The Doors Of Daigle Swinging Wide Open

Soon there will be other names like Tauren Wells and For King & Country that ride to the top of the charts as you're witnessing Lauren Daigle doing market to market, for two very good reasons.

One being that the music cycles, which I first heard of years ago from a gentleman by the name of George Burns, but not the actor/comedian who played God in the 70's movies with John Denver, but one of the smartest radio people I have ever come across; then followed up brilliantly with clarity and consistency from multi-award winning consultant Guy Zapoleon. When the music cycle sits in the state of doldrums, which it is in, you will see your audience gravitating to songs of substance when they show up, because the rest of what they are consuming is cotton candy.

The problem with this cycle is this...who can see what songs have that penetration power?

I promise I'm not bragging, but I have always had that gift. It was what launched WFBC, B93.7 in Greenville during the mid-90's when corporations all but gave up on the Top 40 format, but a little sound started by Toad The Wet Sprocket and the Gin Blossoms cracked the door open for bigger things to come and then Hootie and the Blowfish exploded onto the scene, the Goo Goo Dolls, Third Eye Blind and so many others.

Tauren Wells opens for Lionel Richie-Mariah Carey Tour

And it wasn't just happening to artists with guitars, as it was during this time that rhythm artists like EnVogue and TLC, who had been around since the early 90's were about to experience success beyond their wildest dreams, opening the door for the temporary but explosive hits from Mo Ken Stef, and then the stability for years to come with Destiny's Child and others. All of this going on while, at the same time, Celine Dion and songs from the soundtrack of Titanic were topping charts everywhere. It would have been hard to keep the format straight except for the fact that you didn't have to. All of this could live together.

When I launched WIBT (The Beat) in Charlotte in 2004, our format was at the end of the success of the above cycle and 98 Degrees, NSync and the Backstreet Boys were no longer on the menu for the appetite of America. It was time to reset, dig in and look to what could take us to the next stage.

Diva Makes A Difference

Mariah Carey had a lot to do with that moment, in an important time when she was no longer with Columbia, but was trying something new with Def Jam. I specifically recall a track that got blown off by most of the industry that worked like a charm in Charlotte, "It's Like That," produced by Jermaine Dupri with Fatman Scoop ad-libbing like he can and making it a massive hit that got missed. It was number one in Charlotte in sales and research for almost two months. It maxed out around #20 on the charts nationally and honestly, most of the reason was that Columbia was working as hard against that song, as Def Jam was for that song, but then something miraculously bigger happened next, and even that took a while to connect, but not in Charlotte as we added it out of the box as Erik Olesen can attest. "We Belong Together," was released and the same drag-your-feet mentality was happening, but this one would be Titanic-esque in its unsinkable massiveness; the soundtrack, not the ship, of course, and Mariah would succeed outside of the confines of Columbia setting a clearer path to what was to come in the pop format.

And now, Lauren Daigle surprised the music industry with the crossing over of a mega-hit from an unlikely format with "You Say." It wasn't a surprise to me, in fact I wrote about this very song months before this day would come, in an article published October 2nd in All Access. Read it by Clicking Here.

There is a lot of talk these days about consumption, a term programmers never heard much of in those days in the mid-2000's, but consumption already existed, we just didn't yet have a real handle on how to harness it; that along with MScore, which honestly, still confuses programmers I talk to on a weekly basis, in spite of it being an incredible tool for thriving in Hot AC, and dominating in Top 40 when you know how to utilize its muscle.

Consumption is key, but not in its raw data form that it is given to you from BuzzAngle but broken down so you can see each download or stream as an equal form of exposure. It is not set up that way for you in the information you are pulling, so you must do some extraction to get to the morsels of useable information, a couple steps, but worth the time it will take you.

The Moneyball Chart system can help your stations locally, so please don't be shy, ask me to give you a weekly sample of what this chart would look like at this very moment in your market.

Depression Doesn't Discriminate

The second reason why the door has swung wide open is that these songs from an unlikely format contain messages that are for anyone. Lauren Daigle's "You Say," speaks of the lies of society that attempt to tell you things about yourself that aren't true, negative messages so powerful you can hear them in your head and in your heart, but in the end, it clearly says, 'but I'm not that thing they say, and neither are you.' And that is an important nugget of truth that we all need in order to just wake up some days.

In Tauren Wells song "Known," the lyrics speak of being known fully, my good and all of my bad, yet the One who knows me that way, in the end, also lets me know that despite it all, I am loved. That is the template for what real love is. My wife knows what makes me annihilate my thumb and the nailbed around it when I get nervous, and as ugly as the outcome is of my insecurity, she looks past the gnawing and the picking and somehow sees something she can't help but love.

The Make-A-Wish foundation recently found For King & Country to fulfill the dream of a guy named Alex, battling a rare blood disease, and for Alex and so many others, the music of FK&C gives hope when hope is hard to find. Alex got to go up on stage with the band and play drums for a full song. Google it.

Their newest single phrases lyrics in a brilliant reveal, "God only knows what you've been through...god only knows what they say about you...god only knows how it's killing you - BUT there's a kind of love that God only knows."

My nephew Robert took his life a few years ago this month, and my brother Don a year older than me took his two years ago. There are stories upon stories of people who have come across this song, who have decided to choose to, instead, give life another try.

What I would give to be able to reverse time and share this message with Robert or Don, just knowing we could have bought some more time; a lifetimes worth.