"Easy Now" American radio momentum thread.... (Read 3,387 times)

[blurareshit]

I'm going to give it a separate thread because why not...

"Easy Now" is getting played on radio stations in the US to a far greater degree than anything else the High Flying Birds, Liam solo, Beady Eye, or any other Britpop-era act has seen in well over a decade. 
Across all Adult Alternative stations, "Easy Now" received 291 plays in the past seven days with an audience of nearly half a million listeners exposed to the song each week. And that's with the song being only in the lower regions on the chart.

On Billboard's Adult Alternative airplay monitor, "Easy Now" debuted at #38 last week, moving up to #34 this current week. Currently on the Mediabase Adult Alternative (which is related to, but has a slightly different methodology from, Billboard), the song holding steady at #33 for the rolling period of February 22nd to February 28th. 

It's this close from breaking into the Top 30. It just needs enough listener response to convince programmers to nudge it along more

On The Current/KCMP in Minneapolis, "Easy Now" is their #14 most played song in the last seven days and is in the running on their weekly chart show countdown voted on by members of the public (and can be easily requested online if one wanted to do such a thing). 

On the famed 91X/WXRT in Chicago, it was their #8 most played song last week, but currently sits at #18 (despite having the same amount of plays).

With The River/WXRV Boston and a several other stations, it's hovering in the upper 20s of their most played songs.  

Lightning FM/WRLT-FM in Nashville has just added it as a "test" song (aka playing it about once a day outside of drivetime to see how audiences respond to it).


Up north in Canada, it also seems to have been a surprise success as well on the Active Rock airplay charts. I can't really see the details being in America, but according to Mediabase, it's jumped up from #37 to #25 with an audience of just under 400,000 listeners per week.

[Teotihuacan]

Mar 2, 2023 2:13:44 GMT -5 blurareshit said:

It's this close from breaking into the Top 30.

There must be some mistake as I've been reliably informed on this board on various threads that Noel's new songs are disappointing, the record is unlikely to go to Number One, and that the marketing and release schedule of said tracks has been poorly handled.

It's almost as if Noel, and his management, actually do know what they are talking about and have the correct ideas how to launch an album after all... funny that.

[blurareshit]

Mar 2, 2023 5:56:38 GMT -5 Teotihuacan said:

Mar 2, 2023 2:13:44 GMT -5 blurareshit said:

It's this close from breaking into the Top 30.

There must be some mistake as I've been reliably informed on this board on various threads that Noel's new songs are disappointing, the record is unlikely to go to Number One, and that the marketing and release schedule of said tracks has been poorly handled.

It's almost as if Noel, and his management, actually do know what they are talking about and have the correct ideas how to launch an album after all... funny that.

Yeah, they've been in this biz for a long time. I'm sure they know what they're doing.

That said, this single is actually at a disadvantage because:

1) Noel has not been on American radio in a while and has never charted on this radio format; he has lesser stature in general than he did when doing the first NGHFB record.

2) He's on his own independent label and a pretty low level distributor while much of his competition comes from major label artists with serious promotional muscle and weight behind them.

3) The record and tour he's currently promoting aren't happening for another 3 months so there's nothing much to tie this song into at the present moment.

It really could very easily slide into the other direction. Any further success (or lack thereof) that "Easy Now" has from this point is likely going to hinge on level of audience response: eg. calling studio lines/emailing to request the song. 

[stxparkamonkey]

Good for Noel, take into the fact that he is his own label this is a good accomplishment.

I don't rate the song much (Sail On is the last track of his I felt was up there with his best work) but nice to see him get some recognition. I'm surprised Liam doesn't do that well radio wise here in the US especially when Americans are writing and producing his stuff.

[fabulousbakers]

Given that this song apparently has some momentum in the US charts, why did Noel just release a remix of PRETTY BOY instead of EASY NOW? Seems like a wasted opportunity.

[blurareshit]

"Easy Now" continues to rise on the "Adult Alternative" radio format in the US. It now has hit a new peak of #30 on the Billboard AAA charts.

This will likely be even higher when next week's charts are published as the Mediabase monitor has "Easy Now" as the #23 most played song on the format for the rolling 7-day period.

