Billboard's Hot 100

[oldies76]

Billboard

Do you happen to know by chance the two songs which charted at #97 and #99, in 1978 and 1979, respectively? Thought I'd throw that one in there, trivia, of course.

 

[michael hagerty]

Billboard

Do you happen to know by chance the two songs which charted at #97 and #99, in 1978 and 1979, respectively? Thought I'd throw that one in there, trivia, of course.

No idea. But I stand behind my quote.

 

[RIN3GUY]

Again, an industry magazine not intended as a reflection of consumer activity.

Thanks for the info, Michael. But then who were the totally wrong-headed people who decided to turn it into a (wildly popular) radio show for public consumption?? The commercial success of American Top 40 with Casey Kasem leads me to believe that the Billboard chart rankings must have somehow ended up being much more reflective of popular music tastes than what wholesale music sales might suggest.

Any discrepancies could be rectified by checking Cash Box, since it included juke box activity, an even finer indicator of personal musical preferences since it was just 25 cents to make selections instead of $1 or more for a single.

Artists which did significantly better on Cash Box than Billboard include Linda Ronstadt, Kiss, Bay City Rollers, Eric Carmen, Raspberries, the Babys, Barry Manilow, and ELO. Maybe someone should sit up and take note. It would be nice to hear more of all of these on Classic Hits stations today! They will need selections like these once they start that 1-year moratorium on Eagles' songs!

ELO actually had more Billboard Top 40 hits than the Eagles, yet you could never tell it by frequency of airplay. Their third greatest hit (below) is particularly overlooked, along with some other Top 20 hits which charted higher on Cash Box that deserve a second look (i.e., listen) for testing:

Shine a Little Love - ELO (BB #8, CB #7)
Heatwave - Linda Ronstadt (BB #5, CB #4)
She Did It - Eric Carmen (BB #23, CB #15)
Never Gonna Fall in Love Again - Eric Carmen (BB #11, CB #9)
Isn't It Time - Babys (BB #13, CB #8)
Every Time I Think of You - Babys (BB #13, CB #8)
You Made Me Believe in Magic - Bay City Rollers (BB #10, CB #7)
You & Me - Alice Cooper (BB #9, CB #8)
I Never Cry - Alice Cooper (BB #12, CB #9)
SOS - ABBA (BB #15, CB #12)
Let's Pretend - Raspberries (BB #35, CB #18)
Never Can Say Goodbye - Gloria Gaynor (BB #9, CB #8)
It's a Miracle - Barry Manilow (BB #12, CB #10)
Ready to Take a Chance Again - Barry Manilow (BB #11, CB #7)
Signed, Sealed, Delivered - Peter Frampton (BB #18, CB #13)
I Feel Love - Donna Summer (BB #6, CB #4)
The Wanderer - Donna Summer (BB #3, CB #2)
My Baby Loves Lovin' - White Plains (BB #13, CB #10)
We're All Alone - Rita Coolidge (BB #7, CB #5)
Stoned Love - Supremes (BB #7, CB #5)
Let Her In - John Travolta (BB #10, CB #5)
Dreaming - Blondie (BB #27, CB #20)
When She Was My Girl - Four Tops (BB #11, CB #10)
Tired of Toein' the Line - Rocky Burnette (BB #8, CB #6)
Heartbeat - It's a Lovebeat - DeFranco Family (BB #3, CB #1)
It's Sad to Belong - England Dan & John Ford Coley (BB #21, CB #13)
All I Ever Need Is You - Sonny & Cher (BB #7, CB #6)
Jack & Jill - Raydio (BB #8, CB #6)
Shannon - Henry Gross (BB #6, CB #5)
The Right Thing to Do - Carly Simon (BB #17, CB #10)
Heaven on the Seventh Floor - Paul Nicholas (BB #6, CB #5)
More Love - Miracles (BB #23, CB #19)
Hold On - Santana (BB #15, CB #9)
Shake It - Ian Matthews (BB #13, CB #10)
When I Die - Motherlode (BB #18, CB #12)
Ariel - Dean Friedman (BB #26, CB #17)
Reflections of My Life - The Marmalade (BB #10, CB #7)
How Much Love - Leo Sayer (BB #17, CB #9)
Life Is a Rock - Reunion (BB #8, CB #7)
Lonely Night - Captain & Tennille (BB #3, CB #1)
Take It Away - Paul McCartney (BB #10, CB #6)
Wham Bam - Silver (BB & CB #16)

 

[michael hagerty]

Again, an industry magazine not intended as a reflection of consumer activity.

