Top 40...anyone playing it?

[Danny C]

I did in the 70's. Now I play whatever the money tells me to play.

 

[LG TPAFL]

“Nothin’ but blues and Elvis, and somebody else’s favorite song…”

There's just too much static in today's top 40...

 

[Five or Six]

Nope, someone else said it here. "Play top 40 and it clears the dance floor". We still play what people dance to and want to hear. 70s, 80s and 90s classic rock. Throw in blues and upbeat country, it works and works well here.

About 3 times a year I query places we play. I want to see what music they want to hear. 99% of it comes back in those era's. Our dance floors are full, we are busy and, it pretty much tells the story. If it "ain't" broke why try to fix it?

 

[2112]

We're mostly an 80s cover band, but our catalog spans the 60s right up until today. Rock, pop, country, soul, dance, hip-hop, oldies and more. Nobody likes all songs and genres, but when you're being paid to entertain a crowd, it's not about you. Flexibility is your friend.

 

[brianrost]

I briefly played Top 40 back in the early 1980s, but I don't even know if the Top 40 exists any more. I don't listen to commercial radio any more other than hitting scan in desperation while driving Stations all seem to be siloed by genre today.

When I was a young sprout in the mid 60s, country and old folks pop (Sinatra, Dean Martin) and the occasional country crossover tune (“King of the Road”, “Harper Valley PTA”, etc.) was played alongside Beatles, Motown, Herb Alpert instrumentals and Ray Stevens novelty songs. As late as 1990 I could still hear rock and soul intermixed on some stations, say Aretha and Whitney Houston side by side with Journey and Van Halen.

Today stations that aren’t just playing old music (like 60s-70s-80s-90s focused playlists) stick to a specific genre…modern country, hip-hop/R&B, Latino, hard rock/metal, smooth jazz/R&B, etc. The “Americana” stuff only seems to show up on college and public stations.

Tip: If you do want to cover modern pop, make sure your band owns an Antares Autotune box

 

[PineappleOwl]

If the Wiggles can do it, so can you.View attachment 5476537

I won't lie, I've never had a song change so drastically in my eyes (and ears) until I heard The Wiggles cover Elephant - Tame Impala.

It's just a wiggles song now, every time I hear it.

(Sorry to derail)

 

[friskinator]

"Top 40" as we used to know it does not exist anymore. There is no list of 40 current pop songs that we all collectively know.

We used to occasionally throw in something from the current Spotify top 50 in my previous wedding/event band, and it usually cleared the dance floor. Even if a song is on a current Spotify chart, there's no guarantee that people will know it.

 

[LHbassist]

"Top 40" is a bit inaccurate- as back in 1976-78, when I played in my first 'regular' top 40 band, our repertoire contained the following songs.

Oh, What A Night
Jive Talkin'
In The Still of The Night
You'll never Find
Play That Funky Music
I Only Have Eyes For You
For The Love Of Money
Brown Eyed Girl
Love's Theme
Mack The Knife
Philadelphia Freedom
You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'
Unchained Melody


The point is this- I still play in a top 40 band, doing local casinos. I STILL play some of the songs listed there, in the band right now.
Top 40 bands do not simply play the current music people are listening to. The audiences in clubs and casinos are widely varied. Ages are anywhere from legal drinking age- to the elderly. No older person really wants to hear Lizzo and most other contemporary music. If you want to be hired back, you'll need to learn what once were radio hits- now, they're 'standards.' - Play That Funky Music- is ALWAYS requested... along with "Brown- Eyed Girl"
In the 80's, I played weddings. Take a guess what we played? Everything from Bossa Novas to jazz standards, to some songs from that list I compiled here!
There is one common thing. BEATLES. When I play any Beatles tunes in any band, I see the youngest people, and the oldest people singing along. Amazing, isn't it?

 

[Medicine Man]

You absolutely can. I use a Source Audio C4 to cop synth basslines. A keyboardist of quality helps, as does having both a Male and female singer. Having a patient drummer who can keep doing minimalist beats helps too. It also is important to not just blindly pick "top 40" song, but to research popular songs that are doable with a band and have dance potential. Or you can use background tracks.

 

[ebo]

Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s there were 3 TV stations, NBC, ABC and CBS. Everybody watched the same stuff. Top 40 was a thing on the radio. Those days are over. My band adds current songs on occasion. Like others have said, we added Flowers and it goes over pretty well. People are legitimately surprised to hear a current song mixed in with “classics”. Current songs will be classics someday, to someone.

 

[51PRI]

"Top 40" as we used to know it does not exist anymore. There is no list of 40 current pop songs that we all collectively know.

We used to occasionally throw in something from the current Spotify top 50 in my previous wedding/event band, and it usually cleared the dance floor. Even if a song is on a current Spotify chart, there's no guarantee that people will know it.

We may not "all collectively know" the Top 40 but its because many of us make the choice not to listen...I've been in bands with guys who prided themselves on never listening to "that crap"....but the Top 40 still exists. Our local station plays the countdown every Saturday morning.

 

[Relsom]

I'm not sure I'd even recognize a "Top 40" song today if you trapped me in a broke down elevator in an empty office building over a 3 day weekend with Muzak cycling them over...and over...and over.....

