Top 40 ‘Wango Tango’ on target with fans, artists

At KIIS-FM’s “Wango Tango,” everyone is a winner -- except me. If there had been an exit poll Saturday at the Rose Bowl, they would have probably found 60,000 happy fans and one cranky critic.

Radio stations, such as KIIS-FM (102.7), that rely on a Top 40 -- or “pop hit” -- format are a lot like major political parties: They try to be all things to all people. In politics, they call it going to the center. In radio, it’s aiming for the mainstream.

Roy Laughlin, the personable regional vice president of Clear Channel, the radio titan that owns KIIS-FM and other local stations, wasn’t being lecherous Saturday when he gazed fondly on rows and rows of excited teenage girls with bare midriffs and tight jeans.

“That’s KIIS’ target audience,” Laughlin said during a stroll around the stadium. “Everybody knows that teenage girls rule the world. They determine everything from what movies the family sees to what radio station they listen to, and advertisers know that.”

The station wins because the annual “Wango Tango” strengthens its ties with that young female audience by giving them almost 10 hours of the music they want, from Christina Aguilera and Sugar Ray to Nelly and Lisa Marie Presley.

Artists win because they get to play before more people in a day than they would in weeks of club dates or even several arena shows. And, let’s not be naive, the artists get more spins on the grateful station.

Fans win because they get a good time. Saturday’s all-day event was as relaxed as a county fair and the production values were excellent, with a revolving stage that kept the wait-time between acts minimal, and with video screens that carried the action to the farthest areas of the stadium. (The aggressive self-promotion and corporate advertising would violate the purity and spirit of the Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival, but “Wango” fans didn’t seem to mind.)

Critics -- and adventurous pop fans generally -- groan because of the music, but KIIS-FM doesn’t pretend to be on the cutting-edge. They leave the more challenging alt-rock to KROQ-FM (106.7) and hard-core hip-hop to KPWR-FM (105.9).

Still, KIIS-FM’s musical basket is ample enough to include some alt-rock or hip-hop favorites if the music catches the ears of the young girls, and that mainstream exposure is often crucial to alt-rock and rap acts achieving blockbuster sales results.

One reason Eminem is such a massive seller is that much of his music is entertaining enough to get airplay on Top 40 stations as well as alt-rock and hip-hop ones; a remarkable pop trifecta.

Unfortunately, Eminem wasn’t on the bill Saturday (though one of his videos was played during a break in the live action).

The music started around 2 p.m. with a line-up that ranged from singer-actress Jennifer Love Hewitt to London-based singer-songwriter Daniel Bedingfield, whose “If You’re Not the One” is a Top 40 smash. But the real star power was held back until the sun started going down.

One sign you were dealing with a very young audience came when Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath announced his next number was inspired by Bob Marley. The comment probably draws a cheer in most concert settings, but there was mostly quiet Saturday as lots of girls asked themselves, “Bob who?”

KIIS-FM morning air personality Rick Dees must have been equally surprised when he asked the girls how many had ever seen the rock band KISS, which was scheduled to close the concert. There was only a smattering of applause.

Santana, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist and band leader, brought a sense of stirring rock history to the stage, displaying an ambition and range that was in short supply Saturday.

Singer-songwriter Michelle Branch is one of several young artists offering some substance in a post-Britney teen-pop world, and she proved worthy of attention Saturday -- though she needs to overcome the generic qualities in her music.

Lisa Marie Presley, who has only been singing in front of audiences for a few weeks, did well with her hit, “Lights Out,” but the rest of her short set seemed a bit too dark and introspective to catch the ear of the young crowd on this mostly upbeat date. Her natural audience may be closer to KROQ-FM.

On the other hand, Craig David and Christina Aguilera, now a brunette, were made for the KIIS-FM crowd. Both are attractive young performers with excellent voices -- but David tends to deal in such lightweight pop-soul that it’s annoying. When he was joined by Sting for a duet on a number they co-wrote, it sounded like two separate signals coming from a radio station. Sting’s part seemed as graceful and winning as most of his music, while David’s seemed thin and forgettable.

For all her sales, Aguilera seems incapable of injecting genuine emotion into a song. But she’s got the determination of a prizefighter -- she spent much of her time between songs saying how she needs to be strong to fight back against critics and negativity -- and her tour with Justin Timberlake this summer should be a true pop spectacle.

The evening’s knockout clearly was Nelly, the St. Louis rapper whose hits -- including the sensational “Hot in Herre” -- had the girls, moms, dads and brothers all dancing in the aisles. He’s a likable performer and he interacts well with his team of rappers. He even tailored the set to Southern California by wearing a Loyola Marymount “44” jersey saluting Hank Gathers, the terrific basketball player who died in 1990.

KISS, the band, closed the evening with all the fireworks you’d expect from the veteran band. By the time they got to “Rock and Roll All Nite,” it was nearly 11 and some of the youngsters had fallen asleep. But the moms and dads got up and danced -- reminded of the days when couldn’t wait to get home after school to turn on the Top 40 station to hear the latest hits. Yikes, was it really 1975?