It also now has a higher audience figure than the songs at #4, #5, #9, the entire Top 10 (minus Beck's new single at #12), and the rest of the Top 50. Why? Because "Easy Now" is getting heavy daytime & drivetime exposure on some well known AAA stations, whereas other songs with far more "spins" than it are getting them on lesser stations and during odd hours.

"Easy Now" has been the #1 most played song on WXRT Chicago for almost the entire week. While it's dropped a couple spins on a few stations, it's also been added into rotation by two new stations recently: WMMM in Madison, WI and WCOO in Charleston, SC. Notably though, the song is being eschewed by some heavyweight AAA stations, particularly those outside the East Coast/Midwest.

[blurareshit]

I know there's a new song about to drop tonight, but for those who have any interest in helping out "Easy Now" over in the US, here are just some of the radio stations in the "Adult Alternative" format and ways to request the song. Split up between those that are currently playing the song vs. those that haven't added it yet. Maybe some of you might want to request the song to your local station (or just a random one).

The song has had a surprisingly steady rise over the last month. If this thing can make it into the Top 20 on the airplay monitor and get added by a few more stations, there will likely a be a domino effect where other stations follow suit. A lot of these stations aren't taking as many chances with spinning new, rising songs right now and only want to play songs that are already hits across the Adult Alternative format, sort of a "catch-22" situation. 

Obviously it's not going to crossover into the mainstream world or anything or hit the Hot 100, but it's still kind of a cool thing to see a Noel Gallagher tune get stateside exposure in the year 2023. 

Stations that have the song in rotation, but need listener feedback to keep playing it/increase its spins

Akron, OH The Summit 91.3 (WAPS FM)

Email: [e-mail]

Baltimore, MD 89.7 (WTMD FM)

Request line: 410-307-1683

Boise, ID - 94.9 The River (KRVB FM)

Studio Line: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Boston, MA - 92.5 The River (WXRV-FM)

Online request form: theriverboston.com/contact/

Phone request Line: 800-352-9250

Email: [e-mail]

Burlington, VT- 104.7 The Point (WNCS-FM)

Studio Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]; [e-mail]

Charleston, SC - 105.5 The Bridge (WCOO FM)

Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Chicago, IL - 91XRT (WXRT FM)

Studio Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Denver, CO - World Class Rock (KBCO FM)

Studio Line: 303-631-2973

Denver, CO - Indie 102.3 (KVOQ FM)

Phone line: 844-463-43-1023

Hudson Valley, NY - 107.1 The Peak (WXPK FM)

Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Madison, WI - 105.5 Triple M (WMMM FM)

Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Minneapolis/Saint Paul, MN - 89.3 The Current (KCMP-FM)

Online request form: www.thecurrent.org/request

Chart Show online ballot: www.thecurrent.org/feature/2013/01/10/chart-show-ballot

Studio Line: 651-989-4893

Email: [e-mail]

Nashville, TN - Lighting 100 (WRLT FM)

Studio Line: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Nationwide/Satellite - Music Choice AAA–

Email: [e-mail]

Philadelphia, PA - 88.5 (WXPN FM)

Studio request line: 215-573-9976

Email request line: [e-mail]

Portland, ME - 98.9 (WCLZ FM)

Studio Line: 207-772-9259

Email: [e-mail]





Stations that have not added the song to their playlists yet and need listener support to do so

Ann Arbor, MI - 107one (WQKL FM)

Studio line: 734-998-1071

Email: [e-mail]

Austin, TX - 97.1 Austin City Limits Radio (KGSR FM)

Text/Call Request Line: 512-821-0971

Online form: www.acl-radio.com/contact-us/

Baltimore, MD - 103.1 (WRNR FM)

Online request form: wrnr.com/music/wanna-make-a-request

Grand Rapids, MI - 94.5 The Q (WKLQ FM)

Email: [e-mail]

Indianapolis, IN - 92.3 (WTTS FM)

Studio phone number: 1-800-923-9887

Email: [e-mail], [e-mail]

Kansas City, MO - 90.9 The Bridge (KTBG FM)

Studio phone/text line: 816-777-0909

Los Angeles, CA - 88.5 The SoCal Sound (WSCN FM)

Online song request form: www.thesocalsound.org/request/

Email: [e-mail]

Studio phone: [phone]

Louisville, KY - 91.9 FM (WFPK FM)

Email: [e-mail].

