Access Atlanta > Entertainment > Radio Talk > Archives > 2007 > January > 30 > Entry
1/31: What happened to the novelty record?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sean Ross, a radio consultant at Edison Media Research, writes about the lack of novelty records on the radio nowadays.
No “Disco Duck.” Or “Hooked on Classics.” Or “Pac-Man Fever.” Or more recently, “Because I Was High” or “Baby Got Back.” We had “Laffy Taffy” a little while back. But the pure novelty record seldom hits the airwaves anymore. Even Weird Al Yankovic’s “White & Nerdy,” while getting tons of video airplay and digital single sales on iTunes, barely got airplay on the radio.
Do you miss the occasionally wacky, strange songs hitting the airwaves, the types of songs you know won’t ever be heard again a few years down the road but are fun for a few spins? As Sean notes, country radio will occasionally nab a “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off” or “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” But top 40? Not much going on there though you can argue every Gwen Stefani or Fergie/Black-Eyed Peas song has novelty elements to it. (Yodeling anybody? My humps?). And “Smack That” is certainly a goofy come-on line if I’ve ever heard one.
He also wondered why radio didn’t jump on that SNL “Lazy Sunday” song a year ago that helped jumpstart youtube’s popularity or the more recent hilarious takeoff starring Justin Timberlake, “[bleep] in a box.”
As one person noted on Sean’s blog:
Don Rice on January 25, 2007 05:21 AM
Thank you for saying what I’ve been thinking since “Lazy Sunday” first aired. I believe that programmers have become afraid to have any kind of fun with their stations. Or is it just lack of vision? Looks like Tivo got all the TSL on that high quality piece of pop culture! Just one more reason radio sucked in 2006
Comments
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By Zreheliara
January 29, 2007 5:18 PM | Link to this
I think “Fergilicious” sort of fits in the novelty song category.
By clueless
January 30, 2007 5:59 PM | Link to this
The truth of the matter is that most radio stations won’t touch that kind of music. They’ve pretty much become nothing more than advertisers for the recording industry, playing from a strict corporate playlist of “acceptable” songs and repeating the process every hour on the hour until it is time to air the commercials. Plus the songs that usually get video time like Weird Al’s stuff are also slams on those songs listed in the aforementioned playlist. Can’t have that now can we?
By lfc
January 30, 2007 6:20 PM | Link to this
The reason that you find these “novelty” songs on country radio and not on the others is that country music is based on storytelling rather than on blowing up egos. Funny stories are always welcome over hearing someone brag about committing a crime or violence. My kids used to complain about the radio stations that I allowed, now they are thankful for the guidance.
By sara
January 31, 2007 8:05 AM | Link to this
Any news on what the deal was on Q100 last night w/ Adam Bomb?
By Blank Reg
January 31, 2007 8:26 AM | Link to this
I was wondering about the deal on Q100 too… andyone out there with any info?
By BertShowFan
January 31, 2007 8:44 AM | Link to this
I briefly caught Bert mentioning something about it this morning. No one on the Bert Show seemed to know what was going on, or acting like they didn’t know on the air, but he said that they had been getting calls since 5:30 this morning asking if Adam Bomb was still on Q100.
According to one Bert Show caller he played the same song over and over again for almost two hours. Dylan, the afternoon guy, (who is also program director??? Anyway he is over all the DJs, the Leslie Fram of Q100 if you will.) He called the station 3 times telling Adam to quit playing the song. When Adam wouldn’t quit he actually went down to the station to stop it himself. I think something transpired on the air.
Sorry the details are so sketchy. My information could be totally wrong because I don’t think I caught the whole phone call because I just came upon it as I was channel surfing, but I believe that is the jest of it.
By Bud
January 31, 2007 9:07 AM | Link to this
What happened to the novelty song? I’ll give it to you in one word…Consolidation. If you’ve got thousands and thousands of radio stations controlled by a few conglomerates, you will get what we have today…complete top-down control of these homogenized stations that take few risks. In the 50’s and 60’s, individual Program Directors running single stations could make their own decisions (when they weren’t taking payola from the record companies) and throw in a few tunes that were off-beat…most would be forgotten, but a few would become a hit and get airplay on other stations. The radio biz can’t go back to the way things were…but at least we have the technology to flee Clear Channel and the other conglomerates and chart our own path…which is exactly what is happening.
By PepperPot
January 31, 2007 10:14 AM | Link to this
Here’s what I know. I was listening to q-100 last night at about 8:15pm after leaving the office and Adam Bomb played the Nelly Furtado, Timberland and Justin Timberlake song “Get It Right” (titled something like that) over and over and over and over again. The girl Wendy the Phone Hottie told him he should stop playing it after the 8th time she says look the bar says “No More.” He plays it again.
