Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know"

[CHRles]

Also I wonder if there is any chance AC (not just Hot AC) will eventually play this song, The lyrical content is more adult than many of the CHR crossovers they add. Plus some ACs play Sting.

I think this record is bigger with 18-34 year olds than with 25-54 year olds, which is one of the reasons some CHRs were a bit late adding this one, or reluctant to play it in all dayparts. Right now only one station on the AC panel is playing Gotye, but it's an influential station - KVIL 103.7 Lite FM out of Dallas.

I'm kinda amused and thrilled by the fact that both Fun's "We Are Young" and Gotye's record are testing better with younger demos. That's likely the reason why you're seeing these songs being accepted on a number of prominent Top 40/Rhythm stations. This is a big change from the Pop/Rock Nickleback records of the past decade where the opposite was true, and the songs usually tested better with Adults first.

It's great to finally see some Rock songs that really speak to a new generation of Pop listeners, and where the lyrics resonate with them. The same is true for the latest Pop/Rock release from Train, "Drive By", where they acknowledge terms like "Go viral".
I think artists and radio stations  got a bit of a shake-up following the success of songs like "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster The People, and seeing the huge callout for Adele on CHR.

[Jay F]

Interesting @CHRles I'm in the mid-upper range of 25-54 and love both the Gotye and Fun songs. OTOH I didn't care for Nickleback or any of the bands that sounded like them.

 In the Nickleback era I wanted CHR to be as rhythmic as possible. But today I enjoy hearing these non-rhythmic songs in the mix. Maybe it's because acts like Gotye and Fun sound fresh, they don't have that generic pop-rock guitar sound  Nickleback and soundalikes had. 

[XCountry285]

I miss it with music by Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, etc on the charts. Nickelback everything sounds the same. I'm glad bands like Fun. and Gotye are doing well at CHRs. Hopefully they can score some more hits unlike Foster The People. Sadly they didn't do anything else after Pumped Up Kicks that made a dent.

[carolinaradio]

I miss it with music by Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, etc on the charts. Nickelback everything sounds the same. I'm glad bands like Fun. and Gotye are doing well at CHRs. Hopefully they can score some more hits unlike Foster The People. Sadly they didn't do anything else after Pumped Up Kicks that made a dent.

Guitar-driven rock is still absent.  The closest there's really been was "Beekeeper's Daughter" by the Rejects, but it really wasn't that great of a track.  I don't like Nickelback, either.  Everything with them is the same thing, agree.

[atlantaboy]

I miss it with music by Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, etc on the charts. Nickelback everything sounds the same. I'm glad bands like Fun. and Gotye are doing well at CHRs. Hopefully they can score some more hits unlike Foster The People. Sadly they didn't do anything else after Pumped Up Kicks that made a dent.

Guitar-driven rock is still absent. 

I still think that's because kids equate guitar-rock with their parents - every generation needs something new/completely different from what their parents listened to

BTW I don't buy that everything by Nickelback sounds the same, any more than everything by Katy Perry sounds the same - that's just something people say about music they don't like, or can't get into ("all country sounds the same," "all rap sounds the same" etc.)

I guarantee you everyone that posted that "all Nickelback songs sound the same" never liked them from the start

[Jay F]

I can tell some Nickleback songs from each other."Gotta Be Somebody" sounds like Def Leppard to me (maybe because Mutt Lange was the producer).

The one artist where all the songs truly sound the same to me is Daughtry. I can't tell which song it is until the chorus is sung.

[Josh C.]

Their CHR's, Hot AC's, and talkers are the only formats I've ever heard anything negative about, really - they must do rock, classic hits, country, and Urban somewhat decently..

Hate to dredge this back up again, but I haven't been here in forever.  Have you done a before/after comparison on WWWW between when Clear Channel owned it and Cumulus owned it?  Night and day... and not for the better.

As for the track, I personally love it.  I hear a bit of Sting, I hear a LOT of Peter Gabriel and a little Peter Cetera in there, too.  I haven't found very many people who don't like it.  I've gotta side with Jay, as well.  The only Nickelback-style group I've enjoyed has been Shinedown, and they haven't gotten a whole lot of traction with anything recent.

The thing about these tracks (Gotye, Fun. and others) is that they're putting more variety into the mix.  This format gets so burned out on one sound in one era, and we wonder why listenership starts trending downward when people get sick of it and we still haven't moved on.  One-genre formats have a bad tendency toward that.  We're SUPPOSED to be Contemporary HIT Radio... meaning the biggest hits from ALL genres.  There would be a lot less listener burnout if we actually DID that instead of rigidly spinning the hottest unt-sss-unt-sss-unt-sss track 74 times in a given week.

[carolinaradio]

No, I'm not a big Nickelback fan.  I don't care much for their "sound."  I'm especially burned on "Far Away" and "Photograph" still to this day from listening to the AC.  Our Hot AC used to play them to death also. 

But Daughtry is worse - "Home" "Feels Like Tonight", "No Surprise", "What About Now"...almost indistinguishable until the chorus, I agree absolutely.  I actually used to like them a lot back in the day.

[carolinaradio]

I'm still not hearing much of this on WFBC in Greenville, a lot of the plays must be at night - I see they're playing it 26x/week - but then again, this station's become so slow with rotating new stuff ("Wild Ones", "Starships", and "Part Of Me" just in the 20's, "Rumour Has It" nowhere to be found) and plays the same exhausted powers for so long, that I'm not surprised....

WFBC as CHR plays the remix, but WMYI as Hot AC plays the original.

[CatCall]

WPOI plays the remix and WFLZ is playing the regular version. The battle in the Tampa market continues...LOL