Interesting Thread on Pulse Music Board

[Scott Lakefield]

Just came across a thread entitled "What's the Problem With AT40 with Ryan Seacrest?" on the Pulse Music Board. Some very interesting comments there, and I thought I'd post a link to that discussion here. Check it out if you're interested:

pulsemusic.proboards48.com/index.cgi?board=pop&action=display&thread=64047

And, for what it's worth...I agree with the posters over there who feel that the problem with AT40 circa 2008 ISN'T Ryan Seacrest. He's a good host. The problem is what the format has become. I get the idea of bringing the show into 2008. I even get the idea of replacing Casey as host. I don't get the idea of taking the focus off of the music and the countdown.

[mkarns]

I agree with the general thrust of what many are saying there. I like Seacrest, and while many of us may be AT40 traditionalists I can see where the format might have needed some tweaking and updating. My only complaint with his announcing is that he should announce the song title and artist at the start and finish of each song; too many "No Nuttin's" in which, for example, the jingle "Number 18" plays and then the song, which he doesn't ID until the end.

But I'd like the show better if it concentrated solely on music, as Casey and Shadoe usually did; some interviews with others are fine, but I think that on a countdown show they should relate to the chart or music, not to a nonmusical actor hyping their latest movie or TV show. As it is, AT40 today too often resembles "Access Hollywood" with musical interludes.

(I didn't mind the "Dees' Sleaze" gossip segments of Rick Dees' countdown, but that's a relatively small part of his show.)

[easye]

Personally, Seacrest does nothing for me. He is there because of name recognition, though I suppose that is very important. Of course if it were my decision, I would reinstated Casey Kasem. Since that realistically will not happen, I would instead select Chuck Taylor who used to do a web-based "Billboard Radio Countdown". Naturally, the show would be Billboard-based. He would satisfy old Casey fans because his show would feature chart trivia & tidbits. Plus, he is knows enough about artists/music industry so the audience would not need to hear anything non-musical.

Unfortunately most people have never heard of him, so they might never tune in. Plus, the masses are probably could care less if a song sets a chart record.

[MEF]

I'm not really a Seacrest fan myself. However, I understand to give AT40 alive into the next generation, Seacreat probably was the best fit for the next generation for AT40.

I agree with mkarns comments, AT40 should stick to the music. Lately, AT40 been for someone who needs a plug. The interviews with the guests are plugging a movie, TV show or even a book. I remember Anderson Cooper from CNN was plugging his book on AT40. Anderson does a fine job on CNN. However, he works in news. His book, if I recall, had nothing to do with music.

Sometimes, the guest host for Ryan is there for constant plugging. Steve Carell filled in for Ryan earlier this year. The purpose, to plug the movie GET SMART. Even in the GET SMART movie, Ryan has a cameo. Maxwell Smart is listening to AT40 on the radio. Thus, it cross plugging.

AT40 also sounds like KISS FM from Los Angeles going national. The AT40 voice sound bits are the same voices from KISS FM.

[jedijake]

Seems to me that American Top 40 is not really a countdown show but rather a collection of songs. It's a radio show and a playlist that plays as a background to a Ryan Seacrest media cirus. It may as well be a "On the Radio" show.

Positions of songs on charts don't mean much and haven't meant much since songs spent 25-50 weeks on the chart. It almost seems like a random collection of songs from the past year-every week.

[laura]

I used to listen to the whole AT40 show with Ryan but now it just gets redundant and some of the songs I don't really like anyway. If they just don't play so much rap and talk about anything but the music industry, then I might take a listen again.

[jedijake]

There's really nothing compelling about the countdowns once songs stayed on there forever. When you can miss 4 or 5 weeks with little change, the charts mean very little.

The AT40 Hot AC chart would be very fun to listen to because there's some great music out there. However, with little change in the chart from week to week, there has to be more fluff. That's why it's more about what Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are doing in their free time rather than that music on the survey. You can only say so much about the songs when you have the same songs on the chart month after month.

[mkarns]

Sept 28, 2008 22:47:35 GMT -5 MEF said:

Lately, AT40 been for someone who needs a plug. The interviews with the guests are plugging a movie, TV show or even a book.

Sometimes, the guest host for Ryan is there for constant plugging. Steve Carell filled in for Ryan earlier this year. The purpose, to plug the movie GET SMART. Even in the GET SMART movie, Ryan has a cameo. Maxwell Smart is listening to AT40 on the radio. Thus, it cross plugging.

