Top 40 Music on Compact Disc: buckner & garcia "pac-man fever"

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Topic: buckner & garcia "pac-man fever"

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aaronk
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Posted: 18 August 2010 at 9:44pm \| IP Logged

There wasn't a commercial single for "All My Love," was there? If that's true, I can certainly understand why it was a radio-only hit. And obviously when you get into the '90s, there will be countless examples of high charting Billboard Hot 100 songs that didn't get any CHR airplay. For the '70s and '80s, though, the R&R CHR airplay charts are very similar to the Hot 100, with the exception of the above examples.

JMD1961
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Posted: 19 August 2010 at 2:27am \| IP Logged

They were indeed close. I'm in the middle of doing a week-by-week comparison between BB, CB & R&R (the goal is to produce my own year-end charts combining info from all three). What stands out to me (especially in the '70s) is that R&B seemed to perform less well on the R&R charts than the other two. My guess is that, while big sellers, R&B didn't get a lot of airplay on "pop" stations.

mstgator
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Posted: 19 August 2010 at 6:08pm \| IP Logged

You'll also note that during a period in 1981-83, many songs spent what seemed eternity holding at their peak position on the Hot 100, and ended up climbing much higher in R&R. A few examples include Chicago's "Love Me Tomorrow" (#21 vs #4), Kenny Loggins' "Heart To Heart" (#15 vs #3), Billy Joel's "Allentown" (#17 vs #3), and Fleetwood Mac's "Gypsy" (#12 vs #1).

Edited by mstgator on 19 August 2010 at 6:09pm

aaronk
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Posted: 19 August 2010 at 8:26pm \| IP Logged

Interesting thread! Here are some other early '80s songs that have a much higher airplay peak:

"September Morn" - Neil Diamond (#6 RR; #17 BB)
"Jojo" - Boz Scaggs (#6 RR; #17 BB)
"Boulevard" - Jackson Browne (#4 RR; #19 BB)
"Hot Rod Hearts" - Robbie Dupree (#3 RR; #15 BB)
"Never Be The Same" - Christopher Cross (#3 RR; #15 BB)
"A Little In Love" - Cliff Richard (#5 RR; #17 BB)

Edited by aaronk on 19 August 2010 at 9:28pm

torcan
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Posted: 20 August 2010 at 3:38pm \| IP Logged

mstgator wrote:

This period has always fascinated me. From about 1975-1983, Billboard had a rule that if a song (or album) had a "star" (or bullet) on the chart one week, it could not fall the next. It first had to hold in that position, and "lose its star". In the fall of 1980, they introduced "superstars" to their chart mix for the songs that were the fastest rising. After a while, just about everything that moved up within the top 40 received a superstar, and for most songs they first had to hold, convert the superstar to a star, then hold again and lose the star. This meant three or more weeks in peak postions for many songs during this period. After holding for three or more weeks, they'd tumble down the chart quickly - I guess to make up for the inflated positions while they were waiting to lose the star.

Looking back, I find these rules a bit rediculous. It's almost like the chart director didn't want to move a song out of a possible peak position if it had been holding there a few weeks, whether the song would have rightfully moved up or not.

I know that Billboard was always considered the most accurate charts - but you wonder how accurate they really were during this period!

Paul Haney
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Posted: 21 August 2010 at 6:27am \| IP Logged

Here's a few more to add to the list:

I.G.Y. - Donald Fagen (#6 RR/#26 BB)
The One You Love - Glenn Frey (#2 RR/#15 BB)
All Those Lies - Glenn Frey (#20 RR/#41 BB)
I Gotta Try - Michael McDonald (#17 RR/#44 BB)
Take The Short Way Home - Dionne Warwick (#17 RR/#41 BB)

I also like R&R for those songs that were ineligble for BB (like "All My Love" mentioned above):

More Than A Woman - Bee Gees (#21 RR)
Tell Me I'm Not Dreaming - Jermaine Jackson (#6 RR)
Pinball Wizard - Elton John (#9 RR)
Into The Groove - Madonna (#6 RR)

And, yes, most R&B songs ranked lower in R&R because they didn't get as much airplay on the CHR stations (especially in the 1970s and early 1980s).

