Were songs overplayed on the radio in the 80s, 70s, 60s?

In the mid to late 90s when I was a teen it seemed like there were a lot of songs that were good but were WAY overplayed on the radio for 8 months and then you hated them, haha. Some examples that spring to mind are "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls in '98, which was actually #1 on the Billboard airplay chart for 18 weeks but was played to death for way longer than that, and Real McCoy's "Another Night" in '94-'95 (and probably '96 too, haha). Does anyone remember if overplaying of songs was a problem/annoyance in the 80s, 70s, 60s on American radio?

 

Yes, most certainly, top 40 music was always overplayed...that was the format.

It still is for most classic rock radio today, too.

Occasionally, it’s fun to listen to again, today. But not too often...

 

“Iris was played to death...” WAS? I’d say IS.

 

In my 'Crystal Blue Persuasion' thread several members mentioned the song being overplayed to death during the summer of '69. Similar comments were made about 'You've Made Me So Very Happy' which was also a hit in 1969.

So I'd say yes.

 

Unrelated to the thread, but still somehow related: I recently learned that Incense & Peppermint was #1 on Billboard Hot 100 back in 1967! I couldn’t believe it. Was it overplayed then? Or was it a short-lived success?

 

Yes CKLW would play a hit song all the time.

 

For Christmas in 1975 I received some radio headphones. The day after Christmas, I listened to my local radio station for 12 hours straight, keeping track of the songs I heard. I wish I still had that list.

I believe the most played songs were:

Island Girl - Elton John
Fox On The Run - Sweet

Both played 11 times in 12 hours by a small town radio station in Minnesota, the day after Christmas 1975.

 

To speak to the 60s part of your question...

One important thing to remember is that, while a hit record in the 1960s would get a lot of airplay during its run on the charts, once it fell off of the charts, it was well and truly gone. The only possibility that you would hear it again on the radio is if your favorite station had an Oldies show, say on a Sunday night. It was rare that Oldies were played as part of a Top 40 station's day-to-day programming during normal hours. And even at that, a few years would have to go by before a song could genuinely be considered an Oldie.

But sometime in the 1970s, the concept of "recurrents" hit Top 40 radio. If a song was a hit, you would continue to hear it — though not as frequently — even after it had fallen completely off of the charts. So "playing a song to death" was a much more likely phenomenon from that point on.

 

It was played as much as any record that hit #1 would have been. Although as a look at the Billboard charts reveals, some songs would hit #1 for just one week, and then start their descent back down the charts and fade away — whereas other songs might occupy the #1 spot for multiple weeks, and thus likely hang around longer.

 

The Police’s Every Breath You Take. I remember listening to the radio and thinking “This song again? They already played 20 times today.” I haven’t listened to the radio with any frequency for the past 20 years or so (maybe even longer), so the passage of time, for me, has been a lot more kind to this song.

 

Yeah, I know chart turnover on the Billboard Hot 100 was a lot faster back in the 60s to the 80s than it was in the 90s or today, but probably pretty inaccurate since it was pre-BDS airplay tracking, so I was thinking maybe stations played songs a lot longer than the chart indicated back then? I also read yesterday that pre-BDS/Soundscan, radio stations would drop a song off their playlist submitted to Billboard as soon as the record label stopped promoting it, even if the station actually kept playing the song. But it's interesting to learn the idea of "recurrents" didn't start until the 70s.

 

Speaking of classic rock radio, I also listened to the classic rock station here as a teen in the 90s, and one song they seemed to play every day was Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street." I don't really listen to much radio anymore, but I was checking out the local classic rock station's playlist on their website about a month ago, and they're still playing "Baker Street" every couple of days like clockwork!

 

GOD yes. The same chart system which brought success to so many artists, was the double-edged sword that could kill a band's momentum.
Being in the business and watching up-close, there was no stopping the system from over-correcting itself once the charts led the airplay, not the other way around.

 

OMG Yes. You obviously weren't there. Takin' Care Of Business, even good songs like Freebird and Stairway. Even now, I hear Heart waay more often than I want -- Barracuda, oh yeah. Rhiannon? I know women named Rhiannon, and I like them a lot, but I don't get warm & fuzzy when I hear it for the umpteenth time.
My favorite band is Jefferson Airplane, but I'd like to take a ten year hiatus from hearing Somebody To Love and White Rabbit.
Overplaying songs is a given, that's why many of us avoid commercial radio entirely.

 

SEE-KAY-ELL-DOUBLE YOO !!

 

Yessiree, Number 45 for the year!
The Musicradio WABC Top 100 of 1967

But the next year was worse: ... MacArthur Park (all 7 interminable minutes of it), Yummy Yummy Yummy, Bend Me Shape Me, Indian Lake...

Every one of these songs was overplayed.

Every one is beloved by someone even to this day!

 

“Heart of Gold”
Love Neil, love the song but oh my ... always on the radio.
Led Zeppelin IV and Dark Side were both played so much that for years I never pulled them out at home.
Early FM radio was wonderful but it later became as regimented as AM radio.

 

The nature of the beast.
Commercial Radio.
Pleased to meet you hope you guess my name?

 

Let's just say that I know Nights in White Satin by heart, without ever really liking the song, or owning the album...

 

Yes!!!

 

I guess if you lived in the States (and listened assidiously in early 64' to top 40 radio) it would have been akin to a slow prolonged torture if you did not like The Beatles!

 

Harrison’s My Sweet Lord was played so much on the 1970, it prompted John Lennon to say, “Every time I put the radio on, it's 'Oh my Lord' – I'm beginning to think there must be a God.”

 

Radio is a business. Of course the most potentially popular songs would be played more often because people wanted to hear those songs, which in turn would heighten listenership and attract advertising revenue. Holy crap, why do some folk insist that reality doesn’t apply to their personal tastes in music?

 

If I am not mistaken in the US the charts were based on radio plays rather than actual sales. So record companies pushed the music that they wanted to get played. Naturally this created a corrupt system where some product was played to death and other product got lost

 

Yes, I know that. Radio play has always been a big chunk of the Billboard Hot 100 chart points in America. I grew up in the 90s listening to the radio when playing "recurrents" (former big hits) to death for many, *many* months after they had peaked in popularity on the Hot 100 chart (and even months after they had fallen off the chart completely) seemed like big overkill to me, but I guess by that time the labels had figured out that playing the same 10 hits for many months was the way to maximize audience. Another song that comes to mind is Leann Rimes' "How Do I Live," which peaked at #2 in '97 but continued to constantly bombard my teenage eardrums on the local pop, AC, and Hot AC stations through '99 and maybe 2000, haha. I was just wondering if playing "recurrents" for many months after they had peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 was a common practice in the 60s through the 80s. Looks like it kind of was.