Idolator
Since many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock, welcome to "Corporate Rock Still Sells," where Al Shipley (a.k.a. Idolator commenter GovernmentNames) examines what's good, bad, and ugly in the world of Billboard's rock charts. This time around he drops science (and graphs) to figure out how pop-punk nostalgia might be impacting Modern Rock radio:
One thing that you'll find me banging on about in this column, over and over again, is the tall shadow of the 90's "alternative revolution" boom years that Modern Rock radio now exists under. You can blame it on the rise of nu-metal and other genre—or just about anything, really. But the glory days are, for all intents and purposes, over.
And, as one astute commenter noted in my last installment, many of the Modern Rock stations left standing have been trying to survive by playing more and more music from the "classic" era, switching to what's been dubbed the "alternative gold" format. One of my strangest realizations once I started writing this column is that it's really hard to figure out what the hot new songs on rock radio are by actually listening to rock radio. You usually have to sit through up to a half-hour of oldies to hear even one track currently on the Billboard rock charts.
To demonstrate this divide, I decided to pull up some hard airplay stats. And since I caught some (perfectly fair) criticism for the "regional bias" in my last post, which mostly cited the D.C./Maryland rock stations I listen to or grew up listening to, I decided to illustrate my point with a Modern Rock standard-bearer that everyone can more or less agree on, Los Angeles institution KROQ.
KROQ's official "most played" page lists 30 or so songs, pretty much all of which are less than a year or two old. But Yes.com, an extremely
helpful site for looking up what pretty much any radio station is playing at any given moment, doesn't filter out the oldies, and the numbers don't lie: Less than half of the station's current "most played" tracks (44% when I culled the data) are from 2007 or even 2006. There was also nothing prior to 1990, which was a little surprising considering that KROQ officially became a Modern Rock station back in 1982; most of the East Coast stations I've listened to have always kept a healthy serving of Cure and Violent Femmes songs in the mix. And when I employed my rudimentary Microsoft Excel skills and charted the year-of-origin for the pre-2006 songs, in two-year increments, the results were pretty interesting:
The spike in the '90s is no shock, but where it happened—1995, and especially 1994, which had 13% of the Top 100—is a little surprising. I would've expected more from the initial grunge explosion in the early part of the decade, and a less sharp drop-off for later years like '97. Of course, a lot of this comes down again to a regional divide: KROQ was ground zero for the mid-'90s reign of California pop-punk bands like Green Day and Offspring, who are represented generously on the list, along with considerably less commercially successful scene mainstays like Pennywise and Bad Religion. (My decision to chart all Dookie singles after "Longview" as 1994, when they impacted radio, rather than 1993, the year of the album's release, definitely helped beef up the '94 stats.) You can tell pretty easily where KROQ really gets their bread buttered, and it's not Seattle.
Much as classic rock playlists have slowly shifted their center of gravity from the late '60s to the late '70s and early '80s, to the point that Foreigner now towers over the Beatles in those stations' esteem, KROQ may be leading the way for the future of alt-rock nostalgia, one that lionizes Cali punk bands as much as Nirvana, especially if Green Day continues its late-career dominance. But I'm hoping the shift towards emphasizing later and later alt-rock eras stops there, because I don't know if I can handle nostalgia for Hoobastank.
Comments
....I don't know if I can handle nostalgia for Hoobastank...
Dude, I fear we are stuck with "The Reason" for a long time to come. Wake me up when September ends...
P.S. Excellent post, as always, and excellent use of the playlist data.
KROQ's been running a series of weird posters out here lately -- stark black background, promo photo and name of a band, and a big "I AM KROQ" tagline. I doubt I've seen them all but the only one that features even a somewhat recentish band is the Killers -- otherwise it's pretty much the older standbys -- Chili Peppers, Green Day, etc.
I'm inclined to agree with this assessment. Somewhat oof-topic: last night I "accidentally" watched Green Day perform American Idiot on MTV's hi-def channel.
Now, I've never been a Green Day fan. In fact, when they began their '90s ascendance, I did my best to tune them out. Sure, I heard rumors of Idiot not totally sucking, but I wasn't about to try to validate them.
When did this band get all progressive? Some of their new "song cycles" (isn't that what the kids call 'em?) reminded me of The Who. There's even some Queen in there, minus the majestic guitar solos, of course.
I don't now what this means in context of this post, but I'll be pretty bummed if I have to start liking Green Day in my mid-30s.
i think in the so cal radio markets you really have two variations on the "alternative gold" format, the first one you handled with kroq, the second is exemplified by san diego's 94/9- they play more 70s and 80s modern rock oldies (in addition to nirvana, smashing pumpkins and sublime).
Aren't we more than overdue for a nostalgic 80s/90s rap station?
'Mama Said Knock You Out' is as true today as it was 15 years ago.
Your best post yet -- huge kudos, Al. I'm seriously impressed that you came up with a hard-and-fast, data-based way to confirm something we all previously knew only anecdotally: that modern-rock radio wishes it could permanently exist in the the peak year of vintage Green Day.
My theory? While 1991 might have been "the year punk broke," 1994 was clearly the year it peaked, and data from back in the day would back that up: not on the Hot 100, which was dominated back then by the likes of Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men; but by examining the airplay-only charts, which showed even total pop/Top 40 stations at the time dominated by Pearl Jam, STP, Live, Smashing Pumpkins, RHCP. (I'll never forget the day Z100 in New York floored me by playing Veruca Salt.) Basically, 1994-95 was the moment that unwashed-hair guitar bands owned the radio and were the center of pop culture.
In other words, if Nevermind was alt-culture's sex, lies and videotape, Dookie would be its Pulp Fiction.