 

[51PRI]

I'm not sure I'd even recognize a "Top 40" song today if you trapped me in a broke down elevator in an empty office building over a 3 day weekend with Muzak cycling them over...and over...and over.....

Here's one that's hot right now...."Expresso" (mentioned above) by Sabrina Carpenter.

 

[Shenron]

Current Hot 100.
Billboard Hot 100™

I live a very sheltered life. I recognize eminem and Zach Bryan. Kendrick Lamar. I have not knowingly listened to any of this. A lot of it is made by a handful of producers. The story seems like a long time ago, but still the case.

Wow, I looked at the list and the only person there which I have listened to is Taylor Swift, and only a very few of her songs. Then there are 5-6 musicians that I know who they are, but I cannot quote a single song by them because they never interested me (although I thought about giving Billie Eilish a chance at some point).

I am so out of touch with current music I was quite up to date until the change of the century/millennium, then I moved to another country, discovered they had wonderful public libraries from where you could listen to thousands of records, and started looking totally backwards... I essentially stopped following current musicians, and invested my time listening to all the stuff of the past that I heard about but couldn't afford to buy (back when you had to buy physical releases). Streaming services made it even easier for me to go even more in that direction. Twenty years later, after being nearly totally oblivious to what had been released since 2000, I decided to investigate after hearing quite a bunch of good tunes in music games such as the Rockband series, and found that among the (for me, useless) rap and hip-hop, there are actually people still making rock, even though it's maybe lighter, not as uppercase ROCK as in previous decades, but still worth listening to: The Strokes, Greta Van Fleet, Arctic Monkeys, Interpol, Silversun Pickups, Paramore, Kings of Leon... I wouldn't put any of these on the same level as most bands of previous decades, but I still think these are 'current bands' worth listening and playing their covers to. But they are in fact nowhere near the Top40 list

I do have the same feelings as others here who said that Top40 songs are mostly played by DJs and not by cover bands. The nature of rap and hip-hop songs, as well as ultra-pop, is to have only a small "live" contribution by musicians, and most sound is programmed, making it both difficult and pointless to replicate with manually played instruments. Maybe they have a band playing on the stage while on tour, but most of the sounds don't seem to come from the band even in a gig. So people wanting to dance on those tunes either go to the original artists' concerts, or a disco dance floor where the DJ just plays the records.

There is one common thing. BEATLES. When I play any Beatles tunes in any band, I see the youngest people, and the oldest people singing along. Amazing, isn't it?

Curiously enough, I rarely see Beatles songs performed by cover bands, only tribute bands. I usually get the feeling that cover bands are a bit afraid of doing the Beatles a disservice if you cannot play them (and sing them!) really well.

 

[Andy Marshman]

Looked at the list in post #15. It's a swing-and-a-miss-for me. In fact, I don't want to be up to bat on this stuff. I recognized one title and it was a cover by Ariana Grande, whom I can't stand anyways. Yep...not my bag

 

[13bass]

I don't listen to any current "top 40" music, nor does anyone ever request any, and never hear any bands playing any. It is rare I ever play with anyone that even has one or two songs in their lists that happened after 2000, and almost never after 2010-15 or so.

 

[factory presets]

Worth noting that a lot of the current disco-pop stuff like Dua Lipa is (excellent) live bands both on record and tour. Young audiences still like to see a band onstage

Like that all the way through hip hop as well. Of course you couldn't tell old people that. What's funny is those rockers got the same intransigence from jazz guys until Miles crossed over.

 

[Altitude]

"Top 40" as we used to know it does not exist anymore. There is no list of 40 current pop songs that we all collectively know.

We used to occasionally throw in something from the current Spotify top 50 in my previous wedding/event band, and it usually cleared the dance floor. Even if a song is on a current Spotify chart, there's no guarantee that people will know it.

The current equivalent would be the Billboard Hot 100 and I bet you and I are both too old to listen to the songs on it with any regularity. I just checked and I probably do recognize about 40% of the songs, but that’s mainly because I have teenage daughters who control the playlist when we’re in the car together.

To the OP’s and your point, I think in the 80s bands like I was in could fill set lists with Prince, Lionel Richie, and Huey Lewis songs and the average club customer would know the tunes. I do play in a party rock band that peppers in current radio songs with stuff that used to be popular. It works but you have to pick the current stuff carefully to have any chance of a broad swath of people knowing it.

Every now and then an obvious cover band pick up song comes along like Uptown Funk,but that tune is suddenly ten years old and might seem ancient to young people.

 

[Bunk McNulty]

Curiously enough, I rarely see Beatles songs performed by cover bands, only tribute bands. I usually get the feeling that cover bands are a bit afraid of doing the Beatles a disservice if you cannot play them (and sing them!) really well.

My previous band. We didn't do too bad with Beatles. That's the BL's mom walking in front

 

[Danny C]

Here's one that's hot right now...."Expresso" (mentioned above) by Sabrina Carpenter.

I dig that boat. That's as far as I got. No disrespect to the song, I just gotta go now.