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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 25 October 2022 at 1:19pm | IP Logged
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PopArchivist wrote:
What about Vol 2 of the Top Pop
Singles book (1990-2021) isn't that supposed to come soon?
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Just started working on it. We want to go thru the entire
year of 2022, so it should be out sometime next spring
(2023).
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Scanner
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| Posted: 01 November 2022 at 7:56am | IP Logged
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How did you document the peak position for songs that
were still climbing on the final published Gavin charts?
I recall that for other charts (Record World, Cashbox),
Record Research would note the highest position the song
reached, but would not indicate that it was still rising.
For example, "Ebony And Ivory" debuted on the last Record
World pop chart at # 40. This is listed as the song's
peak in the Record Research "Hit Records 1954-1982" book.
Clearly, this song would have peaked much higher had
Record World continued to publish. I always thought
songs such as these should have had an indicator such as
an upward arrow next to it so that a reader would realize
the song's final position was not truly representative of
its success.
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 01 November 2022 at 10:42am | IP Logged
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Scanner wrote:
How did you document the peak position
for songs that
were still climbing on the final published Gavin charts?
I recall that for other charts (Record World, Cashbox),
Record Research would note the highest position the song
reached, but would not indicate that it was still rising.
For example, "Ebony And Ivory" debuted on the last Record
World pop chart at # 40. This is listed as the song's
peak in the Record Research "Hit Records 1954-1982" book.
Clearly, this song would have peaked much higher had
Record World continued to publish. I always thought
songs such as these should have had an indicator such as
an upward arrow next to it so that a reader would realize
the song's final position was not truly representative of
its success. |
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We simply show the position.
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 10 November 2022 at 1:02pm | IP Logged
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Update: The books are due to arrive at our offices by
Monday, so all pre-orders will be shipping by next week!
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Archives Guy
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| Posted: 11 November 2022 at 2:31pm | IP Logged
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Congratulations!! I am really looking forward to seeing this
book arrive in the mail!
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EdisonLite
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| Posted: 18 November 2022 at 2:19pm | IP Logged
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I just received this book today. Just took a brief look through it but it's great.
This is a question for Paul, but maybe someone else knows, too. For the '70s,
everything that has a peak between 21 and 40 ("Gaining well in several
markets"), is a complete guess. What has a 21 peak might have really been
40th in popularity. And vice versa. And the assumption is that what's near the
top of the "Gaining well" list was organized in some order of popularity and
these were getting more plays than the ones near the bottom. Did the Gavin
report ever report about this? Does anyone know if the songs were just listed
randomly or with the more popular ones listed near the top (where we're
assuming 21, 22, 23...)?
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 18 November 2022 at 2:54pm | IP Logged
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EdisonLite wrote:
I just received this book today. Just
took a brief look through it but it's great.
This is a question for Paul, but maybe someone else
knows, too. For the '70s,
everything that has a peak between 21 and 40 ("Gaining
well in several
markets"), is a complete guess. What has a 21 peak might
have really been
40th in popularity. And vice versa. And the assumption is
that what's near the
top of the "Gaining well" list was organized in some
order of popularity and
these were getting more plays than the ones near the
bottom. Did the Gavin
report ever report about this? Does anyone know if the
songs were just listed
randomly or with the more popular ones listed near the
top (where we're
assuming 21, 22, 23...)? |
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If you followed the charts week-to-week (which I did
while researching), there did appear to be a logical
order to the #21-40 songs (although they weren't
officially numbered). I guess you could quibble that
songs dropping off the chart from inside the Top 20 could
still be popular enough to be in the Top 40, but if we
would've just done a Top 20 for all those years, we
wouldn't have been able to include all of the songs that
we did. Obviously an editorial decision on our part, but
I feel that the way we did it made the most sense (and
Joel agreed on this point before he passed away).
