Top 40 Music on Compact Disc: Airplay hits from 1990s

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Paul Haney
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Posted: 01 November 2005 at 1:14pm \| IP Logged

Now that the database is back up and running, I've wondered if Pat was ever going to go back and add some of those Airplay-only hits from the 1990s. I'm talking Green Day, Dave Matthews Band, Counting Crows, Natalie Imbruglia, etc. I'm sure most music fans consider them essential Top 40 hits from that era.

What do you guys think?

edtop40
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Posted: 01 November 2005 at 1:23pm \| IP Logged

absolutely....they should be included

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EdisonLite
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Posted: 01 November 2005 at 1:24pm \| IP Logged

I agree -- songs like "Torn" or Fastball's "The Way" are considered hits, and I'm sure anyone purchasing Pat's book (or database) would appreciate having that info.

JMD1961
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Posted: 01 November 2005 at 3:37pm \| IP Logged

I also agree that they should be included.

Though, I can see the problem with determining what is and isn't an official top 40 hit in the 90's. There were just too many charts to go by.

Hot 100, Mainstream Top 40, Rhythmic Top 40, Adult Top 40... the list goes on and on.

aaronk
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Posted: 01 November 2005 at 4:17pm \| IP Logged

It wouldn't be such a headache if Billboard hadn't started tampering with the way they compiled their charts. At one point, didn't they give very little weight to airplay for their Hot 100 chart?

Brian W.
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Posted: 01 November 2005 at 5:42pm \| IP Logged

aaronk wrote:

It wouldn't be such a headache if Billboard hadn't started tampering with the way they compiled their charts. At one point, didn't they give very little weight to airplay for their Hot 100 chart?

Seems like I've read that airplay was only about 40% of the equation in the Hot 100 until around 1972 or 1973, when they upped it to 50%. Don't know how true that is, though. I think it stayed at 50% till at least the late '80s.

I always hear that Cash Box was almost completely sales based up until the mid-'70s, but I have been unable to determine if that's true for sure. I'm pretty positive it was totally sales based at least through the end of '62, because Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" hit #12 in Billboard that year, but only #90 in Cash Box.

While there was no weekly indication of how the Cash Box chart was compiled, the year-end charts always contained the notation, "Compiled from the Cash Box Top 100 BEST SELLING Singles chart" up through 1974. Starting in 1975, the year-end charts just referred to it as the "Cash Box Top 100."

I actually obtained the email address of Irv Lichtman a couple months ago, who was Cash Box's editor in chief during the 1970s, and sent him an email to try to get some more info on how their charts were compiled, but he didn't answer me.

Then of course we've got the Variety sales charts from '76 to '85... if I ever get my lazy ass in gear and get done transcribing them.

Edited by Brian W. on 01 November 2005 at 5:45pm

JMD1961
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Posted: 01 November 2005 at 7:52pm \| IP Logged

If I remember correctly, Billboard favored sales data over airplay through the early part of their "actual sales & airplay" charts compiled in the early '90s. At the same time, though, the record companies all but stopped servicing commercial singles, and instead began releasing songs directly to radio. This led to the advent of the "radio hit", which was ineligible for the Hot 100.

No one said anything until "Don't Speak" by No Doubt became the undisputed #1 hit of 1997... undisputed that is, by everyone but Billboard who, since a commercial single had never been released, never charted the song on the Hot 100. (It did spend 16 weeks at #1 on their airplay chart.)

After that, enough voices were raised to cause Billboard to change their policy, and include airplay hits on the Hot 100 chart, at the same time, raising the balance of airplay over sales (based on the fact that most "singles" were unavailable for sale) in the compiling of the chart. However, at the same time, they also decided to stop using just top 40 airplay, and instead added airplay from all other radio formats. The result (in my eyes) was a heavily R&B leaning "pop" chart.

All of this has caused me to abandon the Hot 100 as my source for what warrants a "top 40" hit after 1989. When I research the '90s for Top 40 hits, I tend to lean on the Mainstream Top 40 airplay charts myself. I also like to look at more than one source, using both Billboard & R&R, as well as ARC.

Edited by JMD1961 on 01 November 2005 at 7:54pm

EdisonLite
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Posted: 01 November 2005 at 10:22pm \| IP Logged

I know many people (myself included) that abandoned the Hot 100 after they took the "pop" out of the pop chart and started adding all the other formats.

aaronk
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Posted: 02 November 2005 at 1:28am \| IP Logged

Ditto. I don't put much weight into Billboard charts after 1989. I generally use the R&R CHR/Pop chart as an indicator for 90s hits. However, in the past few years, I've even been doubting the integrity of the R&R pop chart.

