Airplay hits from 1990s
Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
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URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=489
Printed Date: 02 August 2025 at 7:23am
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Topic: Airplay hits from 1990s
Posted By: Paul Haney
Subject: Airplay hits from 1990s
Date Posted: 01 November 2005 at 1:14pm
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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? |
Replies:
Posted By: edtop40
Date Posted: 01 November 2005 at 1:23pm
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absolutely....they should be included ------------- edtop40 |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 01 November 2005 at 1:24pm
| 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. |
Posted By: JMD1961
Date Posted: 01 November 2005 at 3:37pm
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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. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 01 November 2005 at 4:17pm
| 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? |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 01 November 2005 at 5:42pm
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. |
aaronk wrote:Posted By: JMD1961
Date Posted: 01 November 2005 at 7:52pm
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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. |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 01 November 2005 at 10:22pm
| 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. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 02 November 2005 at 1:28am
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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. |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 02 November 2005 at 1:39am
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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. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 02 November 2005 at 12:15pm
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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. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 02 November 2005 at 1:04pm
| I think it would also be nice to have those airplay hits included. I'm sorry for starting the debate :) |
Posted By: Pat Downey
Date Posted: 02 November 2005 at 1:13pm
| Paul, will Record Research authorize me to use the Billboard charts of the radio airplay? |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 02 November 2005 at 2:53pm
| Pat, as long as you don't show chart data you have every right to add any song title to your database. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 02 November 2005 at 3:03pm
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. |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 02 November 2005 at 4:10pm
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<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. |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 02 November 2005 at 9:22pm
| 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. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 03 November 2005 at 11:32am
| It's really quite simple. If you don't show chart data, then you don't need "authorization" from anyone! |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 17 September 2009 at 4:59am
| Dusting off this ancient topic (2005!) for Jim and anybody else interested. |
Posted By: jimct
Date Posted: 17 September 2009 at 12:16pm
| 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! :) ) |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 17 September 2009 at 3:32pm
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This is VERY interesting - Paul Haney writes:
<If you don't show chart data, then you don't need "authorization" from anyone!> There are some low charting top 40 Billboard hits (#40, #39, #38 peakers) not in Pat's database, partly because of lower charting peaks in other magazines, but mainly because of (and mainly instigated by) Pat's concern of legal issues with all of the songs in his book/database matching with Billboard top 40 hits. JimCT has even given CD info for those "missing" songs that are Billboard top 40 hits. Billboard is, after all, considered the bible of the music industry. So most anyone who reads your book/database would expect, say, something like Paul Davis' "Love Or Let Me Be Lonely", a #40 Billboard hit, to be listed in the database. So.... Pat, knowing Paul Haney's comments above, can you include these missing, low-charting Billboard top 40 hits? I don't think it would be too many songs, most of your subscribers feel they do belong in the book/database, and it would make your subscription service more valuable than not - to have these songs included. And in terms of legal concerns, I also have to say you're even safer than you think. Even if you ignore Paul Haney's response, you have some songs included that AREN'T Billboard top 40 hits (because they peaked higher elsewhere). So even if you include every top Billboard hit and these other hits that averaged out higher, Billboard still can't say your database is based on their book, when you can cite MANY examples in your book that weren't even Billboard Top 40 hits!! Add to the fact that you don't list any peak positions with each song, you're DOUBLY OK! So Pat, given this, will you consider adding these "missing top 40 hits" to your database? And I'd like to know if other chat members would like to see these "missing top 40 hits" (and I'm not even talking about the airplay-only hits) included in the database. I'm talking about sales and airplay hits that made the top 40! (And yes, for the record I'd like to see the '90s airplay-only hits in the database, too.) |
Posted By: jimct
Date Posted: 18 September 2009 at 4:18am
| Pat, I have the vast majority of these 90's airplay-only hits on promo CD singles, as well as both stock/promo 45s for the missing "fringe" Top 40 songs that Gordon has just referenced (and he's also correct that detailed thread info does already exist for a good many of these songs.) I'd be more than happy to provide you with these new details for your database. I'm also certain that will you have several reliable, willing volunteers here on the Board, that would be more than happy to take a lot of the research burden off of your shoulders. They could notify you as to which songs are on which CDs, in which versions, assisting you in a big way with any/all of these proposed new database entries. Pat, we are all aware that you don't have tons of available time/energy to take on something like this. So let us help you. Many of us have long ago earned your trust about our reported findings. This would just continue to build on the fact that many of us already happily work together with you to help keep your database as complete and accurate as possible. |
Posted By: edtop40
Date Posted: 18 September 2009 at 7:56am
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here, here!!!, jim...let me know what you need from me to assist... ------------- edtop40 |
Posted By: Pat Downey
Date Posted: 26 September 2009 at 12:07pm
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I have been out of town for the last week so pardon my delayed response to this topic. I have emailed Paul Haney who is going to help assemble some airplay only titles for me which would provide a partial expansion of the database. As far as going back further in time and adding all top 40 hits that charted on Billboard, I need to remind you that yes Billboard has outlasted Record World and Cash Box publictions but that does not mean that their charts were any more accurate than any other trade publication. It is well known that chart positions were bought in the old days and the best way I can think of to elminate those songs that really should have never been top 40 hits (based on airplay or sales)is to average the various trade publication charts to come up with a concensus top 40.
I can also tell you that I also get requests to expand the database beyond top 40 to top 100 status and I am swamped as it is just sticking to a top 40 limit regardless of how many contributors are willing to add additional data. Expanding the database would require going through all of the existing cd compilations to look for those added titles and I cannot tell you how painful a task that would be. So I guess the best way to summarize what I am saying is that yes there probably will be a slow database expansion going forward but there are only 24 hours in each day and those 24 hours are already filled up for me. If someone else wants to buy this publication and expand it to include all Billboard Top 40 hits or Top 100 hits and import cd's then feel free to contact me as I would gladly sell off the existing publication. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 26 September 2009 at 5:06pm
A lot of work that in all likelihood few will appreciate. There are already plenty of songs that (legitimately or otherwise) made it into the low-to mid reaches of the top 40 that were by 'most any definition stiffs and only a handful of people care about. Why add more? Sure there are songs that low-charters in their day but are considered hits today, but where do you draw the line? |
Posted By: jimct
Date Posted: 21 January 2010 at 6:26pm
| Ed e-mailed me today, asking if I could locate a late-90's airplay thread that he couldn't find through the search feature. I think this is the one he's lookin' for, so I'm bumping it up for him... |