B.O.S-3-Way Tie!)
(News: Rodney King "Can't we get along?" press statement)
   5.  Moodswings- Spiritual High (B.O.S-3-Way Tie!)
   6.  Peter Gabriel- Kiss That Frog
   7.  Toad the Wet Sprocket- Walk On the Ocean
(News: LAPD acquittal/public outcry)
   8.  U2- One (B.O.S-3-Way Tie!)
   9.  Talking Heads- Sax and Violins
(News: Rodney King " Please we all CAN get along.")
 10.  The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M.- It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day

[dischead]

Very snoozy set so far.

yeah, there's a limit to this "music is the healing force" thing she's had going on the past week or so, as lovely as that vibe has been.

It has been rubbing me the wrong way a bit.  I get the impression of a post-ironic sense of
detachment -- "my, aren't we being relevant" -- mixed with a dash of Kumbaya.  If anything,
it highlights that things haven't changed much in the intervening decades with regard to
civil injustice, social and economic inequality, etc.  And where are protest songs of today?
Would they even get played in the current corporate radio environment?  There are other
things about this that are bugging me too, but I don't feel like crystalizing them sufficiently
to articulate them.

[dischead]

The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. featuring Michelle Visage "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day"

I think we heard this once before (it was a bustout at the time). Hard to fault AL for good intentions but if she wanted snoozy/feelgood, your Vanessa Williams suggestion or Shanice's "I Love Your Smile" woulda been swell.

Concur. BOS Soul System for not being snoozy. And yeah, as much as I hate to say it, we seriously need to move away from this rut.

Yep. Song selection aside, the power of the message she's putting across is being diluted by the fact that we are hearing it every day.

ITA.  Too much artifice -- it's forced.  It lacks a certain authenticity.

[dischead]

I do wish that management would at least consent to playing some of the lesser-known cuts from artists we're all familiar enough. I realize this subject has been talked about at length.

this is the problem with Classic Rock formats generally: there are lots of songs by core "classic" artists that never get played.  Tons of Queen songs that are instantly recognizable as being Queen but we get "Killer Queen" and "Champions" and "Another one Bites" incessantly while fine lesser-but-hardly-obscure tracks of theirs go begging.

i.e. "Radio Ga-Ga" and "Keep Yourself Alive"

I.e., "complaint #1."  I have a couple of lists I've been meaning to post recently that harp on
this point.  On the other tentacle, consider the viewpoint of younger listeners.  While some of
this older music is the soundtrack of our youth and our coming of age, for younger people our
memories is their history.  How interested would you be in a program with ten lesser known
doo-wop songs from the fifties, or even ten big band swing numbers from the forties?