My question is, what factors kept "Physical" at the top for two and a half months on the Hot 100 but yet Foreigner 4, which included the single "...Girl" was #1 on the album 200. There had to be some influence Mr. Hagerty for Olivia.
Same thing with "Uptown Funk" this year, #1 for 14 weeks
Influences usually include a craze going on, performances, gigs, heavy airplay, trends & fads...etc..
Why do you think songs like "The Twist" and "The Hustle" reached the top? Dance crazes at the time helped.
I understand.
Crazes help, but sometimes it's just a lot of people like the song.
However, if they've already paid 10 bucks for the album, they're not going to drop another buck and a quarter on the single. And as virtually all of the record-buying teens above 14 and young adults had shifted away from singles to LPs and tape well before 1981, acts that sold a lot of albums didn't sell as many 45s as acts that were dependent on selling their stuff one turntable hit at a time.
Let's take a look at the singles chart the week "Physical" hit number one:
1. Olivia Newton-John: Physical
2. Hall & Oates: Private Eyes
3. Foreigner: Waiting For A Girl Like You
4. Rolling Stones: Start Me Up
5. Air Supply: Here I Am
6. Bob Seger: Tryin' To Live My Life Without You
7. Little River Band: The Night Owls
8. Police: Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
9. Christopher Cross: Arthur's Theme
10. Mike Post: Theme From "Hill Street Blues"
Now the album chart for the same week:
1. Foreigner 4
2. Rolling Stones: Tattoo You
3. Police: Ghost In The Machine
4. Journey: Escape
5. Bob Seger: Nine Tonight
6. Earth, Wind & Fire: Raise
7. Stevie Nicks: Bella Donna
8. Hall & Oates: Private Eyes
9. Genesis: Abacab
10: Dan Fogelberg: The Innocent Age
Half the artists in the singles top 10 weren't in the album top 10, and vice-versa.
You can argue that Olivia Newton-John, Air Supply, Christopher Cross, The Little River Band and Mike Post had top 10 singles, but that didn't translate to album sales (in fairness, the Air Supply album was six months old and had gone platinum...but it was #42 that week, which means "The One That You Love" didn't move many of those albums).
Foreigner, the Stones, the Police, Journey, Bob Seger, Earth, Wind and Fire, Stevie Nicks, to some extent Hall & Oates, Genesis and Dan Fogelberg made their bucks off albums. Singles sales were a bonus. And with declining singles sales, they didn't add a whole lot to the picture.