Thanks for the info, Michael. But then who were the totally wrong-headed people who decided to turn it into a (wildly popular) radio show for public consumption??

I would never call Tom Rounds or Ron Jacobs (the founders of Watermark Productions and two legendary program directors (KFRC and KHJ, respectively) "totally wrong-headed people". They were businessmen who had an idea for a nationally syndicated countdown show. For that, they needed a national list of 40 records every single week.

There were only three places they could get that list: Billboard, Cash Box and Record World. None of them published a retail sales chart. Cash Box and Record World had editorial offices in L.A. but were headquartered in New York. Billboard was the biggest and the closest...the charts department was in the Hollywood office...one mile from Watermark's building. If Billboard had said no to the partnership, I'm sure they would have moved on to the other two and tried to strike a deal.

The commercial success of American Top 40 with Casey Kasem leads me to believe that the Billboard chart rankings must have somehow ended up being much more reflective of popular music tastes than what wholesale music sales might suggest.

As David noted, Americans love lists...and AT40 was the only national countdown for many years. There was no competition. And as I've said before, once you get into the top 10, with only a handful of exceptions, you're likely dealing with songs that have been re-stocked because the original stock was selling out. So, apart from local differences (in Los Angeles, for example, up until about 1973, by the time a record got to Billboard's Top 10 it was burned to a crisp and either falling or already off the chart), those were legitimate hits that were selling at retail.

And Casey sold the myth big-time: "The countdown of the most popular records in America as tabulated by Billboard Magazine." As I said in another post, you probably couldn't get that claim past the lawyers today. Instead you'd have: "The Hot 100 chart represents wholesale shipments of 45 RPM records to distributors and record stores and is not indicative of actual retail sales. Such sales may not occur, in which case the records are returned to the label. No re-accounting of the chart to reflect the actual sales of the record, which may be substantially less than the number shipped wholesale, will be done and no adjustment made to chart rankings as a result".

And that might have dampened the enthusiasm a bit. Though, as David notes, the producers, the writers and Casey, through his delivery, put on one heckuva show, often putting way more effort and polish into propping up the stiffs than they did the legitimate hits (which they'd have for many more weeks).

Worth remembering, too: Weekend mornings and evenings, the most popular timeslot for AT40 in the 70s (though some buried it in other, lesser timeslots....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV7WF5VVwuo...listen to Casey's promo at :23) were then, as now, not the heaviest listening of the week. And, as a PD who ran AT40 on my station, I can tell you, it was a rare listener who sat through the entire three hours every week. A lot of listeners tuned in for the last hour, to hear the Top 10.

While AT40 was the most popular syndicated show after about 1976 (it took a few years to get from their initial 100 stations to 500), it wasn't a show the majority of Americans (or even Top 40 listeners) listened to religiously, if at all. The RKO stations (KHJ, KFRC, WXLO, WHBQ, WRKO), the dominant Top 40 chain, didn't carry AT40. In Los Angeles, it bounced from KRLA to KGBS to KKDJ.

Any discrepancies could be rectified by checking Cash Box, since it included juke box activity, an even finer indicator of personal musical preferences since it was just 25 cents to make selections instead of $1 or more for a single.

Well, no.

Because what you'll spend a quarter (and for the first few years of the 70s, a dime) to hear in a certain setting isn't necessarily something you'd buy. That'd be like counting every time someone rents a Chrysler 200 from Avis as a sale.

