[LenGroat]

I just heard this on IQB site… so posted this response:

What a GREAT demo, and I love the blurb 'the package exhibits a range of mood, style, color and emotion '

….. but all I HEARD… was a solo female straining her voice….. no proper lyrics…

….. all sung in a rather high, irritating register!

And yet more 'Frankie Goes to Hollywood' tracks….

'shriekthumpshriekthump'

3 out of 10

[JingleMadMember]

Sorry to disagree Len but i quite like them.
Everyone else can make up their own mind

http://jinglemad.com/e107_files/public/1207823973_6527_FT60460_here.mp3 filename:here.mp3

[Paul]

LenGroat wrote:
….. but all I HEARD… was a solo female straining her voice….. no proper lyrics…

….. all sung in a rather high, irritating register!

And yet more 'Frankie Goes to Hollywood' tracks….

There are male solos in the demo too Len.

I don't find anything wrong with the package. It's a nice update to their previous Wireless Group package.

However, I do think they could have produced the demo with a station that had a sung slogan though to really show what the full potentail of the package.

[danjamesuk]

Sorry Len, but as a radio man you should be ashamed of yourself for posting those comments onto IQ Beats' own website. The people working there are trying to make a living out of their work, and for you to rubbish it so publicly on a site that they use to promote their product is absolutely rotten. Shame on you.

Sure, post your opinions here if you must, but even then, try to do it with some level of decorum and do it constructively, remembering that you would've been mortified if your listeners had posted such attacks on your radio station's website. Perhaps you're simply no longer in touch with modern hit music radio formats, but thousands of listeners are, and it's they who this package is targeted towards. It appears that your gripe should be with the style of modern music, not this package.

[JingleMadMember]

LenGroat wrote:
I just heard this on IQB site… so posted this response:

What a GREAT demo, and I love the blurb 'the package exhibits a range of mood, style, color and emotion '

….. but all I HEARD… was a solo female straining her voice….. no proper lyrics…

….. all sung in a rather high, irritating register!

And yet more 'Frankie Goes to Hollywood' tracks….

'shriekthumpshriekthump'

3 out of 10

Is anything good in your books Len?

[freq-ky]

I must admit,this is not one of IQ Beats best.

I see it as a bit of Heart with a bit of Fox (With regards their earlier packages).

I think it could have done with some more tweaking (I bear in mind that Len would like to see them go back to the drawing board).But if that's what they wanted,then so be it.

The package might be okay for some of the UTV radio stations (which I think they intend to do),but not all of them.

[mark-westfm]

V

[mark-westfm]

Its a great package.
Like the singers.
when are they on the IQBeats Website.

[mbMember]

After reading the heated discusions I had to go and have a listen.
Signal have quite a jingle heritage and the in house packages ( Pheonix or whatever they were called ) featured a lot of single male and female vocals and these are in some respects an uncanny throwback and progression of previous imaging. I like this package a lot more than the previous wireless group package by IQ Beats.
( Dan I know you might not lke this ) but I think the IQ beats vocals are getting better and better and sound much more confident than they have previously.
I much prefer the vocals upfront than behind lots of tricks. I know in the UK we like vocals louder than they do in the US but they sound pretty good to me. Interesting on the demo there are a lot of classic songs and the jingles seem to work quite well with these as well as todays hits.
I'd like to hear some of the other stations versions and the cuts in the clear. Pop is supposed to be coming back and I think these are a tad more pop than the pervious sound so keeping up with music trends.

[RjM]

The jingles mix really well with the songs in the preview, so I'm optimistic that it will really suit the stations and sound good on air. Nice to hear they've gone for a few show specific sings too. I look forward to hearing it adapted for the other stations. Where I am I'll be able to hear 5 different variations! (Tower, Imagine, Wish, Wire and Signal) At night times the only thing that differentiates them is the jingles, but that probably another thread altogether!

I wonder if some stations will retain their slogan from the last IQ package ie “West Yorkshire's Radio”, “The Heart of South Wales”. The Signal cuts seem to have dropped the “Your Number 1” in favour of a double name sing.

[JingleMadMember]

But you all think that Len is wrong ,without him most of you wouldnt be in radio.. it was him that gave us the classic jingles on ILR..plus he is a great presenter not a next button pusher on the playout system

Just because he's not part of your age group (he is in mine) dont pull him down.. I too would tell someone if a jingle was not my taste..We all have a viewpoint and on this forum we should all have an equal voice

Re;

Sure, post your opinions here if you must, but even then, try to do it with some level of decorum and do it constructively, remembering that you would've been mortified if your listeners had posted such attacks on your radio station's website. Perhaps you're simply no longer in touch with modern hit music radio formats, but thousands of listeners are, and it's they who this package is targeted towards. It appears that your gripe should be with the style of modern music, not this package.