Also, mstgator, "Love Me Tomorrow" by Chicago peaked at #22 on BB, not #21:)

mstgator
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Posted: 21 August 2010 at 7:00am \| IP Logged

Heh, that's what I get for going by memory instead of checking my books... :)

One more that was one of my favorites of 1983: Mac McAnally's "Minimum Love" (#25 RR/#41 BB). I didn't have access to AT40 at the time, only Dick Clark's National Music Survey (which had switched from Cashbox to RR by '83), so many of these songs were bigger hits in my mind than the Hot 100 charts would bear out.

Edited by mstgator on 21 August 2010 at 7:02am

RichM921
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Posted: 21 August 2010 at 2:31pm \| IP Logged

mstgator wrote:

There's no doubt in my mind that those songs should have been Top 5 hits in BB too. This makes me wonder if indeed the R&R charts were more accurate. Most of the songs you all are mentioning are ones I remember getting a ton of play on Top 40 radio, especially the ones that peaked top 20 or 30 in BB and went Top 10 in R&R.

AndrewChouffi
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Posted: 22 August 2010 at 11:02am \| IP Logged

To Rich:

I am not going to dispute your opinion that the R&R charts reflected airplay more accurately than Billboard, but I have my own opinion to add...

I believe that R&R at that time was best at being a barometer of what was being PROMOTED best on the radio (it was easier to work up the charts a safe all-dayparts record as opposed to a killer, "heavier" nighttime record that had a ton of public interest & sold a lot of singles and parent albums).

Also, the Billboard Hot 100 was never meant to be a chart to specifically represent only airplay as the sales component of the chart was equally as important, if not MORE important near the top fifteen of the chart.

This may be why (for example) "Allentown" got only to #17 on the Billboard chart: It received airplay in all dayparts; people that liked it already purchased the album (it was the 2nd single), yet not many people really LOVED the song (it was good, but it wasn't incredible).

The same could be said for the other three examples in mstgator's post; they were all 2nd singles from reasonably hot acts, they could be played in all dayparts, the songs were all good (but not the acts' all-time best).

Andy

aaronk
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Posted: 22 August 2010 at 11:36am \| IP Logged

AndrewChouffi wrote:

This may be why (for example) "Allentown" got only to #17 on the Billboard chart: It received airplay in all dayparts; people that liked it already purchased the album (it was the 2nd single)...

Your point about people already owning the album is a possible explanation as to why some songs didn't peak higher on the Hot 100 chart. Why buy the single if I already have it on an album?

aaronk
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Posted: 22 August 2010 at 12:19pm \| IP Logged

RichM921 wrote:

This makes me wonder if indeed the R&R charts were more accurate.

Neither chart is going to be a perfectly accurate representation of a song's popularity. Consider the following hypothetical reasons chart positions could be affected:

R&R

Payola

Pushy record promoters

Dayparting rules on "edgy" songs

People don't request songs they have already purchased

Hot 100

"Bought" chart positions

No need to buy a song that's on the radio all the time

Purchased the whole album instead of the single

Recorded it off the radio instead of buying

I'm sure there many more possible reasons why a song's chart position might not be completely accurate. Because of this, I tend to look at both R&R and Hot 100 charts, taking each with a grain of salt.

Edited by aaronk on 22 August 2010 at 2:00pm

JMD1961
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Posted: 22 August 2010 at 3:27pm \| IP Logged

aaronk wrote:

I agree, Aaron. That's why I'm currently doing my year-end charts from 1974-1989 (the time I consider "My Era") using Billboard, R&R and the even more questionable CashBox charts. By combining the three, I'm hoping I get a better representation of the music of each year.

torcan
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Posted: 23 August 2010 at 9:42am \| IP Logged

aaronk wrote:

[QUOTE=AndrewChouffi]
Your point about people already owning the album is a possible explanation as to why some songs didn't peak higher on the Hot 100 chart. Why buy the single if I already have it on an album?