For many years, there was a bar a block away from the ABC television affiliate in Las Vegas. It was the station hangout. Three times a day, seven days a week as shifts ended, batches of Channel 13 employees would come in and the ritual...every single time for years on end...was to immediately play Jimmy Buffett's "Why Don't We Get Drunk (and Screw)". Imagine incorporating that data into a chart. It was representative of nothing. And Cash Box didn't disclose to what degree jukebox play was weighted in their survey. It was one of the reasons why Cash Box wasn't considered as reliable as Billboard at the time. At least with Billboard until October, 1980, you knew (well, those of us in the business knew) what you were dealing with....wholesale orders.

Artists which did significantly better on Cash Box than Billboard include Linda Ronstadt, Kiss, Bay City Rollers, Eric Carmen, Raspberries, the Babys, Barry Manilow, and ELO. Maybe someone should sit up and take note. It would be nice to hear more of all of these on Classic Hits stations today! They will need selections like these once they start that 1-year moratorium on Eagles' songs!

The point is that the charts (neither Billboard, Record World nor Cash Box) were accurate accountings of what was selling to people buying records with their own money. They were tracking wholesale purchases that (again, until you got into most of the songs in the Top 10) may or may not have sold at retail.

Even if they had been accurate at the time, what teenagers bought 40 years ago has no bearing on what 45 year old adults want to hear today. You're compounding irrelevancies.

 

[michael hagerty]

For clarity:

American Top 40 was a huge success and a very good show. The point I was making about listenership is a basic truth of broadcasting. Even if you have a 30 share, that means 70 percent of the audience is listening to something else. And a 30 share on Sunday morning between 9 and noon in most cases didn't equal a 10 share in weekday afternoon drive.

While I'd be willing to say most Americans between the ages of 30 and 60 have heard AT40 more than once, the segment of the audience that listened weekly to all three hours and kept track of the numbers was a small fraction.

 

[davideduardo]

I have been able to find nothing that indicates that Record World factored airplay into its charts.

The magazine went out of business in 1982...18 months after Billboard added airplay to its formula.

Record World went out with a whimper... Tomás Fundora, a prolific writer, painter and composer from Miami who had been the Latin Music columnist for RW purchased the title and tried to create a rebirth, running the magazine from the Florida Room of his Hialeah home.

Had email and the internet existed, he probably could have made a go of it. But the effort failed, and the magazine finally died in about 1983 in that failed attempt to bring it back.

 

[davideduardo]

While I'd be willing to say most Americans between the ages of 30 and 60 have heard AT40 more than once, the segment of the audience that listened weekly to all three hours and kept track of the numbers was a small fraction.

Particularly in smaller markets, AT40 was a chance to have a quality show on the air in a daypart ordinarily staffed by the weakest part time jocks. If you could cue a record, you could run AT40. It came at essentially no cost, and made the station sound big.

The key to AT40 is that it was a superb show with great talent and a great concept that could be run in dayparts not known for either.

In fact, I believe they could have done the show with their own chart, made up just like most station charts were. But the Billboard name gave them sales credibility, both with the national advertisers who would sponsor the show and with stations that knew of Billboard even if they did not subscribe.

I'll have to ask TR about why Billboard was picked as the chart source and what the benefits to both Watermark and BB were.

Another often neglected aspect of AT40 is that it was also broadcast in about 80 countries outside the US, as well as on the AFRTS stations. It was, despite the language issues, a very popular show around the world simply because it reflected the world-wide popularity of English language pop music.

 

[firepoint525]

American Top 40 was a huge success and a very good show. The point I was making about listenership is a basic truth of broadcasting. Even if you have a 30 share, that means 70 percent of the audience is listening to something else. And a 30 share on Sunday morning between 9 and noon in most cases didn't equal a 10 share in weekday afternoon drive.

Particularly in smaller markets, AT40 was a chance to have a quality show on the air in a daypart ordinarily staffed by the weakest part time jocks. If you could cue a record, you could run AT40. It came at essentially no cost, and made the station sound big.
The key to AT40 is that it was a superb show with great talent and a great concept that could be run in dayparts not known for either.

The AM station in the small town where I grew up used to run AT40 on Sunday afternoons. Sunday mornings were largely reserved for church programming.

When they later shifted their top 40 format over to FM, they did indeed air their countdowns early on weekend mornings. They also had bonus airings during the overnight hours on weekends.