Edited by Paul Haney on 18 November 2022 at 2:56pm
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EdisonLite
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| Posted: 18 November 2022 at 4:29pm | IP Logged
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Thanks Paul. If week-to-week they had a logical climb within that section, then
it makes sense that those were pretty close to their peak positions and not just
random positions each week. And while you're right about the top 20 songs
not dropping below 20 on their way down, we could say it was equivalent to
later when Billboard dropped songs off their top 100 once they fell below 50
(basically) so sorta the same thing :)
Edited by EdisonLite on 18 November 2022 at 6:56pm
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Brian W.
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| Posted: 18 November 2022 at 6:45pm | IP Logged
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EdisonLite wrote:
| I just received this book today. |
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I didn't, and I live in the L.A. area too! >:(
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EdisonLite
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| Posted: 19 November 2022 at 3:37am | IP Logged
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In my brief looking through the book, I was pretty amazed at how Gavin peaks
for some artists, like Barry Manilow, lined up pretty well with Billboard Hot 100
peaks. Makes me wonder if Billboard (back in the day) actually was pretty
accurate. Sometimes Cashbox and Record World were quite different peaks for
various songs.
With Radio & Records, comparing would be like apples to oranges, because
despite the magazine/chart name, their chart was all about "radio" and not
"records" (airplay, not sales)
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Yah Shure
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| Posted: 19 November 2022 at 10:32pm | IP Logged
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Got mine yesterday, too. Thanks, Paul!
In just skimming through for a couple minutes, I noticed that "I Think We're Alone Now" by Tommy James & The Shondells didn't chart at all in Gavin! How on earth did Bill miss that one, considering "Mirage" went to #3?
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 20 November 2022 at 4:32am | IP Logged
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Yah Shure wrote:
Got mine yesterday, too. Thanks,
Paul!
In just skimming through for a couple minutes, I noticed
that "I Think We're Alone Now" by Tommy James & The
Shondells didn't chart at all in Gavin! How on earth did
Bill miss that one, considering "Mirage" went to #3?
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We did make note of this in the introduction near the
bottom of Page 4. Gavin had the (unfortunate) policy of
"banning" certain songs due to content. "I Think Were
Alone Now" and "Honky Tonk Women" were the two most
notable examples. But hey, his publication, his rules!
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Brian W.
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| Posted: 20 November 2022 at 2:25pm | IP Logged
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Got mine yesterday. It's a great book. At first I was
really puzzled by Ricky Nelson "One Minute to One" /
"Half Breed". I thought, "Oh, come on... a single in the
top ten in Gavin that didn't even make the top 100 in
Billboard, Cash Box, or Record World?"
Turns out those two songs are from the four-track EP
"Songs by Ricky" and were not issued as a two-track
single, so they probably weren't eligible to place on the
other charts.
Fascinating book, Paul. I stayed up way too late last
night thumbing through it. Though I was kind of hoping
that "Isn't She Lovely" would have charted in Gavin
somewhere, but apparently not.
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 20 November 2022 at 3:31pm | IP Logged
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Brian, glad you like the book.
I don't even recall seeing a mention of "Isn't She Lovely" which is a shame.
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EdisonLite
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| Posted: 20 November 2022 at 5:18pm | IP Logged
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I, too, stayed up most of last night taking a more detailed look through the
book. Fascinating book and I highly recommend it to everyone here. Ironically,
though I'd heard of "The Gavin Report" for years, I never knew there was a pop
chart associated with it, in print every week. So after getting all the other
books like Cashbox, Record World, R&R, and the Billboard ones, this was like
icing on a cake I didn't even know was baked. :)
When I have more time to write I want to mention 2 particular things/trends I
noticed.
Also, it was quite interesting to see some peaks that were so different than
Billboard's.
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RoknRobnLoxley
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| Posted: 21 November 2022 at 10:14am | IP Logged
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Yes, kudos Paul for another excellent book, in the arsenal of chart books !!
Most interesting to read in the intro that Gavin sometimes produced 2 issues for a given week. Did he produce 2 charts for a given week as well? Did Record Research include those sometimes 2 charts per week in all the data analysis in the book?
Cheers n chips !!
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 21 November 2022 at 10:41am | IP Logged
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RoknRobnLoxley wrote:
Yes, kudos Paul for another
excellent book, in the arsenal of chart books !!