After the 10th time the Cummulis corporate bosses call in on the hotline (line 12) and say “You’re pushing it. If you don’t stop, if Wendy can play a song she’s going to finish out the rest of the show. (Click)” Adam asks “Did they just hang up?” He goes on to say that he LOVES the song and it plays again. Wendy says she wants nothing to do with this and says that he should stop.
The song starts to play again and she protests again and he says “too late it’s already started.” And the song plays again.
In the mean time listeners are calling in saying how funny this is. The song continues to play over and over and over. I stop off at Wal-mart on the way home. The song played the entire 20min drive to store. I was in the store 20 -30 mins. I come out the song is still playing. By this time it is a little after 9:00pm. The song had been playing the entire time. They do the top 9 at 9. And the Nelly Furtado song is the only song for all 9 songs. Adam Bomb does a Christina Aguilera tix giveaway to caller 100 who can name all 9 songs. This girl Brittany won. While Adam was talking to Brittany the egineers come in and say “You need to come with now!”
“Why?” asks Adam. “You can’t play the song over and over. You need to come with us right now.”
Adam Bomb tells poor Brittany to hold on someone’s gonna talk to her. They went to a commercial break and when they came back they were playing the regular radio playlist by this time it was about 9:30 or sometime thereafter.
After a few songs and a commercial break Wendy comes on and says that she doesn’t know what’s going on she has no idea where Adam is. She filling temporarily she doesn’t know for how long and that she only knows how to do a few things. Listners call in support of Adam Bomb asking where he is. One listener said that you could hear the engineers banging on the door to get him to stop on the air. Wendy didn’t have any information she said he’s suspended but doesn’t really know and she also said that she would put their calls of support to bring him back out over the air for the “big wigs” to hear. She said that they are rules as to how many times you can play a song in a row. Adam Bomb played that song at least 20 times back to back last night.
By this time it was close to 10 pm and I turned off the radio. I don’t know what happened after that. All the this happened over the air.
At first I thought it was some type of station prank that they playing on listners but after while I thought that it was for real. I tried to find out some more information about this morning but nothing anywhere. I don’t know if Adam Bomb was trying to get fired or what. If he was that was one sure fire way to go about doing it.
Does anybody else have any info? Rodney can you give us the scoop?
By Melanie
January 31, 2007 12:46 PM | Link to this
Remember Hey Mickey and The Rapping Duke? If any station in Atlanta does a retrospective of these kind of novelty songs I will be a loyal listener. This is what made radio interesting!!!
By LF
January 31, 2007 1:17 PM | Link to this
Remember the shower stall singers on the Randy and Spiff shows on Fox97 and Cool 105.7 and Lite 949? They were funny and made fun of people and things. Miss those good ole shows. If Atlanta lets those 2 get away, it shows you how truely inept Atlanta radio is.
By Flo Jean
January 31, 2007 1:43 PM | Link to this
LF, C’mon…think about it: Randy & Spiff are nice guys, but that ship has sailed baby.
By Logical Dude
January 31, 2007 1:58 PM | Link to this
I thought that song by The Darkness, “I believe in a thing called love” was a novelty song. They took a very tongue in cheek…
wait, you mean they were trying to make a serious song???
OOPS! Then yes, there is a definite lack of novelty songs being played on the radio.
Of course, Hinder’s “Go Home, Get Stoned” could be looked at as a novelty song by many…
By Logical Dude
January 31, 2007 2:02 PM | Link to this
I thought that song by The Darkness, “I believe in a thing called love” was a novelty song. They took a very tongue in cheek…
wait, you mean they were trying to make a serious song???
OOPS! Then yes, there is a definite lack of novelty songs being played on the radio.
Of course, Hinder’s “Go Home, Get Stoned” could be looked at as a novelty song by many…
By damon
January 31, 2007 4:50 PM | Link to this
Because when someone dislikes the novelty song they change the station. Laffy Taffy was just a flat out annoying song to most of the people who heard it- why should stations force that down people’s throats? When someone likes a specific song like that they have so many other options now than calling and asking a radio station to play it. No one is calling the stations to hear a censored version of ** in a box- they just go listen to it whenever they want online. Same with Weird Al- no one is calling up the stations asking to hear his songs.
By LolaG
February 1, 2007 12:31 PM | Link to this
It’s not quite the same, but 99x has been airing a parody of Timberlake’s ‘in a box’ as a station ad thing- ‘New Rock In a Box’. It’s cute- nice to know their heads aren’t so far up their own asses they actually know what’s going on in the rest of the world!! Oh, and Sean on the morning show plays ‘Peanut Butter Jelly Time’, remember? That counts, I do believe. Perhaps all the negative feedback that came with that fiasco could explain why stations don’t air that stuff anymore…