Mobile, AL - 92ZEW (WZEW FM)

Studio line: 251-944-9236

Nationwide/Satellite - SiriusXM Ch. 28 The Spectrum

Email: [e-mail]; [e-mail]

Song Survey: sxmsongsurvey.com/?Spectrum00

New York, NY - 90.7 (WFUV FM)

Email: [e-mail]

Studio Line: 718-817-4550

Online form: wfuv.org/user/152/contact

Peoria, IL - 99.9 (WWCT FM)

Online form: wwctfm.com/contact/

Email: [e-mail]

Studio line: 309-689-3999

Portland, OR - 101.9 Kink (KINK FM)

Text/Studio Line: 503-733-5465

Email: [e-mail]

Spokane, WA - 95.3 (KPND FM)

Phone lines: 509-744-0953 or 208-263-0953

Email: [e-mail]

[blurareshit]

"Easy Now" has now jumped and reached a high water mark of #22 on the official Billboard Adult Alternative Airplay chart for the week ending March 24th.

However, the forecast for next week is less optimistic as current airplay data shows that the song may hit a wall and not make it into the Top 20 after all.

Currently on the Mediabase tracking site, it's lost a few spins from its peak: 89.3 The Current in Minneapolis seems to be easing up on its support for "Easy Now" and 105.5 The Bridge in Charleston was testing the waters with it during overnight hours, but now seems as though it's close to dropping it entirely. 

There are also a handful of new releases by big artists on this format (Boygenius, Portugal The Man, Hozier, etc.) that are jumping ahead very quickly on the charts right now and pushing songs like these down. Additionally, a good 75% of the songs in the Top 20 have been lodged there for the last month or two and show no signs of moving, which is making breaking in a little harder than it normally is.

Mediabase has it currently sitting at #26. Looks like new movement on the song has slowed down a bit; not many more stations have added it.

Radio programmers are being very conservative right now in that only a select few artists of stature on the format are getting widespread support on the format. Given that Oasis' stature on radio post-Be Here Now was minor at best and Noel's solo stuff had been basically non-existent, it's honestly surprising it's gone this far at all.

So we'll see what happens. Like I posted before, there's a whole (non-comprehensive) list of stations if you can/want to email/text/call a station near you and request it. These programmers are looking for audience feedback when it comes to these types of decisions.

It would be cool to see Noel crack the Top 20 (and further for that matter), but even if it ends here, I think this has been a good run. The last time Noel (or Liam or really anyone connected to Oasis) had any comparable success on American airwaves, George W. Bush was the president. Right now "Easy Now" is posting a weekly audience of 700,000 across the entire format, commercial and non-commercial. I'm sure more than a few people who might have been into Oasis back in the day have now been re-introduced to Noel.

[Jessica]

DTTW will at least get a spin on some of them this week when they're showcasing new stuff.

Think it also has to do with the radio formats changing across the country. They got rid of one rock station here, another switched from jazz to alternative, then there's another that went 90's/2000's hits, so they're trying to grab people who are looking around for something else. Don't think Easy Now fits well with what KXT has been playing, but they did play it in What's New when it came out. They otherwise have DLBIA, CS, Live Forever, and Wonderwall in rotation on there.

[Jessica]

They are playing Easy Now right now on KXT, so is now probably going in rotation there.

[World71R]

I love The Current! Glad to hear they're giving Easy Now some love. I gotta listen to them more

[blurareshit]

So Noel is about to drop yet another single from the record in a couple hours, but I figured I'd give another update on "Easy Now" on US radio. 

The song peaked at #22 on Billboard for two weeks at the start of the month and has been bouncing up and down around the upper to lower 20s on Mediabase/Billboard for the last several weeks. Currently it is back up at #22 on Mediabase for the rolling 7 day period, even when faced with continuing competition with other new releases and several prominent stations still holding out on the song.

I had thought the song was starting to hit a wall about a month ago as stations were winding down their support of the song, but it's just not that "easy" to kill it off entirely. "Adult Alternative" monitoring site The Top 22 shows that Easy Now last week was still in the top 10  in terms of audience figures, despite only being the 29th most played song on the format (ie. spin count). Which means that "Easy Now" is getting less airplay overall, but more of it is happening at peak hours on some big stations. (And also that other singles' chart standings are inflated by getting a ton of overnight plays on stations that already had low listenership). Put it this way: there's a song in the Top 10 of this chart right now which has almost twice the amount of plays as "Easy Now" but only half the audience size.

