As you may know, there is more than one type of Top 40 radio station. Two entries ago we visited KFMB, an Adult Top 40 station. In today's post we'll visit KEGY (a.k.a. "Energy 103.7"), a Mainstream Top 40 station. For those of you keeping score on the format label front, Mainstream Top 40 is also known as Contemporary Hit Radio. For those of you with a connection to the Big Easy, KEGY is musically pretty similar to B97.
I check in with Mainstream Top 40 radio on occasion: I'll admit that this isn't the sort of music I usually listen to, but that's not gonna stop me from putting on my archivist's hat and giving you a sample KEGY playlist and chatting about it a bit. Let's get to it then, shall we? On 16 December I tuned in to http://energy1037.cbslocal.com/ and did some live listening for just over an hour and a half; like KROQ, KEGY is owned by CBS Radio, and the KEGY Listen Live widget has the same interface that the KROQ Listen Live widget has. Here's a list of the songs that I heard, in chronological order:
Jeremih (with YG): "Don't Tell 'Em [DaaHype Remix]"
Calvin Harris (with Haim): "Pray to God"
Ariana Grande (with The Weeknd): "Love Me Harder"
Pitbull: "Give Me Everything"
Selena Gomez: "The Heart Wants What It Wants"
Paramore: "Ain't It Fun"
Sam Smith: "I'm Not the Only One"
Calvin Harris (with John Newman): "Blame"
Milky Chance: "Stolen Dance"
Hoodie Allen (with Ed Sheeran): "All About It"
Alesso (with Tove Lo): "Heroes (We Could Be)"
J. Cole: "Work Out"
James Newton Howard (with Jennifer Lawrence): "The Hanging Tree [DJ Mike D Mix]"
Jessie J (with Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj): "Bang Bang"
Don Omar (with Lucenzo): "Danza Kuduro"
Disclosure (with Sam Smith): "Latch"
OneRepublic: "I Lived [Arty Remix]"
Mr Probz: "Waves [Robin Schulz Remix]"
Meghan Trainor: "All About That Bass"
Mark Ronson (with Bruno Mars): "Uptown Funk!"
Taylor Swift: "Blank Space"
Random commentary
• It's a bit odd that Paramore shows up here but not on any of the playlists of the other radio stations we've visited. "Ain't It Fun" is as close to rock and roll as we get, and it's my favorite song in the list: funky, hard-edged, really good.
• Taking us closer to real funk is Mark Ronson's "Uptown Funk!", on which Bruno Mars sings; if you enjoy the classic hits by Morris Day and the Time, this song is for you.
• Mainstream Top 40 clearly owes a great deal to the dance remix culture that got under way in the 1980s. I may not listen to much Top 40 today, but once upon a time I spent a lot of time listening to New Order and Dead or Alive, and a hop, skip, and a jump is all that separates a song like "Blue Monday" from Calvin Harris' "Pray to God".
• Some of this music is not so easy to classify. Jeremih's "Don't Tell 'Em [DaaHype Remix]" is a case in point: it's too slow to be a funk or house song, and would be a challenge to dance to; it doesn't have the swing or warmth of R&B; it's percussive and skeletal in the way that Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" is but it lacks the latter's pop sensibility; it's not straightforwardly hip-hop in the way that J. Cole's "Work Out" is, although maybe we could call it a hip-hop song via process of elimination - I guess we'll have to let the real critics out there sort this matter out, eh?
• Hoodie Allen's "All About It" and Jessie J's "Bang Bang" have an R&B vibe. The Top 40 music I listened to in the mid-1970s borrowed a lot from R&B and soul; as you would expect, these influences have largely fallen by the wayside, but it's gratifying to know that they haven't died out completely.
• Released in 2010 and the oldest song in the list, Don Omar's "Danza Kuduro" is a lively Latin house track whose lyrics are in Spanish and Portuguese; Pitbull's "Give Me Everything" sports just a tad of Latin influence but is no less energetic. BTW, Pitbull has released more studio albums than any of the other artists in the list.
• Hmmm, what else? We've got a couple of ballads in the list, they being Ariana Grande's "Love Me Harder" and Selena Gomez' "The Heart Wants What It Wants"; Sam Smith's "I'm Not the Only One" can perhaps also be classified as such. Calvin Harris' "Blame", Alesso's "Heroes (We Could Be)", and Disclosure's "Latch" fly us into full-fledged electronica. OneRepublic's "I Lived [Arty Remix]" is anthem pop (if this isn't a recognized term, I'm coining it now) in the vein of U2. Mr Probz' "Waves [Robin Schulz Remix]" is a quiet house track: do check out the original (non-remix) version, which is even more subdued.
I think that's enough 'radio anthropology' for the time being - we'll do something completely different next time.
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