Had they (originally) had such oddball hours for airing the countdowns back when I was in my early teens, I likely never would have even heard the countdowns!

 

[michael hagerty]

I got AT40 for KIBS in Bishop as my first act as a 17 year old PD in March of 1973. I called and Tom Rounds himself answered the phone, explained the terms and signed us up.

Because we were as small as markets got (unrated, 3,000 people), we paid the lowest rate: $25 a week. The GM said yes on the condition that we not lose money. That meant that I had to sell the advertising and not cannibalize existing business.

KIBS was on the air from 6AM-10PM Monday through Thursday, 6AM-Midnight Friday and Saturday and 7AM-7PM Sundays. Religion and public affairs programming ate up 7AM to noon, so we aired AT40 from 7PM-10PM Saturdays. And commercials on Saturday nights went for a dollar apiece.

Thankfully, Foster's Freeze, Save-Time Burger and Pizza, The Sounde Shoppe, Rich's Britches and the Bishop Theatre saw the value in the show and bought 2 spots apiece each hour, so we made a $5 profit every week.

It aired for a year. The GM and I both left about the same time and the new GM (who took the station Country a year later) didn't renew.

 

[RIN3GUY]

I would never call Tom Rounds or Ron Jacobs (the founders of Watermark Productions and two legendary program directors (KFRC and KHJ, respectively) "totally wrong-headed people". They were businessmen who had an idea for a nationally syndicated countdown show. For that, they needed a national list of 40 records every single week.

The point is that the charts (neither Billboard, Record World nor Cash Box) were accurate accountings of what was selling to people buying records with their own money. They were tracking wholesale purchases that (again, until you got into most of the songs in the Top 10) may or may not have sold at retail.

Even if they had been accurate at the time, what teenagers bought 40 years ago has no bearing on what 45 year old adults want to hear today. You're compounding irrelevancies.

I was, of course, being facetious about Watermark's founders conceiving such a 'misguided notion' to suppose that raw wholesale data from a "trade publication" could ever possibly be of any interest to the public (i.e., AT40).

The prevailing and continuing public interest in musical chart statistics is reflected not only by the many trivia questions Kasem received which were answered weekly, but also by many websites which painstakingly record such information, not to mention the high-priced Whitburn books. And archived Billboard charts are not free, indicating that there are still people who are willing to pay good money to see the actual charts. Evidently there are plenty of music lovers who consider charting activity to be relevant.

Although they frequently agree or almost agree on chart peaks, I consider Cash Box to be a bit more accurate than Billboard. Juke box activity at least required financial input, unlike radio airplay. Just because some novelty songs may have received extra spins in certain settings does not mean much. It wasn't enough to get that Buffett song onto the charts, at least. The exception is determined by the rule, not the rule by the exception. Listener requests and "DJ's favorites" are an even more arbitrary indicator of what is truly popular because that involves no cash transaction. The actual formulas, however, used by these publications to tabulate rankings based on the raw data would be fascinating to see.

Casey's meltdowns are just hilarious! I am one of those listeners who hung on his every word, and I always listened with paper and pen in hand. At least 5 to 10 percent of my favorites today are songs that I never heard anywhere else on the radio but AT40. And the show did spur me to make record purchases too.

One odd chart note: In 3 years' time, The Cars had the bad luck of having three songs "stall out" at #41!

 

[johnbasalla]

And what is the luckiest record ever to peak at #40 on the Billboard charts?

"The End of Our Road" by Marvin Gaye. Spent 2 weeks at #40 right at the time that "American Top 40" debuted in 1970.

 

[michael hagerty]

Although they frequently agree or almost agree on chart peaks, I consider Cash Box to be a bit more accurate than Billboard. Juke box activity at least required financial input, unlike radio airplay.

Just a reminder: Billboard did not include airplay until October, 1980. Until that point, it was all wholesale. And there is no indication anywhere that Record World incorporated airplay before it folded 18 months later.

One odd chart note: In 3 years' time, The Cars had the bad luck of having three songs "stall out" at #41!

