“It doesn’t have to be old to be a Classic.” At one time, that liner frequently played next to new songs from Classic artists on Classic Rock stations. That’s going back to when the format and the artists were younger. There was a lot of new music being released by the format’s core acts. Conventional wisdom was that playing these songs helped keep stations with a gold-based playlist sounding contemporary.
Over time, the prevailing wisdom changed. With the advent of Nielsen’s PPM system, the idea of turning a spotlight on new music from Classic Rockers became less appealing. With ratings tracked on a minute-by-minute basis, and every element being scrutinized by programmers for potential tune-out, playlists were tightened, and new, unfamiliar songs were elbowed out.
But what makes sense for stations today when it comes to new music from Classic artists? With the advent of streaming, social media, and other distribution channels, radio is no longer the gatekeeper of what listeners hear.
It used to be that if stations didn’t acknowledge new songs from Classic artists, most consumers would never encounter them. It didn’t seem like stations were missing anything. That’s no longer true.
Which brings us to today, where a new Sammy Hagar song, “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight,” and a new Alice Cooper song, “Black Mamba,” both recently landed on Program Directors’ desks. Each of these has an interesting backstory.
Hagar’s song is a tribute to Eddie Van Halen, expressing his gratitude for the time the two played together. Alice Cooper’s new song is the first from an album that brings together all the surviving members of his original band for the first time in fifty years.
That’s a lot of great content for stations that are trying to sound contemporary while playing songs ranging from twenty-five to sixty years old. On the other hand, these aren’t exactly core artists. According to Mediabase, in 2024, Alice Cooper was the 78th most played artist at the format, and Sammy Hagar ranked 119.
To get some perspective about playing new songs from Classic Rock artists, I spoke with Program Directors and record label people about these projects.
Gary Jay, Founder and CEO of Landshark Promotion Studio, who is working Alice Cooper to radio, is quite passionate about Classic Rock stations embracing opportunities like these, saying it makes the stations more interesting and vibrant. “I can stream my Spotify commercial-free 24/7,” says Jay. “That means Classic Rock stations better offer something more compelling than 40 songs in rotation and 15 minutes of commercials every hour.”
Working with Sammy Hagar, Allison Smith, VP Promotion for Big Machine Records, points out that these projects don’t just appear in a vacuum. As the Hagar song got to radio, he was also launching a residency in Las Vegas and had feature stories lined up with several major publications.
That sort of attention makes it much harder for Classic Rock stations to ignore the release and, in this case, led to several of the big radio chains setting up special features to highlight the song on release.
Talking to David Moore, OM for Hubbard Phoenix, who oversees 100.7 KSLX, he says it’s very much a case-by-case basis for songs like this. For example, Alice Cooper lives in Phoenix, and 100.7 KSLX carries his syndicated show at night. With Cooper promoting his new song heavily on social media, the station would be missing out by not giving the song a few spins while it was topical and timely.
In the case of Sammy Hagar, Moore says he has always struggled to get good research scores on any Hagar song, so we he was far less inclined to play the song. He did, however, arrange for an interview with afternoon host Karen Dalessandro. The entire interview will be available online, and Dalessandro will feature a few short clips on the air. That’s when she will play the song.
At 95.7 The Fox FM in Fresno, Director of FM Programming Jason Squires says they did acknowledge both songs on air with host content, but focused even more on social media and online posts. “It was a solid way to try to engage with the audience on those platforms. Online exclusives, so to speak, mostly on Facebook, which is where we see the KJFX audience engaging the most.”
In my humble opinion, stations can’t ignore new releases from the remaining, vibrant Classic Rock artists. Engagement through digital outlets and social media is the minimum requirement for keeping your station contemporary and respecting the listeners who love these artists.
Airplay is a more difficult question, but if the song is good, finding the right opportunities to play it — adjacent to clips of an interview with the artist, as the second song in a two-for-Tuesday block, as part of a music news feature – can have a lot of value.
But it’s crucial that those plays are properly set up and the song is introduced by a host. These songs can’t just come and go between other records. Then they are no longer a station benefit, just one more unfamiliar song.
So, to answer the question, no, it doesn’t have to be old to be a Classic. But it does have to be old to be in regular rotation.
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Mike Stern is a Classic Rock columnist for Barrett Media. He has been with Jacobs Media consulting stations in the Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative and AAA world for more than a decade. Prior to that he programmed stations in Chicago, Detroit, Denver Las Vegas and other markets. He also worked as News/Talk Editor for Radio and Records, wrote about Top 40 Radio for Billboard Magazine and had his own radio talent coaching business called Talent Mechanic.
The word “classic” does not mean “old”. That would mean depending on your age; classic would fall into several time frames or eras…which would be WRONG. The world classic, to put it simply means “high quality”. When it comes to music, a classic song is a song that “withstands the test of time” no matter the release date.