Dont you think you are over the top with this reply

[IainJohnstonMember]

Seeing the debate, and like Michael I thought I'd listen to the demo first and make my own opinion before commenting.

1) if this is a “custom”, why does it just sound like something I've heard before – sounds desperately familiar? The backing tracks are also bland (or dare I say “blond”?!?)

2) I feel Len HAS been a bit harsh about the vocals – but they are somewhat “identical to lots of others”, so I can at least appreciate his point of view..

3) If its so “up-to-date”, why does the demo try to mix the cuts with 1980s hits that completely clash with the jingles? The style of the cuts is out-of-touch with the music, but why demo this way – pointless and dull.

4) Clearly certain companies are stuck in a rut and have reached a point of just handle-turning; but if the Group PCs/PDs or whatever running stations now have the same dreich mindset then thats not going to help anyone break out and be Imaginative (please excuse pun!)

[JingleMadMember]

barry wrote: Dont you think you are over the top with this reply

I disagree. I am with Dan on this.

[malexander]

Im with Wixy and Len on this, they could have done better.

[JingleMadMember]

What is a great jingle ..A jam or Pams or Tm.. For me it's Great Classic vocals solo and group and strong music beds ..

As for todays new young genres .. single female voice, vocals singing at a high octive.and a music track that could be made in a bedroom.. You all rate jingles thats why your on the forum , most collect jingles but do you want to be like sheep , stand up and tell the truth most of todays sung jingle packages are poor if you look back at 40 years of jingles.. so Len was right

For me I think Music 4 are making classic jingles in the uk

The new style of todays jingles are short and sharp ( I cant remember them after they are played)in the signal case its a double sing of the station name.. in the glory days a strapline may have been used and ok these new style may fit into todays music but will go down in the jingle history books

As harry hill would say F I G H T!!!

So lets put it to the test … lets have a montage of classic jingles from the main companies from the 60's 70's 80's and 90's and the new breed of todays sung jingles from the same and new companies and lets see if we can all put a finger on the good and bad points… becaue if WE can fault them listeners will .. and we all know if a jingle works listeners sing the jingles too when they are listening

Can any one sort out a montage

[mbMember]

barry wrote:
But you all think that Len is wrong ,without him most of you wouldnt be in radio.. it was him that gave us the classic jingles on ILR..plus he is a great presenter not a next button pusher on the playout system

I haven't said he is wrong, And I've never ben one to shy away from some harsh criticism of jingles myself. I my reply is my own view of the jingles because thats all I can give, I respect Lens view because its subjective and therefore can never be “Wrong”. I think a lot of his comments in relation to production values in previous posts are pretty spot on. This was just my views on listening to the demo on the blog.

I think the demand nowadays is for beds that are more muted and therfore not have the flourishes of packages of old ( Oh how I miss the Brass of TM ) therefore there is a more generic less individual sound, plus with a package for 10,25, 30 stations as with the Music 4 One network package you keep the logo muted so that you can accommodate sings of various station names. I know that syndicated jingles are good at being adaptive but in the us of old syndicated packages only really had to accommodate three or four call letters these are for Vallys radio, The Pluse, Signal 1 etc.

I would disagree with Barry, The Music4 package for the One network is such as disapointment one of the dullest, blandest packages that could have been so much more – but then again ideally suited to the dull bland one network. It's not a patch on JAM instrumentation, Groove Addicts impact and size and TM Vocals.

[danjamesuk]

Michael: no worries about your comments about the IQ singers at all… constructive opinion well made, and you know me… so long as it's constructive, it's fine!

Barry: I criticised Len because of posting his very derogatory comments directly onto IQ Beats' blog website. It's just plain rude and disrespectful. My comments questioning whether Len's in touch with modern hit music formats was no slight on his character. I'm 36, so I know a great deal about talk and AC formats, but I'm almost certainly out of touch with formats such as urban and, to a degree, CHR. My comments about people posting negative comments about Len's expertise as a presenter was simply an effort to get him to question the fairness of his original IQ blog post. Personally, I remember Len from when I listened to him on GEM AM. If I was implying he wasn't a good presenter, I wouldn't have been one of his many listeners! As for crediting Len for getting us into radio thanks to his jingles, the excitement and creativity of the medium of radio got me into the business, not just the jingles!

Regarding Music4… I think they produce excellent tracks and their singers are talented. However, vocally I (personally) feel it's time to move on, experiment a little, change the vocal group at least slightly. For me, their vocal sound needs updating. Sure, JAM were and still are great, but radio wouldn't continue to inspire and excite us without evolution.