And that goes back to one of my earlier points in another thread: Album sales eclipsed singles sales in the late 60s...singles sales peaked in 1974 and fell rapidly from there. Those three #41 singles by the Cars came from albums that went 6 times Platinum, 4 times Platinum and 2 times Platinum, respectively. Even if those songs had made it to #20 on the singles chart, it wouldn't have been a huge difference in the number of records moved.

 

[michael hagerty]

And what is the luckiest record ever to peak at #40 on the Billboard charts?

"The End of Our Road" by Marvin Gaye. Spent 2 weeks at #40 right at the time that "American Top 40" debuted in 1970.

Not sure that qualifies as especially lucky. AT40 signed on with 10 stations, none of them #1 in their markets. They did not have affiliates in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or San Francisco. They launched in Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis, San Diego, San Antonio, Honolulu, San Bernardino and Albany.

 

[CTListener]

And what is the luckiest record ever to peak at #40 on the Billboard charts?

"The End of Our Road" by Marvin Gaye. Spent 2 weeks at #40 right at the time that "American Top 40" debuted in 1970.

Not sure that qualifies as especially lucky. AT40 signed on with 10 stations, none of them #1 in their markets. They did not have affiliates in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or San Francisco. They launched in Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis, San Diego, San Antonio, Honolulu, San Bernardino and Albany.

Where did AT40 debut in Boston? I remember hearing it on WBZ in the early '80s and could have sworn it was on WRKO in the '70s, but you've said 'RKO didn't carry it. I can't imagine that it was on WMEX because I never listened to that station and I definitely did listen to AT40 around 1973-75.

 

[RIN3GUY]

Do you happen to know by chance the two songs which charted at #97 and #99, in 1978 and 1979, respectively? Thought I'd throw that one in there, trivia, of course.

I found "When You're #1" by Gene Chandler, #99 in '79; can't find the other one. What is it?

 

[michael hagerty]

And what is the luckiest record ever to peak at #40 on the Billboard charts?

"The End of Our Road" by Marvin Gaye. Spent 2 weeks at #40 right at the time that "American Top 40" debuted in 1970.

Not sure that qualifies as especially lucky. AT40 signed on with 10 stations, none of them #1 in their markets. They did not have affiliates in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or San Francisco. They launched in Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis, San Diego, San Antonio, Honolulu, San Bernardino and Albany.

Where did AT40 debut in Boston? I remember hearing it on WBZ in the early '80s and could have sworn it was on WRKO in the '70s, but you've said 'RKO didn't carry it. I can't imagine that it was on WMEX because I never listened to that station and I definitely did listen to AT40 around 1973-75.

The original Boston affiliate was WMEX. It stayed there until 1975. They had no Boston affiliate for more than a year. WCGY picked it up in September 1976.

I was wrong about RKO stations. The next affiliate for AT40 in Boston was WROR-FM (WRKO's FM sister) in 1980. They kept it until 1985, and then it went to WBZ.

WRKO carried Drake-Chenault's "The Weekly Top 30" beginning in 1979.

 

[oldies76]

I found "When You're #1" by Gene Chandler, #99 in '79; can't find the other one. What is it?

"Number One" by Eloise Laws

The purpose of this trivia was to take notice, that two songs with "number one" in the title, in two consecutive years, were ranked dead last in each year within the Hot 100 positions, according to Billboard. Thanks for answering RIN3GUY

 

[johnbasalla]

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was some chart chicanery going on when "18 With A Bullet" by Pete Wingfield was actually listed as #18 with a bullet on the "Hot 100". I wonder where this 1975 single peaked on the Cash Box and Record World charts?

 

[oldies76]

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was some chart chicanery going on when "18 With A Bullet" by Pete Wingfield was actually listed as #18 with a bullet on the "Hot 100". I wonder where this 1975 single peaked on the Cash Box and Record World charts?

Same with Prince's "7" in 1993....it peaked at #7 that year. Strange

 

[RIN3GUY]

John,
It peaked at #14 on Cash Box, and actually did stop at #18 on the way: 18-15-14-17. I always thought it kind of odd too that John Lennon's "#9 Dream" peaked at #9. Then I made my list of my favorite Lennon songs, and it came out to be my ninth favorite.