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Posted By: Jim on: 07/17/2007 10:39:52 EDT
Subject: RE: For John's Eyes Only - Nobody Else Will Be Remotely Interested!

Message Detail:
John wrote....

If I hired a PD who had the responsibility of selecting exactly what to play, and he didn't have a clue what was available, what good would he be to me?

Jim replies....

None, but then you would probably not have hired him in first place, as most PD hirings are reputation-based rather than done just by placing ads and interviewing people.

John wrote....

If he had a DJ play a worn-out 45, when I knew of a pristine sounding Stereo CD version, do you think I would keep him?

Jim replies...

Of course not, but he would not (hopefully) be playlisting a worn-out 45 anyway.

Even back in 1990, when I started phasing out vinyl, we could buy a complete CD library comprising 120 CDs with 20 tracks each - all US chart entries, manufactured specially for radio stations. Every one of the tracks was cut from the original 45rpm master tapes. They covered all years from 1955 to 1988.

Of course, fewer than 50% of all US Top 40 hits were valid for our market, as fewer than 50% had charted in UK/Ireland, but I enjoyed playing them anyway!

From then on, we no longer had to import US singles - they arrvived every Friday on one subscription CD for Top 40/Rock, and one CD for Country. I cannot remember what the new stuff cost - about $20 per CD I think.

Our only difficulty was that no such library of UK hits had been compiled, and as far as I know, no such library has been compiled since, although there are hundreds of compilation CDs out there - some of them a bit dodgy.

Nowadays of course, CDs are on the way out, and the top stations probably play neither CDs nor vinyl.

Instead, as you know, every track on the larger stations' playlist is already on the station's hard disk, and so no DJ brings in his own stuff, thus theoretically eliminating the possibility that a remake will slip in (and of course eliminating the possibility that the DJ will slip in something which is not on the station's playlist anyway!).

But this does not apply to smaller stations, where remakes will slip in, particularly those with a PD not always totally familiar with every track.

But let's be fair about it - if you were a working DJ in 1958 - chances are you are retired by now anyway.

That is why I ended up my last message with the phrase - "For how long"?

Perhaps there will be stations still playing 50's music ten years from now, but if so, they will be staffed in the main, by people who were not even born when those records originally came out.

But the solution is available.

Even the tiny little Hospital Radio station down the road from where I live, whose volunteer staff are mainly in their teens, bought in a hard disk full of music specially programmed for Hospital Radio outlets from a UK firm, and every single track is the genuine original.

That station is a pleasure to listen to.

So even though few DJs on that station could probably tell a 50's or 60's original from a remake, they do not have to worry. All they can lay their hands on are the originals on the hard disk!

In fact the problem nowadays is not such the authenticity of the music itself - it is the authenticity of the chatter.

Some DJs now have difficulty pronouncing a few of the artists' names from the 50's and 60's,and it is not unusual to hear them play a pristine original by Eddie Cochran, and then ruin it all by calling him "Eddie Cochrane".

And as for "Sukiyaki" by Kyu Sakomoto - forget it!

Incindentally - as a matter of interest.

The 4 Seasons are shooting up the UK singles chart right now!

They have, in one week, jumped from 78 to 24 with "Begging".

Yes I know it is almost 50 years old, but stations are playing it as a current single, in one or two cases, with hilarious results.

One DJ obviously too young to remember the 1960's - or probably the 1970's - prefaced his introduction to the single as follows: "Now here is a new single by an actor turned vocalist - Frankie Valli, star of "The Sopranos", turns his talents to singing with "Begging".

You couldn't invent this stuff even if you tried!

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