Commentary: with the likes of Britney, Madonna, Janet, and others using shock to hype up their sad state of the quality of the music, America needs a new kind of Top 40 radio station, one that plays music to a wide variety of demographics like in the 50s and 60s while eschewing the strip tease girly acts and teenage rock and rap crud. What happened to the music directors with an ear for good sounding music to make popular? Instead, we get junk like grunge, rap, American Idol flunkees, songs that sound like the other, acts that sound like the other, female singers who can't sing live without a pre-recorded synthesized voice track, uninteresting soft ballads, endless remakes of 80's songs (I heard three on 91X in a 30 minute span today), etc. etc. Today's kids running the radio stations are ruining CD sales (not the illegal downloaders) by playing music aimed too young for the lucrative elder demographic market to embrace and vote with their money in the form of CD sales. You put songs aimed at teenagers on the radio, and all you have are teenagers who can't afford the music and resort to illegal music downloads and CD copying. You put music that appeals to elders and youngsters alike (and songs where listeners 12-54 enjoy simultaneously do exist like they did in the 50's and 60's) and you still have some illegal downloading and pirating amongst the teeangers, but with the adults buying the legal copies of the songs on CD and download sites more than making up for the shortfall, then you have one song that does double duty, where teenagers, who would buy the song 10 years down the road once their carrers take off and have money to spend, and where adults help make the song into the annals of music trade publications and pop chart junkies so that today's downloaders will become purchaers 10 years later.

Look at the lineup of artists siggested by Jack Gale. Their songs appeal to all ages back then. As a person who wasn't born while they were popular in the late 50's, I heard these artists on the oldies stations and thought they have distinctive quality and transcends the generation gap. I remember many of the songs from 40-50 years ago far better than I can grasp what's going on Top 40 of today where only 2-3 songs are distinguishable from the rest in a given month.

We can't recreate radio in the 50's and 60's today, but what we can do is to create a new generation of popular Top 40 music with songs that transcend the generation gap, with each act doing its own style in order to distinguish itself from the others. Put on songs that test well with teens and adults alike, instead of songs that appeal to just adults and bore the teens, or songs that appeal to teens and scare away the adults. Forget the girl to girl kissers, the f-word shout outers, the boob expose on the boob tube, and other acts who can't come up with any quality music anymore. Madonna is way past her prime and needs to just raise children. Janet Jackson's song on Uper-say Owl-bay was unmemorable at best. Britney Spears' voice is still weak and has no depth. Beyonce is sexier than her muscial ability.

Hilary Duff is just a kid for now, so I won't pick on her, but if she rocked and rolled like some of the 60's rock acts did, then she would have much wider appeal outside of the 6-18 girl demographic. Even Debbie Gibson had wider appeal; just ask this former then-27-year-old fan in 1987 when her songs came out.

So to end this commentary, Top 40 is in a serious funk because of the selection of music not appealling to oldsters and youngsters alike. Wide appeal used to work well at KIIS-FM back in the 80's (KIQQ 100.3 and Power 106 in the 80's as well), and it's time for Top 40 to go back to its roots, stop the niche rap and rock teenage junk and get back to the formula that once made Top 40 radio great.