WIP Top 500 in 1978

[rich610]

Over Labor Day weekend 1978 WIP had a top 500 countdown. The station promoted it with the list of songs in the Daily News that weekend, but when I recently went to the library to get a copy off of the microfilm, the image wasn't clear. Does anyone else have knowledge of this countdown? Does anyone have a list of the songs? Remember that this was the time that WIP was music-intensive (the "We Play Your Songs" era), so the list should be impressive. Any helpd would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Rich

 

[kenneykop]

That was also when WFIL started playing the list a few hours before since it was published in the paper.

 

[amfmsw]

i don't remember that happening with wip, but it DID happen with wibg. 1967 i believe. wibg published the list, and wfil was always running 1-2 records ahead of wibg. and instead of swallowing thier pride a little, and jumping ahead in some way, wibg just plodded along all weekend, sounding, well, stupid. just another one of the ways wfil let the air out of their tires.

 

[radioguy39nj]

IIRC, WIP's slogan then was "We're Playing Your Song!"

 

[ixnay]

WIP was on in our (my then-divorced mother and then-17yo me, then on the eve of my senior HS year) apartment's living room all the time during my HS days. Six-Ten IIRC started the list on Friday (I forget what time) and by Labor Day night must've been in the middle of the third go round (interrupting the countdown for Eagles football on Sunday). I believe "Hound Dog" by Elvis topped the list.

Also on the list was Richard Harris's "MacArthur Park", which I'd submitted to the countdown on a postcard along with Elvis's "Suspicious Minds" and the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'". All three made the list (you could name any three; I forget what the prizes were). I remember hearing Michele Iaia talk up "MacArthur Park" on the Sunday night and her remarking how no one would play a 7-minute single back in 1968.

ixnay

 

[Fakeem]

I remember hearing Michele Iaia talk up "MacArthur Park" on the Sunday night and her remarking how no one would play a 7-minute single back in 1968.

ixnay

Didn't they play "Hey Jude" by The Beatles back then? I know that was over 7 minutes....

 

[radioguy39nj]

I remember hearing Michele Iaia talk up "MacArthur Park" on the Sunday night and her remarking how no one would play a 7-minute single back in 1968.

ixnay

Didn't they play "Hey Jude" by The Beatles back then? I know that was over 7 minutes....

"Hey Jude" was #1 for at least 8 weeks in 1968.

 

[rtetro]

"Hey Jude" was #1 for at least 8 weeks in 1968.

And a lot of stations faded Hey Jude early, perhaps 30-60 seconds into the "Na-na"s. Likwise for Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone. I remember that WABC always faded Dylan after the second verse. That was in 1966 (?) if my memory is working properly. The thing with MacArthur Park is that there was no logical place to cut it, so stations pretty much had to play the whole thing. I don't believe I ever heard a cut version of it.

When Suite: Judy Blue Eyes was released as a single, I remember that the promo copy we used had the full 7-minute version on one side and a 4:30 radio edit on the other. We usually played the radio edit during the day and the full version at night.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

Speaking of fade outs during songs, I remember back when the Fifth Dimension had their hit Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In, WDEL would fade out during the instrumental segway between the two songs, not because it was too long, but my guess is, their MOR audience wouldn't appreciate the more urban sound of Let the Sun Shine In. Of course WAMS and WFIL played the full version of the medley.

 

[deepstblu]

I remember hearing Michele Iaia talk up "MacArthur Park" on the Sunday night and her remarking how no one would play a 7-minute single back in 1968.

ixnay

Didn't they play "Hey Jude" by The Beatles back then? I know that was over 7 minutes....

I don't think WIP was quite ready to embrace the Beatles in '68--it probably took until Abbey Road and "Something" for them to be comfortable with that idea. And with their spot load in those days, they definitely would have had issues with a 7-minute song, at least in their prime hours. They only played "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on weekends, and that was a mere 4:55.

 

[rich610]

WIP didn't play the Beatles until the 1970s. It wasn't until 1968 that WIP began evolving into a more AC-soft rock sound. Over the years WIP added "Hard Days Night", "Yesterday," and "Let it Be." Ironically, they played the solo hits by the different Beatles ("Uncle Albert," "Silly Love Songs," "You're Sixteen," "Give Me Love," "Imagine") in the 1970s. I remember hearing "Come Together" on Bill Webber's midday "Blue Plate Special" feature in 1984. I'm sure that wasn't the only time they played that. If you look at a top-40 chart from any week in the 1970s, many of the songs on it were heard on WIP. That's why I'm interested to see what was on that top 500 list. There must be some really good music on it.

 

[radioguy39nj]

After WCAU-FM flipped to disco around 1975, WPEN started doing oldies. A couple of years later, they added soft rock to the oldies. I presume WIP basically replaced WPEN as Philly's oldies station in the late 70s.

 

[rich610]

"After WCAU-FM flipped to disco around 1975, WPEN started doing oldies. A couple of years later, they added soft rock to the oldies. I presume WIP basically replaced WPEN as Philly's oldies station in the late 70s."

No. WIP was a full-service AC station up until 1983. WIP played most of the current hits of the 1970s and early 1980s, except for those songs that they felt didn't fit their image. WIP played the lighter side of the top 40, but they always had a current sound. WIP did add some oldies to the mix in 1982, and Tom Lamaine did a three-hour oldies show each night from 8-11 PM (Tom Lamaine's Memory Lane), but WIP never went full-time oldies. WIP was the number one music station in Philadelphia from about 1965-1978, and remained in the top 10 in the Arbitron ratings through 1982.

 

[stevations]

Didn't WIP and other stations edit the word in Paul Simon's Kodachrome (the word "crap") Some stations just took it out and others had a tone which brought more attention to the word. Also in 1975 WCAU FM did not go to disco...I remember them playing Taxi by Harry Chapin along with Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez. There slogan was "FM 98, says alot for Philadelphia" Even in 1978 when they were all disco they rarely used that word, calling themselves The Rhythm Sound and Fascinating Rhythm. There were alot of DJ changes in 1978 on WCAU FM also. Some of this can be heard on the "stevations" youtube channel.

 

[Fakeem]

WIP was the number one music station in Philadelphia from about 1965-1978, and remained in the top 10 in the Arbitron ratings through 1982.

That can't be right, because i vaguely remember WDAS-FM being Number 1 overall sometime between 1975 and 1978. ??? Can anyone give me the year and quarter or quarters when it happened?

 

[deepstblu]

Didn't WIP and other stations edit the word in Paul Simon's Kodachrome (the word "crap") Some stations just took it out and others had a tone which brought more attention to the word.

Yep, WIP put in a loud bleep. And Ken Garland had trouble saying the title of Mac Davis' "One Hell of a Woman"...

Also in 1975 WCAU FM did not go to disco...I remember them playing Taxi by Harry Chapin along with Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez.

Google's Billboard archive doesn't seem to have anything on the switch; Billboard was calling WCAU-FM a "disco-jazz format station" by 12/18/76 when they covered a visit to the studio by Stevie Wonder. I think they made the switch in the last week of '75, or else pretty early in '76.

 

[qtpieislit]

WIP was the number one music station in Philadelphia from about 1965-1978,

Not accurate. More like 1974-1978.