buckner & garcia "pac-man fever"
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Topic: buckner & garcia "pac-man fever"
Posted By: edtop40
Subject: buckner & garcia "pac-man fever"
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 5:20pm
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my commercial 45 issued as columbia 02673 states, on the label's face, a run time of 3:43 but it actually runs 3:52 and is identical to the version on the below cd (thx paul)
(S) (3:52) Rhino 78239 Like, Omigod! The ‘80$ Pop Culture Box (Totally) the db has 2 other cds that have a run time of 3:46....my guess is that those cds tried to match the 45's stated run time without actually checking it....this info should be noted in the db..... ------------- edtop40 |
Replies:
Posted By: BillCahill
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 5:32pm
| The original 45 release on BGO records has a listed time of 3:54. |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 10:39pm
| Was "Pac-Man Fever" released more than once? |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 11:25pm
| Thanks, Ed. I've always wondered about that time difference. |
Posted By: jimct
Date Posted: 28 November 2007 at 11:26pm
| Not really, Todd. Atlanta, GA natives Jerry Buckner & Gary Garcia shopped their song to all the major labels in '81, but there were no takers. But small indie label owner Arnie Geller heard it, liked it, and released it on his small, pale blue "BGO" label (BGO 1001). A local morning show then started playing it, to great response. When the 45 had sold 10,000 copies in one week, Columbia then finally decided to pick up the song for national release, in December 1981. The BGO & Columbia versions are the same, and both labels use the same "instrumental version" as the flip side. The BGO 45 of it is actually pretty common out there in cyberspace, for anyone interested. The song peaked at #9 in Billboard, in March 1982. |
Posted By: 80smusicfreak
Date Posted: 29 November 2007 at 2:43pm
Nearly two years ago, when budaniel first brought up the subject of this song here, I did post the following in that thread back in March of '06 (and it was me who actually brought that second K-tel CD w/ the song to Pat's attention - nice to know he took the time to add it to the database):
I admit I don't have any technical software to do a precise A/B comparison on my pc like most folks seem to here; sorry if just listening to them by ear wasn't good enough... |
Brian W. wrote:Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 21 January 2009 at 10:32am
| It appears there may indeed be two different 45 pressings of Buckner & Garcia's "Pac-Man Fever" (Columbia18-02673). Abagon reports his commercial copy has an actual run time of 3:55, not 3:43 as stated on the record label. This of course runs at least :03 longer than all the song's CD appearances in the database. The matrix number of Abagon's 45 is: ZSS 169907-2A. |
Posted By: Fetta
Date Posted: 21 January 2009 at 5:28pm
| Does anyone have the 12" version of this? I burrned a copy from a mint 12" but the version doesn't seem to have any vocals in it except for the chorus? Does anyone have a 12" version of this that has the regular vocals? |
Posted By: budaniel
Date Posted: 22 January 2009 at 9:04am
| My 12" version is the same as yours--the full vocal LP version on one side, and an 'extended' version on the flip side that is actually more lilke a dub or instrumental version with just the chorus! I'll never understand WHY they released the extended 12" version as an instrumental! |
Posted By: edtop40
Date Posted: 22 January 2009 at 3:46pm
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my commercial 45 issued as columbia 02673 has "zss 169907-2c" stamped, not etched, in the run out groove and could possibly run 3:53 and not 3:52 but my vinyl 45 is too noisy to really know for sure...... ------------- edtop40 |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 16 August 2010 at 9:15pm
| Looking at some R&R song positions compared to Billboard, and I noticed this one did not even make the CHR chart (unless I'm just missing the chart info for it). Was this one of those songs that was more of a "spike record" but wasn't actually being reported by radio? |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 17 August 2010 at 5:05am
I'm not too surprised that this didn't chart in R&R. It was much bigger in sales than in airplay. I only heard this on the radio a couple of times outside of "American Top 40". My local record store sold a lot of copies. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 17 August 2010 at 7:58am
| Good to know, Paul. Thanks! There a couple other similar, surprising examples that I've found. "Let It Whip" by Dazz Band did not make the R&R CHR chart, and neither did "Twilight Zone" by Golden Earring. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 17 August 2010 at 3:58pm
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Here are a few more interesting examples of '80s songs that did not chart on the R&R CHR chart but did well on the Hot 100:
- Do They Know It's Christmas? (#13 Billboard) - Super Freak (#16 Billboard) - Love Come Down by Evelyn "Champagne" King (#17 Billboard) - You And I (Eddie Rabbitt/Crystal Gayle) (#7 Billboard) - It's My Turn by Diana Ross (#9 Billboard) |
Posted By: JMD1961
Date Posted: 17 August 2010 at 5:44pm
| - Master Blaster (Jammin') (#5 Billboard) |
Posted By: NightAire
Date Posted: 17 August 2010 at 8:46pm
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It's been fairly easy to find Billboard charts online, but it sounds like for what was REALLY being played on the radio, the R&R charts would be a better reference for me.