Creatively we have to advance, so let's stop mourning the loss of 5-part group harmonies and swirling strings and opposing anything new. Sure, let's celebrate it, but in order for commercial radio to survive in the UK, we need to compete effectively with the BBC, and that can only be achieved through creativity, which can only be inspired by having an open minded approach.

In other words, let's try to stop being so negative and perhaps broaden our horizons and celebrate what made radio so great in the first place… the fact that creatively we never stand still and that's what makes radio such a damn good listen.

End of sermon!

[IainJohnstonMember]

Now this is what JM as a FORUM is about, not just bits of audio!

Good points, reasoned debate (especially Dan and Michael) – often “subjective” as well as “objective” – but thats what a Forum of ANY kind is about – hearing and understanding the views of others even if one doesn't necessarily agree or disagree with every individial point.

I've been in this “game” since the late 1960s – so I know Len's love of “classic” stuff of high production values; I also see Len losing the understanding of what makes TODAY's radio – but as can be seen from the debates on Digital Spy etc today's UK radio itself is a peely-wally shadow of better days, and perhaps the “Man in the Morning” Blog with its satirical image of “Blond FM” with its target listenership of a mythical “32-year-old blond with 2 children by different fathers, and vaguely listening to the same half-dozen “records” while driving said brood to/from school in her 4×4″ is a sad but accurate reflection on the bland, narrow, “safe”, calculated radio now – but thats for Digital Spy discussion!

Regarding jingles (and radio) – rose-tinted glasses versus reality?

I have masses of aircheck cassettes from the “glory days” of the 80s and early 90s – e.g. long swathes of utter waffle, DJs padding out the 9-hours max needletime per 24 hours with those e.g. horoscopes (legendary Roger Day for example! and another legend – Johnnie Walker saying all of the weather forecast THREE times between 10-to a TOH news and 10past it! – and much more); Richard P**k on Clyde reading out long, long requests in full, including the “Dear Richard,…”; yet why were Capital in London able to play something like 20-minutes-plus of commercial needletime-valid records between midnight and 1230 each night when audiences would be low (pre-24/7 work-slavery era)?

As for jingles, PAMS lost the plot and effectively died when TM rose in accendency – but then TM slipped away when JAM similarly took over. Pepper-Tanner did well in the 60s as a “low-cost” alternative to PAMS, but P-T got lost into mergers etc too.

Some PAMS stuff was great for its time – but times change. And I'm sure that when Len & others did their “cherry-picking” of PAMS re-sings, they avoided all sorts of ghastly PAMS cuts like the plague – as many other did when those packages were new never mind since as re-sings.

I have heard JAM demos over the years that have left me cold (apologies to JMW!) – and others that immediately had that “WOW!” factor – and the same applies to probably every Company's output that I've ever heard. Same applies to brand new cars (Ford Edzell anyone, or the first “jelly-mould” Sierra, or Fiat Brava/Bravo) – NO-ONE in any business “gets it right” every time.

The difference is that today's radio, its programming & ownership philosophies, its financial structures, especially in the UK and USA and those that follow them slavishly – tend towards narrow & middle ground – and MANY of the jingle companies & their products naturally follow that as “service providers” to their clients – otherwise they'd go bust or wither away like so many of their once-very-successful predecessors.

Its sad – but many of today's prgrammers think what we think are poor jingles are actually brilliant (to them).

The American's have a word for life today – “vanilla” (we'd probably say “magnolia”!) – as everything becomes driven towards blandness, that becomes the norm – and even our hobby is affected by it.

So lets do OUR equivalent of dumping radio for iPods – enjoy what you like to hear best to each of our own individual tastes – but always keep an ear open for anything that breaks the mould and dares to at least be innovative or refreshing, or even avante-garde because some day THAT might itself become the “norm” – as with any kind of music.

So great comments chaps/esses – and maybe some montages as suggested could be quite revealing!
(..heads off towards the airchecks drawer…)

[mbMember]

Wixy1360 wrote:
Now this is what JM as a FORUM is about, not just bits of audio!

Some PAMS stuff was great for its time – but times change. And I'm sure that when Len & others did their “cherry-picking” of PAMS re-sings, they avoided all sorts of ghastly PAMS cuts like the plague – as many other did when those packages were new never mind since as re-sings.

