It isn't just radio programmers who are frustrated with current music product lately. One of the more surprising findings in Alan Burns and Associates and the Cumulus Media/Westwood One AudioActive Group®’s "What Women Want" was how large the agreement was with this statement: "Today's music is generally not as good as it was years ago."

You’d expect to see that with older people and fans of Classic Rock and Classic Hits, but the sentiment was widespread across all format cumes and all ages/generations. 64% of Generation Z, the youngest respondents agreed, while 61% of the oldest - Boomers - saluted it.

We see that sentiment showing up also in the reaction to the Top 40 music montages that we tested. This year we see Top 40 Gold– songs like High Hopes, We Found Love, Yeah, etc. - tied with Current/Recurrent Pop for the number one slot with the total audience, number one by a nose with Top 40’s cume, and #1 by a larger margin with the heaviest listeners. That's a surprise.

Another sign of stagnation: Only two artists – Post Malone and The Weeknd - have broken into the top 20 ranking of Top 40 and Hot AC listeners’ favorite artists in the last seven years.

Labels and radio have always had different goals, but for most of top 40's history (as well as that of Country, Hot AC, and Urban formats), those interests were somewhat aligned: radio gave music exposure, and labels paid attention to what radio needed.

Lately, though, what's selling and/or streaming and what appeals to mass audiences has diverged more, with the music industry logically and understandably following sales and streams rather than what works for radio in music testing.

Radio needs to build mass, but the music industry can be profitable with a narrower audience. For example,  Taylor Swift's best-selling album so far is Fearless at 7.3 million copies worldwide. 7.3 million represents only .005% of the global English-speaking population. Swift’s 1989-Taylor's Version sold 2 million in the US alone. 2 million's a nice number, but it's only .006% of the American population. 7 million and 2 million are great sales numbers, and everybody made money. But radio can't make money on those numbers... how would your boss feel if you only managed a .005 or .006 cume rating?

It's ironic, isn't it, that radio has probably never fallen more in line with label agendas and goals than it is now, at a time when it feels like we need to be striking out on our own and finding better, more appropriate product. We can't manufacture it, but we can certainly look past label priorities. Here's an example: odds are that while "Fortnite" is the label/artist's choice for the first single off of Taylor's Tortured Poets album, "I Can Do It With A Broken Heart" may wind up being a bigger single... whenever it's finally worked by the label. By that time, though, it will be old news for Taylor Swift fans. Is that what we want to be calling "new music"?

A word of caution here: while women generally agree that music is not as good as it used to be, they still also tell us that discovering new music is very important to them. Let's find the best new music, regardless of whether it's currently being "worked."  Reaching back into Top 40’s history, there was a time when stations went looking for and played great album cuts, and even created their own versions of songs.

There have been a few recent signs of possible improvement in current pop music; let’s hope those keep showing up – the audience is asking for better product.

Did you miss the “What Women Want” webinar, or have more questions about the results and what they mean?  We’d be happy to share findings with you – just email alan@burnsradio.com or jeff@burnsradio.com