Two questions: did R&R do year-end charts? Secondly, anybody know if their yearly charts for 1980 - 1989 are available online? ------------- Gene Savage http://www.BlackLightRadio.com - http://www.BlackLightRadio.com http://www.facebook.com/TulsaSavage - http://www.facebook.com/TulsaSavage Tulsa, Oklahoma USA |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 17 August 2010 at 8:49pm
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http://wweb.uta.edu/faculty/gghunt/charts/chart.html - Alphabetical listing by artist
http://popradiotop20.com/ - Weekly & yearly charts * *The yearly charts are based on a point system devised by the creator of the site and are not exactly the year end charts published by R&R. Personally, I like this guy's year end charts better, because rather than using a cut off date for each year, a song appears only on the chart of the year in which it peaked. This allows for a more fair and accurate representation of songs that had chart runs split between two years. |
Posted By: NightAire
Date Posted: 17 August 2010 at 9:07pm
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Aaron,
After a very confused post by yours truly, I HAVE found the charts. I'm either blind, or drinking... and unaware of either condition. :) Thanks again, Gene ------------- Gene Savage http://www.BlackLightRadio.com - http://www.BlackLightRadio.com http://www.facebook.com/TulsaSavage - http://www.facebook.com/TulsaSavage Tulsa, Oklahoma USA |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 17 August 2010 at 9:23pm
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I'm confused as to what you were confused about, Gene!? I posted those links just a few moments after you had asked where to find the R&R chart data (in response to your inquiry).
Anyhow, here are a few other non R&R CHR song: - Billy Squier "The Stroke" (#17 Billboard) - Deniece Williams "It's Gonna Take A Miracle" (#10 Billboard) - Jermaine Jackson "Let's Get Serious" (#9 Billboard) - Whispers "And The Beat Goes On" (#19 Billboard) - Yarbrough & Peoples "Don't Stop The Music" (#19 Billboard) JMD - Interesting about that Stevie Wonder song not making the CHR chart! |
Posted By: JMD1961
Date Posted: 18 August 2010 at 6:12pm
Yes. I contacted the person compiling the artist list you posted the link to, and he confirmed that it never charted on R&R. Now, let's go the other way: Led Zeppelin - All My Love (#10 on R&R; never charted on either Billboard or CashBox) |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 18 August 2010 at 9:44pm
| 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. |
Posted By: JMD1961
Date Posted: 19 August 2010 at 2:27am
| 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. |
Posted By: mstgator
Date Posted: 19 August 2010 at 6:08pm
| 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). |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 19 August 2010 at 8:26pm
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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) |
Posted By: torcan
Date Posted: 20 August 2010 at 3:38pm
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! |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 21 August 2010 at 6:27am
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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:) |
Posted By: mstgator
Date Posted: 21 August 2010 at 7:00am
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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. |
Posted By: RichM921
Date Posted: 21 August 2010 at 2:31pm
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. |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 22 August 2010 at 11:02am
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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 |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 22 August 2010 at 11:36am
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? |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 22 August 2010 at 12:19pm
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
Hot 100
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. |
Posted By: JMD1961
Date Posted: 22 August 2010 at 3:27pm
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. |
Posted By: torcan
Date Posted: 23 August 2010 at 9:42am
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. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 23 August 2010 at 2:14pm
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. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 23 August 2010 at 3:22pm
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. |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 23 August 2010 at 7:22pm
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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 |
Posted By: KentT
Date Posted: 25 August 2010 at 3:31pm
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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. ------------- I turn up the good and turn down the bad! |
Posted By: RichM921
Date Posted: 25 August 2010 at 7:27pm
Wasn't there a promo 45? I know there's edit floating around. |
Posted By: Bill Cahill
Date Posted: 26 August 2010 at 5:48am
| 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. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 26 August 2010 at 9:45am
I know this topic has been covered before...I'll see if I can find it and bump it up for those interested. |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 30 March 2012 at 3:12pm
|
I just noticed in the database that "Pac-Man Fever" now appears on an CD titled Pac-Man Fever on Fuel 302061845. Is this really at long last *THE* Buckner & Garcia Pac-Man Fever album from 1982 consisting of all the original recordings?? I ask because up until this point, all CD releases of this album have been re-recordings. (Evidently, Columbia owns the masters but for some reason has declined for decades to reissue it on CD.)
