From: utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!tif Newsgroups: net.music Title: Re: Most Requested Rock Article-I.D.: unc.3955 Posted: Sat Sep 11 21:50:22 1982 Received: Sun Sep 12 03:18:59 1982 I was not surprised that all of the most requested songs were old and long. Indeed, it would have been surprising if such were not the case. Consider: What songs are most likely to be *requested* - meaning, what songs will inspire actual exertion (a rare thhing indeed!) from the listening public? Answer: songs that are not likely to be played, otherwise. This leads to the bias towards older, longer music. Radio stations exist to squeeze as many ads into an hour as they possibly can. They are not going to play "Stairway To Heaven" (duration:7:52) if they can instead run "Think I'm In Love" and three important announcements about acne medicine. Thus, if Zepplin's opus is going to be played at all, it requires outside initiative. By the same token (profits), stations will play new music to exhaustion unless they have a reason not to. New music, by and large, is what the majority of the public wants to hear (and is, naturally, what the record companies want the stations to play). It WILL BE PLAYED. "Layla", on the other hand, has not been in the public eye for ten years or so. "Eye Of The Tiger" will be heard, even if you dont WANT to hear it. Not so with "Layla" (does anyone know what happened to Derick and The Dominoes?). Thus, I dont think that these are the only records that will be requested in the future. As songs currently being hawked fade from the record playlists, they will become more requested. I hope so, anyway; I for one do not think that those oldies are any better than current songs. Time will tell.