Another example of this: Ryan will be taking this coming weekend (1/3-4/09) off from AT40; filling in will be Brody Jenner, who heads the new show "Bromance", a product of...Ryan Seacrest Productions! ;D

[upland1425]

Dec 30, 2008 16:05:25 GMT -5 mkarns said:

Another example of this: Ryan will be taking this coming weekend (1/3-4/09) off from AT40; filling in will be Brody Jenner, who heads the new show "Bromance", a product of...Ryan Seacrest Productions! ;D

Brody Jenner is here

www.mediabase.com/USATODAYPDF/MBUSATODAY.pdf

[jedijake]

It's apparent that the show is about the media and the Hollywood life rather than about what AT40 was originally intended, the popularity of the music itself (gee, what a concept).

But when you have statements from Billboard publications saying that the charts are for the business only and have nothing to do with entertainment, what do you expect?

[pzimm7700]

Dec 31, 2008 10:04:23 GMT -5 jedijake said:

It's apparent that the show is about the media and the Hollywood life rather than about what AT40 was originally intended, the popularity of the music itself (gee, what a concept).

But when you have statements from Billboard publications saying that the charts are for the business only and have nothing to do with entertainment, what do you expect?

Well, Billboard has pretty much always run their business model towards that concept. Why is it so shocking they said it? How many average Joe's working in an office making $30K a year are going to plunk down $300-$400 for a magazine sub per year?

[MEF]

Heres one thing on the current AT40 that bugs me. All the interviews on AT40 and latest AT40 news should be placed on the AT40 website after the show airs. Instead, Ryan tells you to go to his website. Has AT40 gotten lost in Ryan's empire?

[robert]

I would put it in a different way, let the AT40 with Ryan be as it is. However, is there really such a small target group of audience in the States for at least a HAC countdown show such as AT20 that would be really about music and artists and music related trivia in Casey's style?

I'm 39, I grew up listening to Casey and AT40 and continued with AT20 and AT10 until his final sign-off last year, but I would probably be listening to Ryan, Mike, Shadoe or anyone else as long as if the show would be about the music and the songs and the acts.

I'm not that surprised that AT40 has a format that is for a completely different audience to understand it, not for me anymore (Ya we're getting older) - just I would be quite happy with the HAC hits and maybe some last century oldies (AT20 or AT10 style) provided the script of the show is right for my ears. And that's what I miss from time to time because while I could name almost every tune that made the Top 40 in the 80's and 90's and partly in the 70's, since Casey's shows had ended I really have gotten out of touch with today's music. And Hollywood gossips are really not my cup of coffee, in fact, I have never heard the whole show with Ryan Seacrest - but not so much because of Ryan as owing to the current show format.

[mkarns]

May 30, 2010 23:55:09 GMT -5 MEF said:

Heres one thing on the current AT40 that bugs me. All the interviews on AT40 and latest AT40 news should be placed on the AT40 website after the show airs. Instead, Ryan tells you to go to his website. Has AT40 gotten lost in Ryan's empire?

Not to mention the online song voting that now is said to play a part in the songs' AT40 ranking (IMO it shouldn't, but that's another discussion.) Ryan tells us to go to his site and vote; why not to the AT40 site? (Speaking of the AT40 site, there's now a feature there in which they remember a year from the 70s or 80s, with Billboard's top 10 hits from that year listed; at least they haven't forgotten their past.)

I wouldn't say the show is getting "lost" among his activities, but it sometimes feels like just an extra episode of the weekday "On Air With Ryan Seacrest". This occurred to me listening to this week's broadcast, as he neglected to give the positions of several top 10 songs. Yet by the time he neared the top of the chart he was giving the sort of chart facts and trivia (such as the fact that there have been only three British acts that have hit #1 this century, accompanied by pieces of the relevant hits) that we'd expect from Casey's classic shows. Perhaps during the break someone reminded him that this was AT40 and not On-Air?

[jedijake]

What's really happened to AT40 isn't the fault of Ryan or how the show is done. That's inevitable because you are going to need someone who is more "hip" for the times.

The problem is the whole concept of a music chart. That obviously began to die in 1992 when the Hot 100 began to become less relevant to the radio. Then when R&R got worse and worse (in the 2000's) with chart movement, it became more of a problem. When songs remained on the charts forever, there HAD to be something else to a music countdown show other than the countdown itself. Otherwise, it would be the same show week after week due to a lack of movement. Instead, they will base it on when Lindey Lohan went into rehab or when Tiger Woods admitted to adultery.

With HAC becoming more popular and pop music becoming MUCH more limited in its audience, the entire structure of the pop music/radio scene has become completely lost. In other words, there's no concept of songs moving up and down charts, in popularity, etc. The success of songs in general has become extremely ambiguous and rather obsolete. Nobody can truly say what song is number one and that fact has become the standard.

It's weird that something so standard as the pop music chart, which had been a musical institution for 40+ years really has absolutely NO meaning whatsoever to today's youth. They will never live in a world where they can say what the number one song in a particular week was or even relate most periods of time to a particular hit.