Also, does anyone have the original vinyl LP who can report the run time of "Pac-Man Fever" on it? It's been issued on several CD compilations with a 3:46 run time and thus I'm wondering if this may also be the LP length? |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 30 March 2012 at 4:21pm
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Well, if the uploaded tracks on I-Tunes are any indication, it sounds like "Pac-Man Fever" on the Fuel release is the same re-recording that has appeared on CD in recent years. :-( This is one album I would absolutely love to see emerge on CD someday with all the original Columbia recordings (and complete with the fold-out "cheat sheet" of different patterns that can be used to navigate successfully through the game's maze!), but I'm losing hope of this ever coming to fruition with each passing year. Nonetheless, this fun squeaky-clean pop record brings back fond memories of my days as a pint-sized nine-year-old who could play over 45 minutes of Pac-Man on one quarter and in the process draw marveling crowds of people around my machine!
I also checked out Buckner & Garcia's website at http://www.bucknergarcia.com/ - www.bucknergarcia.com and don't see any indication of the original Columbia LP being reissued on CD there either. (I was also saddened to learn of Jerry Garcia's recent passing in November of last year.) The website does have a fun and nostalgic feature though where you can listen to original clips of Casey Kasem, Dick Clark, and Charlie VanDyke introducing "Pac-Man Fever" on their respective radio countdown shows in 1982! |
Posted By: abagon
Date Posted: 30 March 2012 at 11:38pm
The actual running time of the "Pac-man Fever" on the original vinyl LP (Columbia RC 37941) is "3:54", and the listed time is "3:56" on the LP record label. |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 31 March 2012 at 10:14am
| Thank you very much for the info, Abagon! And of course Pac-Man was invented by a talented young video game designer named Tōru Iwatani in your home land of Japan where the game was originally known as "Puck Man". (Years later, Iwatani claimed in an interview with VH-1 that he incredibly never received ANY royalty compensation or extra payment whatsoever from the enormously massive worldwide success of Pac-Man!) Another bit of interesting trivia... "Puck Man" was changed to "Pac-Man" for American and worldwide release out of concern that vandals would alter the letter "P" to create a far more vulgar name in English! |
Posted By: Bill Cahill
Date Posted: 31 March 2012 at 6:49pm
| I haven't talked to Buckner in a LONG time but he told me that the song was a lease to Columbia which expired. Buckner may now own it but issuing it could be a legal issue as the sound effect rights are probably expired. He did tell me that the sound effects were legally complicated. Might have had the rights to use them in 1982 but not anymore. |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 31 March 2012 at 9:17pm
That's interesting because Buckner & Garcia use the same video game sound effects in all their re-recordings, including "Pac-Man Fever". |
Posted By: abagon
Date Posted: 01 April 2012 at 1:30am
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Thanks for the trivia, Todd.
When I was young, I used to play the Puck Man video game at an arcade in Japan. Exactly, the sound effects on the "Puck-Man Fever" 45/LP are the same as the NAMCO's "Puck Man" video game. |
Posted By: KentT
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 1:48pm
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A note, in Atlanta and the surrounding area, BGO Records released this tune for the first time. After it began getting heavy regional airplay, Columbia leased it for national release. The BGO 1001 original 45 is a scarce item. ------------- I turn up the good and turn down the bad! |
Posted By: PopArchivist
Date Posted: 18 May 2025 at 2:34pm
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Great song can confirm it runs 3:52. ------------- Favorite two expressions to live by on this board: "You can't download vinyl" and "Not everything is available on CD." |