|
Post by mkarns on Mar 14, 2011 22:07:59 GMT -5
I did an internship at my local top 40 station back in 1981 and found out not only that they did not play "Let's Groove" but why. They showed me the publication that determined their playlist. It was not Billboard but Radio & Records. And as I recall, that record was only at #13 on their pop chart. Whereas it was #3 for several weeks behind monster hits by Foreigner and ON-J. And they told me it had to be in the top 10 for them to play the song. I nearly fainted on the floor. I guess they also didn't play Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster". That 1980 hit reached #5 in Billboard but never made the R&R top 40 at all. What the heck was up with that? Re Donna Fargo, I don't mind "Funny Face", but I can't stand "The Happiest Girl In the Whole USA". Tanya Tucker, then 13, smartly turned it down in favor of "Delta Dawn". Songs heard on recently replayed AT40s that I either changed the channel or took a three minute break during include "She's Like the Wind", "Lovin' You", "Oh Babe What Would You Say", "I Saw Him Standing There" (Tiffany), "At This Moment" (yeah, me too), and "Get Dancin", just to name a few. And while for the sake of 80s completeness it would be good to hear 1989, I'm not complaining about not being subjected to "When the Children Cry", "Hangin' Tough", and "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You" again. (And if we go into the 1990s and 2000s, then the list REALLY grows....)
|
|
|
Post by dukelightning on Mar 15, 2011 7:27:30 GMT -5
Are you serious? Master Blaster did not even make the top 40 in R&R. What a useless chart and to think that was what they used for Casey's Top 40 did they not? I don't remember whether that station played it or not.
|
|
|
Post by jdelachjr2002 on Mar 15, 2011 7:48:31 GMT -5
Actually, R&R was using a Top 30 chart back then. It is possible that "Master Blaster " could've peaked between #31-40.
|
|
|
Post by dukelightning on Mar 15, 2011 8:05:58 GMT -5
Sounds like R&R's pop chart was basically an adult contemporary chart which as I said makes it totally useless. Any station that used that chart as the basis for their play list is not a top 40 station but an A/C station. I only heard a few bits and pieces of Casey's Top 40 but it must have been a mundane countdown with mostly adult contemporary songs in it.
|
|
|
Post by pizzzzza on Mar 15, 2011 10:11:47 GMT -5
Sounds like R&R's pop chart was basically an adult contemporary chart which as I said makes it totally useless. Any station that used that chart as the basis for their play list is not a top 40 station but an A/C station. I only heard a few bits and pieces of Casey's Top 40 but it must have been a mundane countdown with mostly adult contemporary songs in it. But isn't that what has become of the "top 40" charts today? It's basically the Adult Contemporary charts, right?
|
|
|
Post by pizzzzza on Mar 15, 2011 10:25:46 GMT -5
I did an internship at my local top 40 station back in 1981 and found out not only that they did not play "Let's Groove" but why. They showed me the publication that determined their playlist. It was not Billboard but Radio & Records. And as I recall, that record was only at #13 on their pop chart. Whereas it was #3 for several weeks behind monster hits by Foreigner and ON-J. And they told me it had to be in the top 10 for them to play the song. I nearly fainted on the floor. It should be noted that they dropped AT40 some 6 months later. The station that picked up AT40 at that point had been playing that song. "Every Little She Does is Magic" from that same time frame had the same story, also peaked at #3. Go figure. Oh man - are you sure you didn't do your intern at the same station I worked for back in the early 80s? I interned at my station during college in the late 70s, and then was hired full time as the overnight DJ upon graduation. One day, the Music Director and I were discussing new songs to add to the playlist - I had suggested a few songs like "Every Time I Think of You' by the Babys, "Gimme Some Lovin" by the Blues Brothers and "Magic" by Olivia Newton-John - the problem was that this is when these songs first came out, so they weren't big hits (yet) - I told him that we should add all of these songs because they're going to be HITS down the road. ( I must brag that I was almost, always right in picking the hits back then....thats why he always came to me for my opinion) His response to me...."We don't MAKE the hits....we PLAY the hits"....I will NEVER ever forget him saying that. So, he stubbornly left all 3 songs off the playlist until they hit the Top 10 - well, the Babys never hit the top 10 (peaked at #13), so we never got a chance to play that song - I was so furious - every other station in the area was playing that song but US! Then, all of sudden, he traveled to Baltimore one weekend - heard both the Blues Brothers and ONJ - added them to the playlist that next Monday morning when the new playlist came out - boy was I shocked at that sudden adding of NEW songs to the playlist. It was so frustrating! In addition, he had this funny thing about particular songs, especially if they were too "hard rock" and "edgy" - we never played them....one example I remember - High Energy's "You Can't Turn Me Off"....I remember 'sneaking' that song in during my overnight shift.....hehe...along with Queen (#1 hit, but still couldn't play it!) The songs he didn't want played...it was simple...nice little razor blade across the grooves of the record....unplayable! So DukeDeb - I can relate to what you're saying!
|
|
|
Post by rgmike on Mar 15, 2011 10:29:00 GMT -5
One of my all-time "Hits From Hell" is "Once You Understand", the anti-drug record by Think. Just horrendous.
