HRD Radio Report – Week Ending 2/24/18

 HRD Radio Report – Week Ending 2/24/18

Every Tuesday on HardRockDaddy.com.  The HRD Radio Report digs deeper into the weekly Active Rock charts, providing commentary, reviews, recommendations and predictions.  It also features opinion pieces on chart action and the music business in general. The following is the Active Rock Mediabase Chart for the week ending 2/24/18. All exclusive HRD content is featured below the chart:

CHART	CHART	ARTIST	SONG TITLE	RADIO
POSITION	POSITION			SPINS
THIS WEEK	LAST WEEK
1	1	PAPA ROACH	“Born For Greatness”	1932
2	3	POP EVIL	“Waking Lions”	1792
3	2	GRETA VAN FLEET	“Safari Song”	1774
4	5	METALLICA	“Spit Out The Bone”	1390
5	8	BREAKING BENJAMIN	“Red Cold River”	1359
6	6	STONE TEMPLE PILOTS	“Meadow”	1254
7	9	THREE DAYS GRACE	“The Mountain”	1214
8	4	ROYAL BLOOD	“I Only Lie When I Love You”	1157
9	7	10 YEARS	“Novacaine”	1112
10	11	NOTHING MORE	“Do You Really Want It?”	1039
11	12	FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH	“Gone Away”	1024
12	10	STONE SOUR	“Rose Red Violent Blue (This Song Is Dumb And So Am I)”	981
13	13	ASKING ALEXANDRIA	“Into The Fire”	816
14	15	IN THIS MOMENT	“Roots”	811
15	14	RISE AGAINST	“House On Fire”	791
16	16	I PREVAIL	“Lifelines”	759
17	17	RED SUN RISING	“Deathwish”	659
18	20	BAD WOLVES	“Zombie”	546
19	19	THEORY OF A DEADMAN	“Straight Jacket”	544
20	23	JONATHAN DAVIS	“What It Is”	504
21	22	FOZZY	“Painless”	452
22	18	BUSH	“This Is War”	426
23	26	A PERFECT CIRCLE	“The Doomed”	365
24	25	AVATAR	“The King Wants You”	313
25	24	RED	“Still Alive”	296
26	44	MUSE	“Thought Contagion”	286
27	28	JUDAS PRIEST	“Lightning Strike”	284
28	27	A DAY TO REMEMBER	“Same About You”	252
29	29	MYLES KENNEDY	“Year Of The Tiger”	249
30	30	CHRIS STAPLETON	“Midnight Train To Memphis”	231
31	43	DOROTHY	“Flawless”	201
32	31	OF MICE & MEN	“Money”	181
33	33	FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH	“Trouble”	176
34	34	BLACK VEIL BRIDES	“The Last One”	174
35	37	DED	“Hate Me”	158
36	36	DEADSET SOCIETY	“Automatic”	139
37	42	FROM ASHES TO NEW	“Crazy”	133
38	39	IMAGINE DRAGONS	“Whatever It Takes”	126
39	38	SHAMAHN’S HARVEST	“The Devil In Our Wake”	124
40	32	MOTIONLESS IN WHITE (f. JONATHAN DAVIS)	“Necessary Evil”	121
41	35	A PERFECT CIRCLE	“TalkTalk”	119
42	40	ZERO THEOREM	“Area”	107
43	41	MESSER	“Make This Life”	97
44	45	KILLERS	“Run For Cover”	80
45	107	MARILYN MANSON	“Tattooed In Reverse”	75
46	47	FEVER 333	“Walking In My Shoes”	62
47	51	JOSH TODD & THE CONFLICT	“Story Of My Life”	57
48	46	JIBE	“Release”	56
49	48	MACHINE HEAD	“Bastards”	51
50	49	BLACKLITE DISTRICT	“Cold As Ice”	49

 

 

PUBLISHER’S PICK OF THE WEEK (By Adam Waldman)

WAYLAND – “Ghost”

There are a handful of artists that are staples of the Active Rock format.  These artists are all but guaranteed airplay whenever they release a single.  Often times, these same artists account for a high percentage of the available spins in the format.  The rest of the bands (and there are many) are in a constant battle for what’s left over.  Wayland falls into the latter category, but it has nothing to do with their talent.  To their credit, Wayland writes music from the heart.  Not only don’t they avoid chasing trends, they don’t seem to feel compelled to hone a signature sound.  What you get with Wayland is true passion, infectious melodies, outstanding musicianship, and most notably, diversity.

