There is encouragement for Top 40 radio, and radio overall, in Top 40’s last near-extinction-level-event. In 1993-94, the format was upstaged by Hip-Hop/R&B, by the “new rock revolution” at Alternative radio, and by the Country radio that both listeners and stations had fled to. In 1995, Top 40 began making its way back.
In the year before “Macarena,” and the year before the year before teen pop returned to American radio, the hits that doled out hope to Top 40 PDs every few weeks came from a few places. There were Real McCoy and Corona, helping dance ramp up for the following year’s explosion. There were Green Day and Live. There were TLC and Montell Jordan, although their hits got way less CHR airplay than you would think now. And it took two years for Top 40 to play Notorious B.I.G. at all.
In 1995, there was, in particular, a surprising amount of acoustic pop/rock from Sheryl Crow, Hootie and the Blowfish, Melissa Etheridge, Blues Traveler, and the Dave Matthews Band. (Martin Page’s “In the House of Stone and Light” went in that pile, too, at the time, although it doesn’t endure the same way.) Most had the endorsement of Alternative radio, but they also had the rootsy/folky aspects that only find an opening at pop radio at odd intervals.
The acoustic-leaning pop hitmakers of 1995 weren’t yet defined as Triple-A acts. By the end of the year, they had become Modern AC acts, as that format took shape around them. Mostly, they were the artists that helped CHR reclaim some of the listeners who had liked early ’90s country (particularly Garth Brooks) for its connection to ’70s mellow rock, something confirmed by Hootie’s Darius Rucker later landing in Country. “Only Wanna Be With You” feels like just another ’90s AC song now, but an uptempo Hootie hit after two ballads was a big deal then.
During CHR’s doldrums, I am often vulnerable to seizing on any signs of a turnaround. “Two Princes” by Spin Doctors wasn’t the record that began CHR’s turnaround in 1993. It was the song that burned beyond listenability for many at the time because Top 40 had nothing else to play for the next four years. Writing for Billboard during those years, I would pitch a trend story as soon as there were three hits of the same type to write about.
But it is interesting to look at Teddy Swims’s “Lose Control” and Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” at Nos. 1 and 2; a second Noah Kahan hit, now cracking the top 10; and Hozier’s “Too Sweet” and wonder if we are in a transition year of the sort that 1995 represented. Swims and Kahan began at Triple-A. Only the streaming success of “Eat Your Young” a year ago offered any hint that Hozier might return to Top 40 from a permanent residency there.
A year ago, the trend story was the surge of Country crossovers. In 1993-94, CHR tried to combat Country’s popularity by mostly ignoring it. Last year, with not enough hits of its own, Top 40 was willing to play Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs. By early this year, it was starting to regret that decision. “Lose Control” offers a similar raw earnestness to Jelly Roll & Lainey Wilson’s “Save Me,” the biggest current crossover title, but it doesn’t have to be shared with a bigger format.
“Too Sweet” is something else: an uptempo record, not neo-disco, already generating enough social media and streaming activity to arrive at radio as a hit. On the morning of its release, I thought “CHR could play that.” Almost immediately, KMVQ (99.7 Now) San Francisco was. It also benefits from being the song-you-didn’t-expect-from-a-particular artist. “Rolling in the Deep” was that more than a decade ago. So, recently, was “Greedy.”
April 2024 is not April 1995, when every current-based format except CHR was vital. Consolidation was already in progress, and the effects of the early-’90s recession were already being cited as part of the drive to bless it through legislation, but only Top 40’s future was in doubt, not that of radio. In 1995, not every market yet had a viable CHR again. It would take the well-financed launch of WKTU New York in 1996 to create that momentum. Could radio create a galvanizing station of that sort again?
There is one more odd parallel to 1995, though. April’s almost-hits included the intersection of Euro-dance and Country that was “Cotton Eye Joe” by Rednex. Beyoncé might well have heard that one in Houston’s clubs, but Country radio declared its interest quickly, even in Houston, where that song actually had a recent history on Country radio.
As new music struggles against the advantages of older music at the moment, galvanizing songs of any sort are encouraging as we head for May 23 and the song of summer handicap. As I write this, we will have new Taylor Swift music within hours. Having a strong suite of potential hits — already plenty of uptempo dance as well as the event of the Beyoncé album and its multiple playable songs — is good news for radio in general. What will we do with it?
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com