That is a good point but I don't think it holds water. After "Thriller" hit big and releasing lots of singles from albums became commonplace, quite frequently those later singles (5th, 6th, etc.) still became big top 10 hits, and some of them No. 1 - so even though many people had those albums others were still buying the singles. Theoretically, that should have applied to all those 2nd single examples in the early '80s too.

aaronk
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Posted: 23 August 2010 at 2:14pm \| IP Logged

torcan wrote:

That is a good point but I don't think it holds water.

Which is why I was careful to say "possible explanation" and "some songs." You can't really say that it's not possible just because it doesn't apply to Thriller, though. That was a blockbuster album not even in the same league as albums like The Nylon Curtain (Billy Joel) or Mirage (Fleetwood Mac). I still think it's possible that album sales can cause single sales to be lower. It might not be the only reason, but it's still possible.

Edited by aaronk on 23 August 2010 at 2:15pm

Hykker
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Posted: 23 August 2010 at 3:22pm \| IP Logged

aaronk wrote:

RichM921 wrote:

This makes me wonder if indeed the R&R charts were more accurate.

Neither chart is going to be a perfectly accurate representation of a song's popularity. Consider the following hypothetical reasons chart positions could be affected:

Here's another factor that could affect chart position/longevity:
Smaller market stations (such as the ones where I've worked) don't have the resources to do music testing per se, so we've tended to follow the trades as to what to add, drop or put in various rotations. The 2 CHRs that I worked at during the 80s & 90s were also trade reporters so our reports (and presumably other stations in a similar situation) tended to "keep the momentum going" on songs. Neither of the aforementioned stations were Billboard reporters, but we did report to R&R (which tended to have somewhat looser standards to accept stations as reporters than BB did, also BB seemed to keep a lot of "heritage" stations as CHR reporters well into the 80s, even though those stations may have transitioned to more of an AC format).

In short, R&R's reporting base was somewhat broader, and encompassed more medium to small markets than BB's did which would also skew the results.

AndrewChouffi
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Posted: 23 August 2010 at 7:22pm \| IP Logged

To add to the 'torcan'/'aaronk' discussion: I was only talking about the cited songs that were 2nd singles; they were all medium-good songs. The second single from "Thriller", for example, was "Billie Jean". An OUTSTANDING song. The norm changes when the quality, and public impact is immense.

Andy

KentT
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Posted: 25 August 2010 at 3:31pm \| IP Logged

Another biggie you miss. In 1977, Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" got a lot of airplay as an album track. Usually the crying baby intro was edited off. Wondered about that one not being a single when it was an obvious hit. Asked the Motown rep when he dropped in for a visit. Later found out Stevie Wonder wouldn't allow an edited 45 to be released.

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RichM921
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Posted: 25 August 2010 at 7:27pm \| IP Logged

KentT wrote:

Wasn't there a promo 45? I know there's edit floating around.

Bill Cahill
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Posted: 26 August 2010 at 5:48am \| IP Logged

I don't have time to move this great discussion to another thread, can somebody else move it? Anyway I think that Isn't She Lovely was covered in another thread. I believe there was no edit from the label, but TM Century Gold Disc made one which cuts off the baby intro and chops off the lengthy ending. TM Century has many of their own edits, including an odd edit of Roundabout by Yes. Lots of stations used TM Century CDs in the 80's and 90's which made the TM Century edit commonly used on AC stations, and it still is.

Paul Haney
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Posted: 26 August 2010 at 9:45am \| IP Logged

Bill Cahill wrote:

Anyway I think that Isn't She Lovely was covered in another thread.

I know this topic has been covered before...I'll see if I can find it and bump it up for those interested.

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