Pop songs with lyrics tailored to your local radio station

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These are so horrible! They have the artist like re-record all the vocals but with random shoutouts to the radio station sprinkled throughout the song. The biggest local hip-hop station (and of course that's the only genre that ever seems to do this), B96 has a few of these. It sucks 'cause then they never play the original, they always play the altered one. I know they have one for "Work It", and also for "Ignition", and I think I've heard a couple other ones too. How do they convince artists to do this? Is it a Clear Channel thing? Like, "re-record your song as an advertisement for our station or we won't play your music", or is it just money? And do they do different versions for every major market in the nation? LA, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, etc. people, you have these too, don't you?

― Dan I., Wednesday, 23 April 2003 17:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I really like these. Esp. when rappers have to fit Regina into their rhymes.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I dislike them mostly for the same reasons I tend to hate live versions of things. I tend to think of a song as being in the actual recording rather than lyrics or melody or anything. Once the artist has produced that recording, it's no longer in their hands. If they play the song again (live or rerecorded or whatever), it's like they're covering themselves. I don't have a problem with remixes cause the material they work with is usually the actual recording rather than the more abstract components of what a song is supposed to be.

― Dan I., Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I hate this, too. The first time I heard one of these was on B96, but since I don't listen to a whole lotta Top 40, I wasn't sure if it was a "remake" or a whole new song composed especially for B96. Then I heard "Work It" on Power 92, with shout-outs to Power 92 scattered throughout. All right, whatever. But my biggest fear is that these will start to replace ACTUAL SONGS on the radio. Why play the original Missy track at all when you can use one that simultaneously promotes the station?

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:23 (twenty-two years ago)

(It wouldn't be so bad if these were just 30-second ads. But they're WHOLE SONGS.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I love these so much.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I like how Missy Elliot recorded a version of work it for B96 where she basically adds a verse and some ad-libbing to the beginning of the song, "B96 will reverse it/those other stations they're just worthless." Then I turn the channel to 103.5 and there's Missy singing, "103.5 will reverse it/those other stations they're just worthless." She's two-timing!

― 4mateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, that's the same one she does for Power 92! Can WGCI be far behind?

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Sterling, tell us why you like 'em, or I'm gonna think you're just being contrarian.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:44 (twenty-two years ago)

At WESU we had a Jay-Z promo.

― 4mateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Sterling just likes to disgaree...

― Scott Kos (Scott Kos), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:49 (twenty-two years ago)

No! I think he's contrarian!

― 4mateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Doesn't it all kind of have a "Most Photographed Barn in America" vibe? Like: It's a radio station that plays songs about how great the radio station is. And why is it great? Because it plays those songs.

Here's a question, though: Do you think this kinda thing flies more on Top 40/hip-hop stations, where the "integrity" of the artist seems less important to fans than on rock radio? (Or at least, "integrity" in hip-hop is not defined by anti-commercialism in the same way it is in rock.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 18:58 (twenty-two years ago)

"Integrity" in hip-hop has the same definition as in rock/indie circles, when it comes to not wanting the music to be "corrupted" or co-opted by "outsiders" and rendered toothless by too much mainstream exposure. The difference is when it comes to product endorsements/shout-outs to material gain and wealth. A rapper flashing his jewelry and name-dropping Cristal is obviously adhering to one of the central themes of modern hip-hop: "Look at me -- Look what I came up from. Even though I never forget where I came from -- I'm gonna take advantage of all this wealth and glitz and glamour that people like me were never supposed to have, were never able to take for granted". Plus, all the Sprite commercials and whatever else that some rappers do is, I think, a means of gloating pride in just how large a part of American culture hip-hop has become. Clearly, rappers enjoy their influence spreading to Suburban Vanilla-Land, but as long as they don't feel that their culture is being softened or compromised for big white bucks, then everything is okay. Obviously, some members of the hip-hop community feel uneasy about the long-term effects of the 14 year-old girls who buy Eminem's CDs solely for this reason...

OK, that's probably all a little off the point, but oh, well... :-)

― Scott Kos (Scott Kos), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 19:24 (twenty-two years ago)

WTF the "adult album alternative" station does this stuff too.

