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Post by jedijake on Jan 3, 2009 14:13:18 GMT -5
Since there was discussion about Billboard top 100 of 1980, I figured I'd go ahead and ask-what did you prefer, when Casey counted down his own year-end or when he used Billboard?
Personally, I preferred his own. It was more reflective of AT40's positions.
This was particularly true when he did 1985 and 1986. Those Year-Ends seemed somewhat off kilter to me.
1985 had too many repeats from 1984 due to the transition.
In 1986, I Miss You by Klymaxx was #3 even though it only hit #5 AND "Object of my Desire" was in the top 100 although it hit #29. Notably absent in 1986 was "Harlem Shuffle" by the Stones.
1987 leveled off and seemed more true-to-AT40. However, there was considerable emphasis on songs that ended one year at #1 and began the next at #1. They were always given an extra week at #1.
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Post by robert on Jan 3, 2009 15:15:21 GMT -5
I would also prefer better reflection of what was happening on AT40 but you should take into account that if Klymaxx was selling better than some other singles and it started its chart run in late 1985 it had much more time to be sold in more copies than other singles that climbed higher on the weekly chart.
In 1983 you had the song of the year from the summer but then it seemed to be really biased a bit more towards the songs that charted very early "Careless Whisper", "That's What Friends Are For", "Walk Like An Egyptian", "Faith" and "Look Away", if I recall them correctly.
To sum up, I was eager to find out what the Billboard chart was due to its reputation and tradition, but preferred to be surprised a bit by AT40's own tabulations.
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Post by vince on Jan 3, 2009 15:51:54 GMT -5
Initially, I thought AT40 should have used the Billboard's year end chart, just because it was the official chart. After reconsideration, I do think AT40's year end charts were better representation of the years biggest hits and better done.
AT40 counted a songs run in the top 40 in 1980 and top 50 for 1981 - 1984. BB counted a songs run in the top 100. Because of this, songs that spent a lot of time on the Hot 100 ranked high on BB. "Tainted Love" that spent 43 weeks in the Hot 100, peaked at #8, ranked at #11 on BB and #49 on AT40. "I Miss You" was on the Hot 100 29 weeks which accounted for its high ranking in 1986.
BB's ranking prior to 1985 didn't count a songs full chart run if it was not in the survey period. Songs like "Another One Bites The Dust" or "Woman In Love" were not on BB's 1980 survey and ranked low in BB's 1981 survey, #65 and #35.
In 1987 BB changed their ranking formula to one that gave more weight to higher positions, thus less low peaking long chart run songs ranking high.
In the late 80s with the fast turn over on the charts, I don't think they should have counted the frozen week because it did give songs that were hits at the end of the year an advantage.
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Post by freakyflybry on Jan 3, 2009 18:13:39 GMT -5
I generally think AT40 was best when they tabulated the year-ends themselves, though 1987-89 I thought were very well-tabulated, even if biased towards songs that were at the top of the chart right at the end of the previous year.
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Post by dougray2 on Jan 3, 2009 19:02:10 GMT -5
I thought AT40 did not do a good job with the 1980 top 100. For example; Lovin Touchin Squeezin should not have been included at all because it peaked in Oct 79 Some of the rankings were very hard to explain. How can you rank Fire Lake by Bob Seger (68) ahead of Against The Wind (73) when ATW had a higher peak (5 vs 6), more weeks in the top 10 (6 vs 4) and more weeks on the Hot 100 (17 vs 16) Another Example; The Eages I Can't Tell You Why is rank 67 and The Long Run 66, yet Why had 3 weeks at #8 vs 2 for Run, Why had more weeks in Top 10 (4 to 3) and on Hot 100 (16 to 15) One more; Woman In Love by Barbra Streisand is ranked higher (14) than Another One Bites The Dust by Queen (15), even though Queen had 3 more weeks in the top 10 and 2 more weeks in the top 40 than Barbra. I know there was a cutoff date and neither song got full credit for its chart run, but based on the data they had, Queen had the bigger hit. I do think AT40 did a much better job with the other years in the early 80s, and billboards rankings were flawed and had way too many non top 20 hits (especially in 80, 81 and 82)
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Post by jedijake on Jan 3, 2009 23:06:48 GMT -5
Great responses!
robert-I was going to bring up your exact point about several years in a row where the #1 song were winter songs. Actually, Billboard's #1 for 1984 was the summer hit "When Doves Cry" while AT40's was "Say Say Say".
1985 was really the strangest year since they went from AT40 to BB and therefore songs were included from the year before (Out of Touch, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, I Feel For You, etc).
Of course, that all became completely irrelevant when the chart format changed. Before Soundscan, songs usually hit their peak within a reasonable timeframe and then fell off. When Soundscan was used, songs could spend longer amounts of time climbing and then they would remain on the chart for a longer period of time. (Especially when R&R's chart was used and went to Soundscan).
At40's YE for 1980-1984 were excellent. I also thought that the 1990 and 1991 YE's were great too because they reflected what we heard on the weekly chart.
I have always thought there should be certain rules for the YE chart, but most of these may seem arbitrary. (1) The #1 song of the year must have hit #1 during the year (2) No song should end the year higher than its peak position (rule #1 would follow this) (3) Songs must be on their way UP the chart during the YE eligibility period. (4) NO SONG should ever appear in the AT40 YE chart that did not make the actual AT40 chart during the year. This has only happened a couple of times, but it makes all the sense in the world. * I would have put the rule that no song can appear in the YE two years in a row, but that rule just would not make sense these days since songs can be in the top 10 from October until March or April!!! (which is insane)
But all of this is obsolete since the YE is based on total plays during the year and not on chart position.
