Questions for Paul Haney...

It should be noted that for many of the charts prior to 1984 (including the Hot 100) Record Research gave Billboard the
weekly files from our internal database. One of my (many) jobs was proofing those files. This was done many years ago. I
can't speak to anything after 1984 (when Billboard began computerizing their charts). Don't forget, humans enter the data,
so there's always the possibility for mistakes.

How's the 1955-2020 annual coming?

Just curious but where does it go from here. I was thinking wouldnt it be cool if you put in the rankings from 1940-1954 so it covers 80 years of music?

I would love something where I can look at all the airplay hits that didnt chart on the Hot 100 for each year of the annual but were huge hits now that they were left out of the new two book set of 1955-1989 and 1990-2021.

You do this for 1990's hits that never charted on the Hot 100. Like having a listing after each year of the classic Non-Hot 100 Airplay Hits for each year. Just a thought...



Edited by PopArchivist

Hey Paul, I think I remember years ago on one of the
Record Research mailers seeing a wantlist of Joel's and
one of the things he was looking for was Natalie Cole's
"Starting Over Again" on Cassette Single. I was just
wondering if he ever found one, because I checked Discogs
and the song doesn't have a listing for a Cassette Single
in the US, just a vinyl 45, 12" test pressing and promo
CD Single. I collected Cassette Singles at the time and
was looking for it myself, but could never find one.

jebsib wrote: Paul - question: Was just looking through the 2002 Pop Singles and saw that you included all relevant Airplay / Sales peaks. Do you recall how you handled that odd transition period in 1991 when there were two published airplay charts (Monitored vs Playlists)? Was there a transition date that you used for all data or did you just use the higher of each hit's two airplay peaks?

Check out the bottom of page xiii of the introduction for
an explanation.

I am going to guess its going to be another year or two for the Pop Annual (1955-2022) right?

Also is the 2nd Top Pop Singles Book (1990-2021) coming out soon? I thought it was going to be released this year.

Thanks in advance Paul.