When I told Ken R that my favourite PAMS packages were Stereo Island and Revolution 72 he though I was mad – hahaahahha

[IainJohnstonMember]

SI and Rev72 (and probably Series 39) were “different directions”, more of Bill Meeks' experiments perhaps, with richer production and musicianship just at a time when “the trend” on Top 40 was towards Bill Drake concepts and “keep them short” jingles all with the same “sound” on every cut at just different tempos and different companies all converging towards an almost identical musical logo (history repeating a wee bit now maybe?)

SI was a classy bit of stereo MOR work just as FM was awakening but not really for Top 40 or mainstream, and Revolution 72 (in 1971!) wanted to buck the “shorter and identical” trend but like a percentage of Bill Meeks concepts maybe appeared at the wrong time to really succeed.

I still like hearing variants of those packages purely as pieces of music and quality vocal work in their own right! (…montage…hmmm….)

[LenGroat]

I'm pleased my comments sparked such a response…

I don't apologise for posting on the jingle company site, it's a public area, they have to be 'big boys'…

…. and if they pre-sell it thus:

'the package exhibits a range of mood, style, color and emotion'

I expect to hear just THAT !

'emotion' ?

'color' ?

'mood' ?

I defy ANY vocalist to sing 'Signal 1, Signal 1' with ANY of those qualities, no matter how good they are.

My criticism is more of the people(or policy) who decided the (lack of ) lyrics, and a little of the jingle company for not telling them honestly 'we cannot do much with this', and giving them such 'Bisto' tracks!'

Was I a good presenter? The answer was in the ears of those who may have heard me between 1974 and 1994; airchecks are 'dead' radio, you have to LIVE through the time to understand them.

For the majority of my 'career' I was not actually on air regularly, but making jingles packages (16) or Head of Music for the Trent/GEM group (1980 to 1994). You CANNOT 'do it all' ….

Thanks to my supporters AND critics, we never stop learning.

If you take out the GREAT records between the jingles on the demo, you'll have left THE sound the station bought.

Listen carefuly….

[danjamesuk]

Len… just to set the record straight, I always rated you as a presenter and still think the old Trent and GEM packages were some of the best I've heard. Just wanted to make the point about rubbishing a producer on their own website – just thought that was a bit off-side, that's all, but no offence meant to you.

As for how we never stop learning, how true that is for the radio industry, and I'm glad people still get passionate about it. Passion is absolutely what the industry thrives on.

[JingleMadMember]

Its good to talk.. and thats what this forum is about.. I too have said a jingle is poor on the jingle podcast because I feel I know when there is something missing from the mix.. its a gut thing ..But My view is the product is not sounding right to me
I'm not saying the new Breed of jingles (The Bee)is wrong for the station or the age group.. In that case (sorry Chris) it wouldnt be in my top five jingles… but thats a me thing.. I have listened to a jingles in the past , then played it again,again and again in the car when driving and its still sounds fresh ..but not the new CHR packages in the USA or UK
Going back to the main subject Signal jingles.. the demo I feel is not selling the jingles .. I dont think some of the music tracks sit well with the jingles.. I think there is a fade in to the music track from the jingle or did they crash the vocals ..the demo should be the shop window of the product ,the station and the group

The more I hear it that female voice would drive me mad

[IainJohnstonMember]

Just from earlier point in the discussion…(PAMS Rev 72, SI…)

This is a re-heated 2008 tweak of a montage of mine from several years back, and I apologise for the “joined-together” bits!).

Its a load of mainly stereo PAMS stuff from my collection (credit particularly to KenR's “Adventures in Stereo” CD) but has some SI and Rev72 etc in it, plus a few other “classic” PAMS items.

This isn't to say “old PAMS stuff is better than 21st Century contemporary jingles” – its just as something to listen to from when logos were imaginative, as were lyrics, backing tracks had notes that could be made out, and vocals were actually sung rather than whatever Len might describe them as!

http://www.4shared.com/file/43808181/73a3ec39/Wixy1360-PortionOfPAMS-revisited2008.html

Simply, have a small nostalgia-trip on me!

[Barras]

I remember from several years ago, a jingle collector from the USA saying in a post on JingleMad that the British take their jingles seriously and we do, don`t we !

Fascinating read over the last couple of days from everyone involved, allow me to “sit on the fence” and agree with everyone !!!

I`m just a JINGLE SLUT as I love ALL jingles, just love the basic concept of a radio ID jingle “advertising” and “promoting” the name of the radio station in the listener`s mind. A lot of you know will know I have a personal bias towards JAM, however, as I said before I love ALL radio ID jingles, even some jingles that I posted several years ago on JM under the title of “worst sung jingles of all time” – they`re not that bad are they ?

http://www.mediamax.com/barrasdavid/Hosted/KLEI.mp3

Barras

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