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Post by Shannon Lynn on Jan 4, 2009 1:34:16 GMT -5
I wish I could find them, somewhere I have the original handwritten notes AT40 used when they did their own charts and the "Guidance Document" for assigning points, methodology, etc. A former Watermark employee had given them to me about 6 years ago.
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Post by jdelachjr2002 on Jan 4, 2009 6:12:43 GMT -5
1973 clearly would've been the most interesting case since Kris Kristofferson's "Why Me" finished at #2 for the entire year despite peaking at #16.
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Post by jedijake on Jan 4, 2009 10:35:01 GMT -5
Yeah, I saw that. I also looked up the AT40 index and noticed that "Why Me" didn't even have that impressive of a run on the chart for a song that peaked at #16. It only spent 2 weeks in the top 20. It kept tumbling down and then back up.
I am not sure how that was tabulated. Supposedly, 1973 was an AT40 end-of-year chart rather than Billboard, so I have no earthly idea how "Why Me" could possibly be #2 for the year, despite being in the top 40 for 19 weeks.
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Post by jdelachjr2002 on Jan 4, 2009 14:06:58 GMT -5
The 1973 year-end survey was an AT40 original (though according to Rob Durkee in recapping the 1973 show, Billboard actually had "Why Me" 6th).
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Post by vince on Jan 4, 2009 20:13:35 GMT -5
I may be able to explain some of the issues brought up with AT40's year end charts. AT40's point formula used 1980 was 100 points for #1, 99 points for #2 down to 61 points for position 40. Positions below 40 were not counted. 100 bonus points were given for each week at #1. When ranked using this formula, "The Long Run" has 1022 points, "I Can't Tell You Why" has 1020 points, "Fire Lake” has 1008 points, and "Against The Wind" has 980 points. I think the ranking of "Woman In Love" above "Another One Bites The Dust" was just a bad guess. I can't explain why "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" was included other than it was holding at its peak position on 11/3/80. "L,T,S" fell off the Hot 100 in Dec 1979.
From what I can tell, AT40 used three different methodologies to calculate their year end charts in the 80s. 1980's is explained above. 1981's methodology was 50 points for #1, 49 for #2, down to 1 point for #50. 50 bonus points were given for each week at #1.
From 1982 to 1984 the methodology is more complicated. I had to ask Rob Durkee how it was done because I couldn't figure it out. This was his explanation: “AT40’s Power Point Formula is as follows. AT40's power point formula is based on each song's top 50 chart run. One point for a week at #50, 2 for a week at #49 etc. This works OK until you get to #11 (40 points). A few bonus points are given for songs making the top 10. Thus, a song with a week at #10 gets 42 points, 44 for a week at #9, #8 is 46 weeks, #7 48 points and at #6, 50 points. For a week at #5, it's 52, a week at #4 is 54, a week at #3 is 56 points and a week at #2 is 58 points. finally, here's the # of points a song gets for each week at #1...Yes, 80 points for a week at #1, 170 for 2 weeks at #1 and with 14 weeks, it's 2030. Bonus pt. system: 1-80 pts. total; 2-170; 3-270; 4-380; 5-500; 6-630; 7-770; 8-920; 9-1080; 10-1250; 11-1430; 12-1620; 13-1820; 14-2030. "
"Why Me" ranked very high because of a long chart run. It ranked higher on AT40 than on BB due to a later cut off date. In the 70s, AT40 credited all positions on the Hot 100 when they did their own year end charts, (1972, 1973, & 1977). From what I can tell the point formula is 100 points for #1, 99 points for #2 down to 1 point for #100. #1's were given 100 bonus points for each week at #1. This same formula was used by BB in the early 70s. Using this formula and an estimated cut off date of 12/8/73, "Why Me" has 2030 points. #1, Tie A Yellow Ribbon has 2146 points and #3, Bad Bad Leroy Brown has 1852 points. "Why Me" had 1813 points as of BB's 1973 cut off was 11/17/73, so it ranked lower on BB.
I posted more detailed explanations of the methodologies in Sept. 2007, but that was prior to finding out what AT40 did for 1981 to 1984.
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Post by jedijake on Jan 4, 2009 21:36:01 GMT -5
That's interesting stuff. What's odd about that is "My Love" by Paul McCartney spent 4 weeks at #1 and "Killing Me Softly" by Roberta Flack spent 5 weeks at #1.
Were #1 songs given 100 bonus points in addition to their normal 100 points for the position of #1?
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Post by 80sfan on Jan 4, 2009 22:25:54 GMT -5
Thanks Vince. Based on your prior posts, you must have spent quite a bit of time plus trial & error trying to come up with the equivalent of AT40's point formula for the years.
It appears that depending on what base point were given for each week and how the bonus were given, songs could come out higher or lower in the ranking. The AT40 staff must have changed the formula from one year to the next in the 80s to make certain songs come out higher based on personal bias. It's easy to do that with computers, but imagine trying to do this manually in the early 70s before computers & calculators became common place. ;D
1980 was a favorite year of mine because I actually listened to AT40 faithfully each week and wrote down the chart position for each week. (Too bad the charts weren't available for download by internet back then.) I did a ranking on my own using a 40 point system based on the inverse ranking, so I pretty much knew 'Call Me' would be #1 for the year before AT40 played their year end special. The worst part was typing all that data into the classroom computer!
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Post by Jeffster on Jan 4, 2009 22:33:52 GMT -5
I liked it better when they used the official Billboard charts. Those 1985-89 shows are by far my favorite year-end countdowns, especially 1989, which will always be very special to me.
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Post by dougray2 on Jan 5, 2009 1:03:04 GMT -5
Thanks for the info Vince. If I'm reading this right, they gave no bonus points for weeks in the top 10. That would explain why songs like This Is It, Jesse and Better Love Next Time ranked higher than many top 10 and some top 5 hits.
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