From what I can tell, most of the 'supporter' stations that I listed in the post above are still playing it quite a bit. It's #3 on WXRT this week, #6 on WCLZ, Lightning 100 in Nashville went from playing it 3 times a week in the overnights to 16x a week at all hours of the day. Of course you also have stations, such as The Peak in New York or 94.9 The River in Boise, where "Easy Now" was getting sizable play a month ago, but is now losing spins week-to-week.

89.3 The Current, which was spinning it 3-4x a day, just recently dropped the song out of rotation (the last time they played it was four days ago and it's getting 2 spins a week).  It also seems like KXT in Texas may have been lightly testing the song, but they have yet to pick it up - it's not been played in the past few days from what I can tell.

A big hurdle is of that latter list of 'holdout' stations, the most prominent ones (The Spectrum, 101.9 KINK Portland, "The So Cal Sound" KCSN, KEXP, etc.) are still hesitant to add the song to playlists - even in light rotation in the overnight hours or on weekends. Which is odd because not only many of these stations still regularly feature the big Oasis singles from What's the Story and Definitely Maybe in their playlists, but Noel will be playing tour dates in these markets in less than two months. Some of them even played "If I Had a Gun" when it was a minor Alternative radio hit and "In the Heat of the Moment" when it had brief week or two in the Top 50 on Mediabase. Again, maybe these stations are bearish because the song hasn't yet "proven itself" by cracking the Top 20. They could be waiting for one of the other ones to start giving it spins first (there's a sort of domino effect that tends to happen with these "format leader" stations; one station adds it, then another because they don't want to be left out, then another). Maybe there have finally been one too many controversial Noel-quoting stories in the music news for music directors' tastes. Maybe Noel is just considered too outdated. The format is trying to rely less on the latter-day output of long-established older, white, male trad-rock bands/singer-songwriters from the '70s - '00s and slowly leaning towards hipper new acts, a broader range of genres, and more diverse spectrum of artists.

At any rate, the good news is that a couple holdout stations picked up "Easy Now"; enough at least to counteract the decline on other stations and keep it afloat - for now.

WZEW put it into instant rotation a few weeks ago, where it's now at 20 spins a week - their #16 song. WFPK (Louisville Public Media) and WWCT 99.9. in Peoria are doing light testing on the song and currently #50 most played last week on both stations. KPND in Spokane is also testing the song, playing it roughly 1-2 times a week (but outside their Top 50). 

Where the song goes from here is anyone's guess. It may crack the Top 20 if conditions are right -and keep going up in advance of the album/tour- or start dropping like a rock by next week. I'm not sure if Noel's label plans to serve anymore singles from Council Skies to this format/US radio at all.

As before, if any fans want to take 2 minutes to dial up/write their nearest Adult Alternative station and request the song, You can find your closest Triple A station on this site. 

[blurareshit]

A week before the album release/start of the US tour,"Easy Now" has just slid off the Billboard Adult Alternative radio charts entirely. Not great timing. It did decently all things considered, but couldn't really make it to the next level.

There are only four monitored stations still playing it in the US. One of which is WXRT, where it's still the #2 most-played song on the station.

In a slightly ironic twist, at the same time this has happened, Blur's comeback single has been added to 16 Adult Alternative stations on its first day of release and will likely grow from there.

[jezza2]

May 25, 2023 17:42:40 GMT -5 blurareshit said:

A week before the album release/start of the US tour,"Easy Now" has just slid off the Billboard Adult Alternative radio charts entirely. Not great timing. It did decently all things considered, but couldn't really make it to the next level.

There are only four monitored stations still playing it in the US. One of which is WXRT, where it's still the #2 most-played song on the station.

In a slightly ironic twist, at the same time this has happened, Blur's comeback single has been added to 16 Adult Alternative stations on its first day of release and will likely grow from there.

I've really enjoyed this thread! Have you check up on any of the other singles or just Easy Now? Would be interested to know where the rest are sitting.