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FYI

Is Billie Eilish Forcing Radio To Change?

The following is an opinion piece published this week in the US online trade publication

Is Billie Eilish Forcing Radio To Change?

By External Source

The following is an opinion piece published this week in the US online trade publication Hits Daily Double.

Our only national Top 40 station has thrown down the gauntlet. Kid Kelly’s decision to add three singles from Darkroom/Interscope’s Billie Eilish simultaneously at SiriusXM’s Hits 1 is, as far as we know, unprecedented for any Pop format—and an index of how radically the music world is changing.


Adding three tracks from any artist would be extraordinary, let alone an act who’s never had a hit before and never had callout.

Multiple songs by one act can blow up on the streaming platforms, and it doesn’t matter if the artist in question has had hits before. But radio has been another matter—at least until now. Republic’s killer promo staff has worked scrupulously to get two records on the air at a time from stars like Ariana Grande and Post Malone. They’ve done a yeoman’s job. But this happened only after these artists were already proven successes at Pop.

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Billie is huge, and she’s only getting bigger. So maybe the callout problems her songs have been facing deserve about the same consideration as the callout that said “Shallow” from A Star Is Born wasn’t a hit. The callout is wrong.

Maybe both the callout research companies and the consultants who tell stations to be tighter and later are the ones who need to adjust.

It’s a new day. No Kidding.

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Carole Pope and Kevan Staples of Rough Trade
Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame

Carole Pope and Kevan Staples of Rough Trade

FYI

Obituaries: Rough Trade Co-Founder Kevan Staples, Country Hall of Famer Dick Damron

This week we also acknowledge the passing of hit Memphis record producer/engineer Terry Manning and Canadian country singer Harry Rusk.

Kevan Staples, a Toronto songwriter, film and TV composer and multi-instrumentalist best known as co-founder of the adventurous Juno-winning rock band Rough Trade, died on March 23, of cancer, at the age of 75.

His creative partnership with charismatic and provocative vocalist and songwriter Carole Pope was at the heart of Rough Trade, a group that made a colourful mark on the Canadian rock scene in the late '70s and early '80s.

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