FUEL THAT DOESN'T BURN

Over a year after its release, "Shimmer" is still pulling in significant rotations

by Jim Kerr

Radio and Record Trade Magazine

February 19, 1999

Every so ofter I find it refreshing to point out examples of how the Alternative format has broken an artist or developed a career. The last column I did on this subject focused on a band in the early stages of building its radio story, so this time I thought I would look at a band that not only sucessfully built a story at radio, but did it with R&R's No. 1 song of 1998, a song so compelling, the format can't seem to let it go. The band is FUEL, and their song "Shimmer" is one of those rare radio gems that the audience never seems to tire of.

A Good Problem To Have While record executives are a perpetually optimistic bunch, no one really expects a song to ceontinue to get strong airplay after 1,000+ spins. In the case of Fuel, 550 Music knew it had won the rights to a great band, and it knew the band had delivered an album full of strong singles. However, it didn't know just how huge the very first song would be.

"We actually had very high expectations," states 550 VP/Promotions Joes Klaiman. "We all had a chance to hear the record and then see the band during the signing process, which was definitely a bidding-war type of situation. A lot of labels were interested, and we felt really fortunate that we won, because they were great live and we knew we had four or five singles. We knew that "Shimmer" was a standout track, but mostly we knew that the band rocked hard and that we had "Bittersweet," "Jesus or a Gun" and another track, "Sunburn," that we felt confident in if "Shimmer" was able to cross."

With a high-profile signing like Fuel, a great amount of care goes into the marketing plan. Avoiding overexposure, keeping a strong band image at the Alternative format, picking the right singles and planning the right time to switch singles are all important concerns for record companies. When a song shows the staying power "Shimmer" has, however, plans sometimes need to be dramatically altered. It's a good problem to have.

"It was hurry up and wait," explains Klaiman. "We kept fighting off releasing the next single, Bittersweet." We were ready to go, but we couldn't, because "Shimmer" had so many resurgences. It lasted eight months, from February to September. Even after it came off the chart, it broke records. It spent the longest time as R&R's No. 1 recurrent record."

When the add date for "Bittersweet" was finally set, 550 found that the strength of "Shimmer" was still quite strong. "We went for "Bittersweet" in September," says Klaiman, "and the band found that it was battling itself. Fighting for airplay is never easy, but what made this especially hard was that we knew "Bittersweet" was a strong song, but it was going slow at radio, because radio would realize they had more strong research on "Shimmer" coming back."

Still Stong After One Year Radio's perception of "Shimmer" echoes Klaiman's. One of the first major-market stations to play the song was KDGE in Dallas, which added the song on February 10, 1998. Today, the station is still spinning the song three or four times a day.

"I had been hearing about this song from a couple of friends" relates KDGE APD/MD Allan Smith, "and I saw the band play in some little club at last year's Gavin Convention, and they completely rocked out. They were amazing, and we felt that we absolutely had to add this record. Not only did we like th song, but we thought the album was like five songs deep. Well, one year later we've given the song 1,709 spins, and it's been in power four different times. The record will not die! It has never had more than 30% burn ever. If there is a way to craft a song that has no burn, they have figured it out on that one."

KDGE's profile is far from unique, 550 put together a promotional booklet for Fuel, and the literature describing many stations with a similar story is a testament to how huge the song really was and continues to be. The testimonials come from a who's who of Alternative radio --- WNNX/Atlanta MD Sean Demery: " The best-performing record we had in the last three years"; WPLY/Philadelphia PD Jim McGuinn: "One of the best (testing songs) since I've been a programmer"; WHFS/Washington MD Pat Ferrise: "One of our best-researching records of '98." And the list goes on.

Callout King While Fuel consistently sold well all of last year and was very active playing live in support of its airplay, the real story behind the successof "Shimmer": "When the song was in power, it always tested one or two, maybe at the lowest three. Every time it went to recurrent, it was testing so well that when there would be a week or two where we needed a power and didn't have have anything that was ready to go to that level, we would look at "Shimmer" and go, "Well, you know that recurrent is testing better than anything else we have and has no burn. Let's put that back in.""

"It started to work on those radio stations that were playing it," explains Klaiman, "but it was February, and there was a lot of competition from records coming at radio. Looking at the R&R Hotfax today, there were 90 records that got adds last week. It's crazy how many records are out there right now, and it felt the same way last year, so we just kept building things slowly. It was a new band, so we didn't force it. We let the music speak for itself, and after 150-200 spins, the record started to research. Once it clicked in research, forget about it. It took 200-250 spins to really click in, but once we got that far, well, most of those stations have played it over a 1,000 times."

Core Callout President Jodie Renk corroborated the song's callout profile: "It still does well for those stations that are still testing it, although they are primarily testing it as a recurrent as opposed to a true current. I'm generalizing, but it seems to have moderate burn and top 10 scores."

Renk also points out a key element of the song's longevity: The song has yet to cross to the pop formats. "Having one station per market deal with a song will absolutely extend the life of a song. We have seen some Rock stations test it, and it has done well there, but there aren't that many Active Rock stations involved."

Back To The Marketing Plan Part of the credit for the song's longevity certainly goes to 550's sensitivity to the band's image at Alternative radio. The label refused to release "Shimmer" at CHR until Alternative's run was complete and progress was being made on a new single. This is a refreshing change from the recent environment of generating the greatest exposure for a band in the shortest amount of time.

"We have a two-prong strategy now: to work "Shimmer" at CHR while we continue to develop the band at Alternative and Rock," Klaiman says. "We feel like we covered our bases in terms of Alternative and Rock by letting them have two singles before we even went for CHR with "Shimmer." And next we are going to work "Jesus or a Gun" at Alternative and Rock. We hope it's the formula for taking this band to the next level."

If KDGE's feelings are any indication, the band is certainly on the way. As Smith concludes: "'Bittersweet" has developed the opposite way from "Shimmer." It's been a long, slow build. We actually took the record out, but left it in callout. It kept coming back better and better, until we said, "We really can't deny this one anymore." The album is selling, they put on an amazing performance at Edgefest for us and now "Bittersweet" is coming back. We've got over 2,000 spins on two songs. I would call that a core artist!