Hitting the post. That’s what it was called. Maybe still is. Been a long time now since I was writing programming critiques for station managers for a living. It means talking over the instrumental intro of a song and completing the thought one-half second before the vocal began. Disc jockey jabber over the intro was a feature, not a bug. The guy’s talking, he’s having a good time, tellin’ you something or other, the music starts, the guy finishes his rap just as the singer starts singing. That Thing, when done correctly gave a station a feeling of forward motion, energy and excitement. Talking over the intro sounds great. Up to a point, after which it becomes irritating. I coached my guys to keep it to 10 seconds or less. If the song had an 8 second intro, hit the post. If the song had a 13 second intro, maybe hit the post, but for most songs with longer intro, they should get it said and close the mic switch at 10 seconds.
Now I say it ‘was’ a feature because it occurred to me yesterday morning how long it has been since I last heard it done well. I was driving home from the gym, about 7:15a. The station called Magic 96 is voice-tracked. It is says it is the perfect “listen at work” station. That’s about all it says about itself. The morning voice could be the station’s only voice, far as I know. I’ve been sampling it a couple of weeks and she’s the only voice I’ve heard; afternoon, weekend too. She has a pleasant, professional, Midwestern no-accent voice and she does a lot of People Magazine-type info-tainment raps, every one of them delivered with exactly the same cloying earnestness, as if we all really give a shit about Britney Spears latest whatever. But at least she gives it the ol’ college try.
There used to be PD’s running Hot Current Hits stations who wanted their jocks to hit the post almost all the time, on every record with some notable exceptions. Worst example? I once heard an overnight guy talk over the full, entire instrumental intro to “The Theme from Shaft”. You know it? It was a #1 record in 1971. It won an Acadamy Award. The radio single ran 3:17. The first 1:50 is driving, magnificent drum, keyboard and horn boogie to the max. And the guy talked over every second. He was a new kid. He was trying way too hard. It was so bad, it was funny. But, then he was on the overnight show, the training-ground that no longer exists in the business, unfortunately for all of us. The unidentified female pro voice and Magic 96 ain’t that.
At 7:15 in the morning, her voice track begins over the intro of “Take On Me”. That record has a spectacular intro on a song that has become iconic, an across-the-demos favorite with nearly everybody on the planet. And I heard the Magic 96 voice talk about I-don’t-remember-what for all 33 seconds of it. Not her fault maybe; she is not ‘live’, she’s not running her own control board so it wasn’t her that did it. Rather, it was done by a thoughtless machine, doing what it was directed to do by someone being paid a low wage and being trained, or shall it be called: program directed, by people who don’t know much’a nothing about the craft.
