Who makes the station-specific versions of radio songs?

December 21, 2009 6:01 PM

Who is responsible for recording / editing those customized versions of pop radio songs that include the radio station's or city's name?

You know when a song on the radio has been edited to change some lyric to include "KISS 107" or the name of your city (the most recent example that comes to mind is I heard Kesha - Tick Tock on the radio and the lyric "DJ blow my speakers up" was replaced with "New York City blow it up")? Who is responsible for those?

Does the singer record a bunch of different versions with sponsor-station names in the studio? Are they recorded when the singer records those "Hi this is [name] and you're listening to [station]!" messages? Or do stations hire sound-alike singers to dub over certain key moments with their name / location?

I don't know if anyone will have any insight into this, but it's something I've always been really curious about.

posted by Zephyrial to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

No matter where you live, if you listen to the radio you've probably heard the sound of JAM!

yeah, companies like this sell you that sound!
posted by kuppajava at 6:14 PM on December 21, 2009

I worked in a radio station for a while, and DJ'd for even longer. We periodically received special pressings from major artists on big labels, but they were never altered in any way (in that the radio edit was always the radio edit). As part of the chart package or the promo package we might also receive a cart with a station-specific jingle but this was only for network syndicated shows.

Sorry, I've never heard of this!
posted by Sutekh at 2:56 AM on December 22, 2009

Starship did this with We Built This City - The b-side of the promo single had no talking where the "...the city that rocks, the city that never stops" spoken bit was on the regular issue. Radio stations just added their own voice-overs in their slick studios & created custom versions.
posted by mintcake! at 3:39 PM on December 23, 2009