This approach may make getting deserved airplay more challenging, but you can argue that they are the artists that others should be emulating.  There’s more to building up an audience than getting radio play, and Wayland does that as well as any band out there.  These road warriors understand how important it is to connect with their fans.  Radio play has a shelf life, deep connections with fans does not.  That being said, programmers would be wise to add the band’s latest single into rotation.

“Ghost” is yet another side of Wayland that stands out as being special among a lot of ordinary these days.  The riffs are heavy, the rhythm section is tight, the hook is big, and (as always) Mitch Arnold’s vocals are flawless and powerful.  Arnold sounds more like the singers of yesteryear than the typical Active Rock singers of today (which makes Wayland unique).

Wayland may never become an Active Rock staple, but that says more about the state of radio than it does about the band.  Don’t wait for radio to come around.  Make sure to check these guys out on your own.  You’ll be glad that you did.

 

 

PUBLISHER’S PREDICTIONS (By Adam Waldman)

The three-way battle at the top continues, but unless this week was just a breather for Greta Van Fleet, it looks like this will only be a two-way race between Papa Roach and Pop Evil.  While Greta Van Fleet had a slight reduction of spins, both of the top 2 continued to gain at an equal rate.  For the moment, it looks like Papa Roach and Pop Evil will remain in the top 2 spots.  The next likely battle in the coming weeks should be between Breaking Benjamin and Three Days Grace if the current trends hold.
 

 

HRD SPIN CONTROL (by Adam Waldman and Jon Loveless)

Each week, we will share the songs that we think should be added to rotations, alongside the songs that we feel should be dropped from rotations, either because they are a bad fit for the format, or because they have run their course and it’s time for a new single from the artist.

SPIN IT…

WAYLAND – “Ghost”

FACING FIRE – “Filthy Life”

COUNTERFEIT – “You Can’t Rely”

BOBAFLEX – “Lights Out”

ANOTHER LOST YEAR – “Call It Like It Is”

HEAVEN & EARTH – “Hard to Kill”

BLACK WATER RISING – “The Payback”

THE LAZYS – “Nothing But Trouble”

 

DROP IT…

Imagine Dragons – “Whatever It Takes”

The Fever 333 – “Walking In My Shoes”

Muse – “Thought Contagion”

Bush – “This Is War”

Chris Stapleton – “Midnight Train To Memphis”

Royal Blood – “I Only Lie When I Love You”

Marilyn Manson – “Tattooed In Reverse”

10 Years – “Novacaine”

 

 

THE BREAKDOWN (by Jon Loveless)

NOTABLE CHART MOVEMENT

In a development that surprises pretty much no one, Nothing More has another Top 10 single…

Jonathan Davis finds Top 20 success for his solo debut…

Muse scores the only new entry in the Top 30 this week…

A sudden surge of radio support pushes Dorothy into the Top 40, joined there by the latest release by From Ashes To New…

Only two actual debuts in the published chart this week, including the second single release from Josh Todd & The Conflict.
 

 

THREE UP & THREE DOWN

RISING
Jonathan Davis – “What It Is”
Three Days Grace – “The Mountain”
Dorothy – “Flawless”

 

FALLING
10 Years – “Novacaine”
Royal Blood – “I Only Lie When I Love You”
Bush – “This Is War”
 

 

 TRENDS AND OBSERVATIONS

Timing may not be everything, but it’s pretty important.  On paper, the first single from Josh Todd & The Conflict (“Rain”) goes down in radio parlance as pretty much a “stiff” (a song that never made it to the published chart), while their second effort (“Story Of My Life”) will qualify as at least a minor hit.  However, look a little deeper and you’ll find that the biggest difference in the (perceived) success of the two songs is the state of radio at the time of release.  So far, the peak number of weekly spins for the two songs is very similar.  The first single actually got some action on more stations, but … in recent weeks, anything north of 50 monitored spins probably lands a song on the published chart.  Last fall, when “Rain” was peaking, the barrier for the Top 50 was commonly around twice that, so around 100 spins were needed to crack the Top 50.  As we all know by now, nothing promotes airplay quite like airplay, as the vast majority of stations contributing to the charts today prefer to follow rather than lead.   It’s a funny business sometimes.

 

WRAP-UP

That’s all for this week.  Tune in to HardRockDaddy.com every Tuesday for the HRD Radio Report. \m/