But a word on "Seasons in the Sun" -- I know it is on many folks' Worst-songs-of-all-time lists... but it is worth your time to track down the original lyric. It is a Jacques Brel song and the Terry Jacks version was a sappy, watered-down re-write by Rod McKuen. There are versions that are more literal translations from the French and it's not a song about some young guy dying before his time; it's about a middle-aged man dying, and saying goodbye to all the people who wronged him... his business partner who embezzled from him, his wife who cheated on him with his best friend, etc. It's an angry, nasty, cynical lyric. The band Pearls Before Swine did a version before McKuen/Jacks got hold of it, and it got some progressive FM rock station play in the early '70s. The first time I heard the Terry Jacks remake I nearly fell off my chair.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2011 10:33:30 GMT -5
It has to be the one but my neighbours, Los del Río, with Macarena.
Honestly they are originated from the other side of Guadalquivir River , the same river I see from my window.
The spanish version is not that bad, but the international version, that horrible one hit wonder, I think it is the most terrible song charting AT40 eventually. What a shame.
|
|
|
Post by Caseyfan4everRyanfanNever on Mar 15, 2011 11:02:28 GMT -5
Sounds like R&R's pop chart was basically an adult contemporary chart which as I said makes it totally useless. Any station that used that chart as the basis for their play list is not a top 40 station but an A/C station. I only heard a few bits and pieces of Casey's Top 40 but it must have been a mundane countdown with mostly adult contemporary songs in it. What you probably heard was the AC version of Casey's Top 40--"Casey's Countdown" or the Hot Adult version "Casey's Hot 20". I've been researching the playlists that CT40 used-there were some AC songs played but also lots of other different types of music that were popular at that time (heavy metal, rap, grunge, alternative, pop, etc). R&R was an Airplay only chart unlike BB which was based on both sales and airplay at that time. I'm working on comparing the charts used by AT40 with Shadoe with those of Casey's Top 40 and will have some conclusions ready later this year which I will share when I finish.
|
|
|
Post by mkarns on Mar 15, 2011 11:46:01 GMT -5
Sounds like R&R's pop chart was basically an adult contemporary chart which as I said makes it totally useless. Any station that used that chart as the basis for their play list is not a top 40 station but an A/C station. I only heard a few bits and pieces of Casey's Top 40 but it must have been a mundane countdown with mostly adult contemporary songs in it. My impression of the Radio & Records chart is that its reporting panel in the early 80s was somewhat more AC-leaning than Billboard's, but not so much as to be thorougly unrepresentative of what pop stations were playing (the "Master Blaster" omission just struck me as a glaring aberration.) As time went by it seemed to get closer to Billboard's rankings so that by the time Casey's Top 40 debuted in 1989, it was little different in overall content from Billboard's charts of the time, except for the fact that its airply basis meant that it omitted some hard-edged or lyrically dicey rock and rap records that were not being played much on radio (some such records sold a lot of singles and thus made the Hot 100's top 40, which caused some problems for AT40's stations at this time, particularly when Shadoe hosted.)
|
|
|
Post by dukelightning on Mar 15, 2011 20:57:47 GMT -5
pizzzzza, what a story that is....can't get more frustrating than that....these stations were not top 40 stations, they were top 10 stations. What a joke. By the way, XM's 70s on 7 and my locat station that plays AT40 the70s are exactly the same. All they play are top 10 songs. The station that I interned at was an AM station. They were the #1 top 40 staton all through the 70s but by the early 80s, the handwriting was on the wall for AM stations. FM was where it was at. And I had already switched to the FM station that would take over AT40 in the middle of 1982. I am rambling a bit here but every time I listen to one of these AT40s, I note the songs that I don't recognize. And the only reason I don't recognize a song has to be because the stations were not playing it. Once you get below the top 10, it is a crapshoot when it comes to recognizing a song. Too many songs were not played that should have been played.
|
|
|
Post by 80sfan on Mar 15, 2011 21:00:04 GMT -5
Push It by Salt N Peppa
|
|
|
Post by Mark Johnson on Mar 15, 2011 22:54:40 GMT -5
I can't believe nobody has mentioned "Feelings" by Morris Alpert! I'm old enough to remember the Gong Show episode where every "contestant" tried their best to sing it. ;D
|
|
|
Post by bigal on Mar 16, 2011 2:55:43 GMT -5
I can't believe nobody has mentioned "Feelings" by Morris Alpert! I'm old enough to remember the Gong Show episode where every "contestant" tried their best to sing it. ;D yep, i'll never forget thev 5th guy who looked bewildered with the boos and asked Chuck "should I continue?" in a accent similar to Morris Albert. classic
|
|
|
Post by pizzzzza on Mar 16, 2011 9:48:48 GMT -5
I can't believe nobody has mentioned "Feelings" by Morris Alpert! I'm old enough to remember the Gong Show episode where every "contestant" tried their best to sing it. ;D And how can you forget the Carol Burnett version on her variety show? LOL
|
|