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Music Cycle 2023 Year Four of The Doldrums and How We Got Here – Part 1

Once again, this year, legendary programmer and consultant Guy Zapoleon is happy to share his updated Music Cycles article with All Access. This week, in Part 1 of a three-part series, Zapoleon talks about the effect that the current Doldrums Cycle is having on radio, especially at the Top 40 format. His candid observations about the format not “reflecting the most popular songs” is a must-read.

Well, I do not think it is any surprise to anyone that we’re in The Doldrums of the Music Cycle, but as I stated early last year, “We’re in the ‘worst music Doldrums’ in history and certainly the worst for radio itself.”

Music Cycle 2022
Usually, the hallmarks of The Doldrums are that you see more AC, usually less Pop, more Country and often a little more Rock than average. This had happened in each Doldrums phase for 40 years. But this changed beginning with The Doldrums of 2004, with Top 40 radio concerned about a 90s Doldrums that saw the loss of over 500 stations.

Knowing this downturn for the format was partly due to an avoidance of Pop music, Top 40 began to over-focus on it and asked labels to produce more of it. So, Top 40 radio tried to force a new reality on the percentage of music it played over the next two decades where it spun Pop music so much that it was as much as 2/3 of the most spun songs of the year. Doing that created a pattern of forcing Pop music in tough times when it was harder to find Pop hits. That meant that HipHop and R&B, AC, Alternative and Country hits, which made the Billboard’s Year End Top 100 from other formats, were being avoided by Top 40, a practice that damaged its hit factor, variety, and its expectation of genre variety by listeners and over time, diminishing the number of fans to the format.

I will show the numbers below after a quick refresher course on the Music Cycle and the signs that show we’re in The Doldrums.

Doldrums is the last of 3 phases of the 10-year music cycle, and in any given 10-year music cycle, The Doldrums is worst phase for music and music’s gatekeeper – Top 40 radio.

The Music Cycle is composed of three phases that have repeated every 10 years since 1956, where the balance of core styles differs from phase to phase.

Birth/Pop Phase
Plenty of Pop hits, plus Rock and HipHop/R&B are more Pop, more melodic.

Extremes
Moves toward the edges, away from Pop, and Top 40’s ratings begin to dip.

Doldrums
Mainstream Top 40’s R&B and Rock edges soften and much of Rock and R&B music hits are being avoided from play, entirely. Mainstream Top 40 ratings dip even more.

What brings back The Rebirth Phase, which is when a new Cycle happens, when a genre or an artist or a music platform brings about another change in music.

• Music Cycle #1 1956 Artists: Elvis
• Music Cycle #2 1964 Artists: The Beatles
• Music Cycle #3 1974 The Albums: Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder
• Music Cycle #4 1984 Platform + Artists – MTV and its generation of artists
• Music Cycle #5 1997 Platform: The Internet and Napster allowing for free music and trading files
• Music Cycle #6 2005 Platform: American Idol
• Music Cycle #7 2015 Platform: Technology: Mobile Phone and Streaming Music

So, what are the factors that cause the shift in music phases during the music cycle? One factor is the differences in generations. Each generation wants something they can call their own as they mature – little sister never wants the same music that big sister or (heaven forbid) Mom/Dad are into. Music is driven by the leading-edge listeners who adopt what is hot today; and what’s hot today is yesterday’s news in a few years. So, the Cycle repeats as each generation demands its own style of music (even if it’s still a form of Rock, Pop or R&B or Country).

What else causes music to move through these phases? People argue that the dominant music platform i.e., the gatekeeper radio (and now) streaming platforms have a choice and can control the Music Cycle, so that the overall music balance you hear does not need to go through the Extremes or the Doldrums and can always stay balanced as it does during the Birth/Rebirth phase. These Music Cycle cynics believe that the music cycle itself is not real and under human control … but it’s really not! Yes, they can cause the intensity of the Extremes or the Doldrums to be more pronounced or less so but they can’t control the ebb and flow of the popular genres and songs that listeners love. The changes from one phase to the next and finally to the rebirth of a brand-new Music Cycle are simply based on human nature.

2022 Popularity Charts Vs Top 40 Airplay
Top 40 is stuck in a rut and NOT reflecting the most popular songs as Year End charts for Top 40 Airplay Vs Year end charts for the popularity have about 50% duplication, meaning Top 40 is playing 50% of the most popular hits. There are lots of hits from other genres that could be played, but Top 40 remains too focused on pure Pop and Dance with some Hip/Hop R&B and some Rock, Country, and AC when so much more of Country and AC/Hot AC as well as a little more Rock could be played, as they are reflected in larger proportions on the Billboard Year End Charts
2022 marks the biggest departure of Top 40 airplay from the popularity charts (Billboard). We see a drop we’ve not seen in over a decade, from the Pop + Hip Hop’s dominance and the largest proportion of non-Pop music. since the 80s. It also marks the biggest percentage of Country hits of all times with 26% a number and a 21% average so far in the 2020s.

Here are some key takeaways!

• 2022 marks the all-time lowest duplication between Top 40 airplay chart and the Billboard Year End chart at 46%. Extraordinarily low when you look back to 2010 and before that where the duplication was 80% or higher
• R&B/HipHop lowest percentage in a decade on Billboard 24% (avg since 2010 is 37%) and first time in a decade where Top 40 airplay was greater for that genre vs popularity/Billboard at 26%
• AC/Country/Rock + Latin for 2023 highest in a decade for Billboard at 48%, 2010s (23%) and highest since the 90s (31%), while Top 40 airplay is still only 19%
• Pop which has averaged at 30% historically on Billboard’s Year End popularity charts drops slightly to 28% (avg since 2010 is 37% highest since the 1960s) And it still remains double that in top 40 airplay at 55% (down slightly from 2021)
• Dance songs were up to 24% for Top 40 airplay the highest percentage since the mid-2010s

First published by AllAccess. Read original here