Since Clear Channel and Infinity basically own every station who reports to the chart, the R&R chart has essentially become the Clear Channel chart. After all, every Top 40 station owned by CC plays the exact same songs, picked by some VP who is probably getting major "perks" for adding certain songs to their playlists. How else can you explain why you see awful songs making it into the airplay top 10, while bands like Coldplay can't even land a song in the top 30, yet their album has sold over 2 million copies and stayed for weeks in the Billboard 200 top 10.

OK, I'll get off my soap box now.

Brian W.
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Posted: 02 November 2005 at 1:39am \| IP Logged

Oh, yeah, I don't give much heed to the Hot 100 anymore. Hot Digital Songs is the chart I feel most accurately reflects "the hits." But I wish Billboard would merge the physical singles sales and the digital downloads charts and just come up with one standard "single sales" chart... I believe they are merged for the Hot 100, but each has a separate chart of its own.

And I still don't think the Hot 100 will ever reflect reality until some formula is devised that will allow album sales to be factored in. There's gotta be some logical way to do that.

Paul Haney
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Posted: 02 November 2005 at 12:15pm \| IP Logged

I didn't mean to start a chart debate here:)

I just think it would be nice for those Top 40 hits from the airplay chart that weren't eligible for the Hot 100 to be represented in the database.

Of course, all of this is up to Pat. I'd be glad to supply him with a list of those titles if he so desires.

aaronk
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Posted: 02 November 2005 at 1:04pm \| IP Logged

I think it would also be nice to have those airplay hits included. I'm sorry for starting the debate :)

Pat Downey
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Posted: 02 November 2005 at 1:13pm \| IP Logged

Paul, will Record Research authorize me to use the Billboard charts of the radio airplay?

Paul Haney
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Posted: 02 November 2005 at 2:53pm \| IP Logged

Pat, as long as you don't show chart data you have every right to add any song title to your database.

Paul Haney
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Posted: 02 November 2005 at 3:03pm \| IP Logged

aaronk wrote:

I'm sorry for starting the debate :)

Actaully Aaron, I found the responses quite interesting. The entire chart history of the 1990s is really a mess. It used to be fun watching songs climb up and down the charts at a regular pace. I think you can pinpoint the date of December 7, 1991, when the "revised" Hot 100 took effect. The charts became much more accurate, but somehow a lot less fun.

Then the record companies stopped putting out commercial singles and these monster Airplay hits only added to the confusion. Top 40 radio also became much more restrictive, which led to a lot of cookie-cutter sounding songs.

I'm just glad I grew up in an era when Top 40 radio was truly a mass appeal format.

EdisonLite
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Posted: 02 November 2005 at 4:10pm \| IP Logged

<will Record Research authorize me to use the Billboard charts of the radio airplay? >

Actually, I think you can handle this issue the same way you handle the issue for all other songs that have been in the book. I believe, for the songs in the book/database, you average out the Billboard Hot 100 with Cashbox, R&R, Record World, etc. or whatever charts were available during the time frame in question. Thus, you wouldn't have to get authorization from any of the magazines. Well, it seems to me, for airplay hits, you can average out the Hot 100 Airplay chart in Billboard with the Mainstream Airplay chart in R&R (and other charts if you want) - and whatever averages out to at least #40 or higher, and isn't already in your book -- could be included. And you wouldn't have to get any authorization from anybody since the songs added to the database don't correspond to any one magazine's chart.

Brian W.
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Posted: 02 November 2005 at 9:22pm \| IP Logged

I don't think he would have to get authorization, anyway. As Paul said, he's not listing specific chart info... simply that the song was present on the chart.

Paul Haney
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Posted: 03 November 2005 at 11:32am \| IP Logged

It's really quite simple. If you don't show chart data, then you don't need "authorization" from anyone!

Paul Haney
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Posted: 17 September 2009 at 4:59am \| IP Logged

Dusting off this ancient topic (2005!) for Jim and anybody else interested.

jimct
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Posted: 17 September 2009 at 12:16pm \| IP Logged

Paul: Thanks for bumping this informative thread up; I wasn't yet a member of the Chat Board when this subject was initially broached! Given all that was apparently sorted out here (Pat's concerns addressed), I'm now extremely surprised that Pat hasn't long ago gone ahead and just added these songs in. It's a glaring database hole because, as Aaron said, those songs were all bonafide hits! (PS-I'm gonna go edit out the RR "chart data" I included to make my earlier point - I wanna stay on RR's good side! :) )

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