So it's understandable that this period would form the backbone of KROQ's playlist -- it's a station-identifier for them, the period of music that clarifies what they want to stand for. I'm sure, soon enough, we're going to see some purportedly current hip-hop stations starting to lean heavily on turn-of-the-century Jay-Z and DMX gold.
props for dookie.gif
@dennisobell:
"In other words, if Nevermind wsa alt-culture's sex, lies and videotape, Dookie would be its Pulp Fiction."
This thought just made me die a little on the inside.
I thought the biggest spike would be 96 or so for KROQ. Whenever I flip to that retched station, all I hear is "Sublime, Rage Against The Machine, Smashing Pumpkins... repeat." Bleeeech!
Haha I did "dookie.gif" before I knew they'd use the actual album cover too, it makes it all very symmetrical.
I too would've expected more 96/97 stuff. I wish I'd had more time to do similiar charts for some other stations, specifically East coast ones I've listened to, to compare and contrast, I think the results might be much different.
Also I probably shouldn't admit this but I think I misspoke with the "1994, which had 13% of the Top 100" line, I think I was misremembering Mellon Collie as a '94 album at the moment, although thankfully that has no effect on the combined 94/95 stats in the graph.
Also I wish I'd addressed the slight bump in the 00/01 stats, although I really couldn't come up with any theory to attempt to explain it, given the lack of any identifiable trends in what artists the songs from those years are by.
@Cos:
I dunno. Think about how often you hear "Black Hole Sun". God, that's a "The DJ needs a bathroom break, so put on a long one" song if there ever was one.
@GovernmentNames: ...I wish I'd had more time to do similiar charts for some other stations, specifically East coast ones I've listened to, to compare and contrast, I think the results might be much different...
I'd love to see a similar analysis of WHFS and some of the stations mentioned in the comments in the last post -- that might clear up exactly how much provincial influence Green Day had on KROQ's list. Not that I'm leaning on you or anything...
;)
@GovernmentNames: In LA, possibly, could the emergence of Blink 182 be the reason for spikes in the '00-'01 time period?
Yeah, I might have to do a chart-crazy column, somewhere further down the line when it's not just a redundant continuation of this one.
@Hiphopopotamus: It's 1991 and I refuse to come wack
@Ned Raggett: I've seen those. However, I refuse to believe that Nirvana once embodied the sort of mediocrity that KROQ stands for. Maybe if they'd photoshopped backwards hats onto the guys from Poison...
@Hiphopopotamus: Interestingly, the only place I've ever seen such a thing attempted was on one of the in-game radio stations in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." One of the best stations in the game.
Excellent post, by the way ...
If I'm not mistaken, the sample size is a bit small (i.e. one day). Perhaps though it isn't too much of a stretch to infer that another day in the life of KROQ would be about the same.
@TheContrarian: Green Day got all progressive on American Idiot, and not really all that much before.
Apparently while they were recording an album, all the tapes and shit got stolen. Rather than try to recreate what'd been lost (which was apparently more of the same-ish for them?), they decided to start over and do something different... American Idiot is the result.
@LAKingsin2008: Ah, I wasn't sure what the time period was for the sample size, I should see how I can get a longer, more representative time period for future stats.
Fantastic addition to the series...too bad HFS isn't around anymore to compare. Perhaps DC101 would be the closest thing? More so than 98 rock anyways.
An interesting addition could be to look at WRNR, since it does have several old DJ's and the programmer from HFS's glory days. I guess they aren't technically an "alternative" station, but they haul out the Cake as often as the next guys probably do.
Now, it someone could do a column on why these second (or is it third) wave pop-punk bands blow, that'd be really swell.
(Good article, BTW.)
Great column, Al. I wonder if the 2000-01 bump isn't caused by excessive Creed and Limp Bizkit? I hope not, but that seems plausible. And of course Blink-182, as noted above.
@DHMBIB: @beta.rogan: ...too bad HFS isn't around anymore to compare...
D'oh! Sorry, governmentnonames, I had rebooted my brain, and it hadn't yet returned.
I just surprised this means that KROQ plays about 13 songs an hour. That's way more than I thought they would. Interesting.
@LAKingsin2008: You'd need to look at how many songs they play a day, how often their playlist is updated, and how many songs are on it. Given the frequency with which you hear the same songs on these radio stations, I'd guess that the sample size wouldn't need to be too big to be accurate. But point well taken, and Al, the article is great. I'd say your Excel skills are at the very least Slightly Above Rudimentary.
I'm interested in the phenomenon of (Classic) Alternative stations doing the "shuffle" format, e.g. Q101 in Chicago. They started playing Bob Marley, Metallica, Eminem (!) and other unexpected artists when they switched. It's a huge step towards the homogeneity of radio, as if it weren't racing there already.
@Ned Raggett: 99x in Atlanta had the "I am 99x" campaign in 2002 or so, and it did the exact same thing.
Also, you have to realize that certain bands are huge in Southern California (Bad Religion is the paragon here, although Pennywise works, too) and not that big anywhere else. I doubt you'd hear that much pop-punk on, say, Dallas' the Edge.
Pop-music stats crunched in Excel = totally up my alley. Nice work, Al.
@katieee: Q101 actually played Eminem briefly in 2000, then mysteriously forgot about him a year later. And they were playing Metallica before the switch to "shuffle." In fact, one of the most interesting things about that station's evolution (especially if you take it as emblematic of alt-rock radio in general) is how a band like Metallica went from having precisely zero songs in the station's 500 Greatest Alternative Songs of All-Time countdown at the end of 1996 to suddenly having no fewer than six songs when they repeated the countdown three years later.
For the record: 1996 vs. 1999. (Note that what Metallica mostly replaced was stuff like the B-52s and Blondie.)
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