― 4mateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 19:33 (twenty-two years ago)

This is how long it's been since I've even listed to radio on a regular basis: This is the first I've heard of this practice...

― Scott Kos (Scott Kos), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 19:34 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess that's what I figured, Scott (about integrity, that is). So I guess my question is -- That said, what are the chances of this kind of thing happening on modern-rock radio? (e.g., Limp Bizkit saying "I did it all for Q101, Q101, cuz I like to have fun!") Slim? Or is the Clear Channel Empire unstoppable?

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 19:38 (twenty-two years ago)

4mateurist -- What station? And with whom?

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 19:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm cynical enough to say that the chances are pretty high. I mean, not much would surprise me now, in terms of corporate disregard for the slightest notion that music may have some intrinsic value besides sales and ratings... I'll still never forget hearing The Stooges' "1969" in some phone-company commercial years ago, to illustrate that their rates were being turned back to what they were in '69. I just don't imagine it as being that long before SOME bands cave in, rationalizing it by saying, "oh, it's just a fun radio jingle thing... everyone knows it's not the real version"...

― Scott Kos (Scott Kos), Wednesday, 23 April 2003 19:47 (twenty-two years ago)

these sound funny to me. i'd like to hear some.

and i don't think it would really wreck something like, say, "ignition" if the lyrics were re-written with station shout outs. i mean, i love the song but r. kelly lyrics are totally foolish/bad to begin with. so many good songs have such shitty lyrics i don't even want to think about them, y'know?

er... so, yeah, i understand your points but so much rap/r&b is already littered with product placement - however unpaid the endorsements may be - that you might not even suspect one of these was a re-write if you hadn't heard the original.

well, maybe that's a stretch...

i haven't even heard these things so why am i commenting?

blablabl-blabla.

rock songs doing it would be even funnier.

― brian badword (badwords), Thursday, 24 April 2003 04:58 (twenty-two years ago)

in fact, somebody do a c90 for this and send me a copy.

― brian badword (badwords), Thursday, 24 April 2003 05:05 (twenty-two years ago)

When the Giants were Superbowl-bound but hadn't blown it yet, some Bay Area station used to play Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me with Science", but with "Giants" dubbed over all the shouted "Science" bits. So Mr. Thomas Morgan Dolby Robertson himself, apparently a big Giants fan, whipped up a new version with cheerleading-for-the-Giants lyrics in place of the original stuff. Sadly, it also featured a pretty drab sequencer-file-I-spent-20-minutes-on backing track that only underscored how brilliant his programming/arranging used to be back in the day. Even on that "novelty" track, which was hardly his greatest moment.

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Thursday, 24 April 2003 05:12 (twenty-two years ago)

"that novelty track" = the original "She Blinded Me", not the Giants thing

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Thursday, 24 April 2003 05:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I actually wrote about this all the way back on my P&J ballot for the voice:

And by the way, "Work It" isn't the second coming but its promotion is -- "custom" mixes for like every "urban" station in the wide nation with fresh verses on each about how "them other stations all is worthless/don't know how to work it" and even better, thanks to Clearchannel, they're all the same station anyway! But the people get what they want, and they get Missy tellin' em how right they is, and I'd call her a hypocrite but my rap heroes this year are the ones above the battle -- too many petty penny-ante throwdowns and the winner usually is the one with the fake-authentic "one with the microphone" child of the Pharaoh cop.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 24 April 2003 06:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Sterling, B96 was doing this with Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam back in the eighties. But maybe it's a revival I dunno.

― 4mateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 24 April 2003 06:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Huey Lewis added various region specific shoutouts to the radio versions of "The Heart of Rock n Roll", and this practice goes back alot further than that

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 24 April 2003 06:56 (twenty-two years ago)

hmm...The Who were “talkin’ ‘bout my radio station” as far back as 1967.

― aeon, Thursday, 24 April 2003 15:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah it was just cool coz power 92, b96 and wgci ALL had "custom" missy mixes and when i visited LA there were at least two "custom" mixes there.

It was fucking massive.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 24 April 2003 18:20 (twenty-two years ago)

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