Most interesting to read in the intro that Gavin
sometimes produced 2 issues for a given week. Did he
produce 2 charts for a given week as well? Did Record
Research include those sometimes 2 charts per week in all
the data analysis in the book?
Cheers n chips !! |
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It was just mainly that first year (1958) where he did
more than one issue per week. There wasn't always an
extra chart involved, but if there was we researched it.
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EdisonLite
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| Posted: 23 November 2022 at 3:46am | IP Logged
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One observation about the Gavin charts -- I keep a database of peaks of songs
I like a lot or love. It already had Billboard, Cashbox, Record World, R&R. So in
the 1st 24 hours of having this book, I added the Gavin peaks. And I noticed it
seemed like starting in early 1980 and maybe into 1981, the Gavin peaks
matched the R&R peaks (at least for my favorite songs). Did both magazines
use the same source for their charts during this brief period of time? Or were
both owned by the same company? Maybe it was just all the particular songs I
logged but I kept noticing the pattern.
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 23 November 2022 at 3:54am | IP Logged
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EdisonLite wrote:
One observation about the Gavin charts -- I keep a database of peaks of songs
I like a lot or love. It already had Billboard, Cashbox, Record World, R&R. So in
the 1st 24 hours of having this book, I added the Gavin peaks. And I noticed it
seemed like starting in early 1980 and maybe into 1981, the Gavin peaks
matched the R&R peaks (at least for my favorite songs). Did both magazines
use the same source for their charts during this brief period of time? Or were
both owned by the same company? Maybe it was just all the particular songs I
logged but I kept noticing the pattern. |
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Not totally surprising as both publications were based strictly on airplay. While they may have shared
some of the same reporting stations, Gavin tended to use more small market stations over the years.
They were totally separate (and competing) entities.
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EdisonLite
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| Posted: 23 November 2022 at 4:09am | IP Logged
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Oh and a 2nd observation about the book. This one isn't about the early
'80s but the late '90s. Somewhere around '98-ish, I noticed a BIG
divergence in the peaks of the more "pure pop" songs when it came to
Billboard vs. Gavin Report and R&R. (The Gavin & R&R peaks were very
close to each other, and Billboard was far away from either). Examples:
Order of peaks: BB Gavin R&R
Peach Union - On My Own 39 11 17
Keith Lisa - Better Than You 36 7 12
Tuesdays - It's Up to You 55 19 21
New Radicals - You Get What You Give 36 10 12
Mulberry Lane - Harmless 99 27 32
McCain Edwin - I Could Not Ask for More 37 19 17
She Moves - Breaking All the Rules 32 14 15
Vitamin C - Graduation 38 11 12
Notice the difference between the 1st number (Billboard) & the other 2 (that
are so close to each other).
So my 1st thought was that Gavin Report really got the popularity of these
songs wrong - because the Billboard peaks show another story. But then
the R&R numbers were so close to Gavin's - and far away from BB.
I think Billboard changed the way it compiled the hot 100 somewhere
around '98. (They also did a major change in '92 right around when Height's
"How Do You Talk to An Angel" was #1. That was due to using actual sales
and (BDS?) airplay. The '98 change was due to incorporating a lot of other
charts besides CHR, at least IIRC.)
I listened to pop radio a lot back then and heard these songs a lot. But is it
'accurate' to consider the New Radicals and Lisa Keith songs as top 10 hits?
And those others as top 15 and 20 hits (Edwin McCain, Vitamin C, She
Moves, Peach Union...)? Sure, most of these songs didn't pass the test of
time. But in the mid-70s, "Run Joey Run" didn't pass the test of time but
still peaked at #4.
Putting this another way, if Billboard didn't make the Hot 100 an all-
encompassing chart starting in '98, would these songs peaks be closer to
the higher peaks on R&R and Gavin (granted the sales would have to be on
a par with airplay to do that)?
Edited by EdisonLite on 23 November 2022 at 4:14am
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Topic: The Gavin Report 1958-2000
