What is Top 40 Music On CD?

As we celebrate 20 years of our website, it occured to me that some visitors might not have a complete picture of what we're all about, and many visitors have never subscribed to the paid database. To give the very brief history, we have to go back even further than 20 years when the site was in book form by founder and author Pat Downey.

Back in the 1980s, when CDs had first come out, Pat began detailing not only which CDs had US top 40 hits, but also which versions of those songs could be found on each CD. The work he has done is nothing short of incredible. Over the years, Pat has almost single-handedly compiled thousands of songs and nearly a quarter of a million CD entries, first in book form and today in electronic form.

What you're seeing here on the chat board is only half of the site. The other half that I just mentioned can be accessed by paid members. Here's an example of what a paid member currently sees:



In this example, you can see every US CD that has "Smooth Operator" by Sade. You can also see the actual run time (as opposed to the printed run time), whether the song is in stereo (S) or mono (M), the catalog number of the disc, and finally which version appears on it. When a disc has no version specified, the database user knows that the US 45 version and US LP version are the same. For "Smooth Operator," you'll also see a note toward the top that gives info about the promo and commercial 45 versions.

So, when you read chat board discussions about "updating the database," that's what we're talking about. If a CD release has an inaccurate description in the database, we've used this forum to discuss what it is, and then Pat has used this info to make updates.

Now that Pat has retired, he's left database and site updates to me. On top of that, I'm working toward some slight design changes and small expansions to the paid database. It will, however, still remain the same incredible database and site that Pat started decades ago.

Finally, I'm glad you're here visiting and/or joining in on the discussion! If you're not registered for the chat board/forum, you can email me at aaron@top40musiconcd.com. Forum registrations are separate from the paid database and are free. If you'd like to subscribe to the paid database, you can visit this page of the site: https://www.top40musiconcd.com/TermsAndConditions.asp. Please note that forum and paid access is currently a manual process (by me). If you're signing up for the paid database, please allow a little time for me to get you set up with a username and password once you've submitted payment (it's not automatic), and also please only submit payment once.

Thanks!