Phil Collins, Elton John, and Gloria Estefan dominated Adult Contemporary radio back in the 1980s and '90s, yet have disappeared from modern radio. Seemingly, the only time you ever hear them is at the grocery store or your local CVS. This blog remembers the music, the stories and the quirky characters from my days working in Adult Contemporary radio.
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Sarah McLachlan - "Angel"
Most Adult Contemporary radio stations shuffle through 300-400 songs on any given day -- lending an answer to the age-old question from listeners: "Why do you guys always play the same songs?". Radio stations develop their music library by testing the hooks from hundreds of songs in focus groups (known as auditorium testing). While not a perfect method, auditorium testing is standard in the industry. One of the major problems with it, however, is that certain songs may test well, yet you don't want to hear them day after day on the radio. One such example is the death march known as "Angel" from Sarah McLachlan. While the song proved to be a massive hit in 1999 thanks to its inclusion on The City of Angels Soundtrack, there's certainly a time and place to hear a painfully slow ballad about a keyboardist who overdosed on heroin...and that time and place is not every day at work.