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Post by 80sat40fan on Sept 27, 2015 9:37:20 GMT -5
While listening to "America's Greatest Hits" with Scott Shannon this morning, he announced, "From 1983, here is Daryl Hall and John Oates with "Say It Isn't So". That song was the #18 song of 1984 so I have always considered that song from 1984. It got me thinking...
What year is a song really from? Is it the year the album that song is on is released? Is it the year the single debuted on the Hot 100 or Top 40? Is it the year where it starts its peak position on the chart? Is it the year where the song spent most of its peak weeks?
"Physical" by Olivia Newton-John spent 6 of its 10 weeks at #1 in 1981 so an argument can be made it's from 1981. On the other hand, it's the #1 song of 1982 so I can see people saying it's from 1982.
A local DJ recently played "Glory Days" by Bruce Springsteen and announced the song was from 1984. Its album, "Born in the USA", was released in 1984 but GD didn't hit the Hot 100 until June of 1985. "My Hometown", the 7th release from that album, didn't peak until early 1986 so it would seem odd to call MH a 1984 song.
For you... what determines what year a song is from?
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Post by statenislandfan on Sept 27, 2015 9:46:23 GMT -5
Good question! When it's officially released as a single. A perfect example is Nights In White Satin, a song that was really from 1967 but was not released as a single until 1972.
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Post by dukelightning on Sept 27, 2015 9:52:20 GMT -5
More often than not, with a song like "Physical" whose peak bridged two years like that, Casey would refer to it as being from the earlier year. This situation happened when he was telling a story that referenced a song like that years later, sometimes playing it as an extra.
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Post by 80sat40fan on Sept 27, 2015 9:56:21 GMT -5
Good question! When it's officially released as a single. A perfect example is Nights In White Satin, a song that was really from 1967 but was not released as a single until 1972. statenislandfan... I never knew KIWS was made in 1967! That's a good example to say it's from 1972. But for those songs which cover two calendars years on the charts... I pulled up the last Hot 100 chart from 1984 when "Sugar Walls" by Sheena Easton and "The Old Man Down The Road" by John Fogerty debuted at #60 and #61 respectively. Both songs spent all of their AT40 life in 1985 so to me, they are songs from 1985 but for you, they are from 1984. You provide a great rationale for them to be considered 1984 songs! Has this idea ever puzzled anyone else here?
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Post by mkarns on Sept 27, 2015 10:21:46 GMT -5
I tend to think in Casey's terms of when a song peaked; "Stayin' Alive", for example, was released in late 1977 but hit #1 in February 1978, so I think of it as a 1978 hit. But I can certainly see the case for calling it a 1977 song.
For songs like "Physical" or "Waiting For a Girl Like You", whose peaks span two years (1981 and 1982), I say the earlier year. The way my mind works is I think of when it peaked on the chart/countdown I use for reference (Billboard, Radio & Records, Mediabase, AT/CT40) and associate it with that year and position, even if it was written, recorded, or released earlier. But some songs either weren't released or didn't hit until years after they were recorded, or were released/charted twice, so it's easy to associate those with years before they became big chart hits.
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Post by doofus67 on Sept 27, 2015 13:03:26 GMT -5
While listening to "America's Greatest Hits" with Scott Shannon this morning, he announced, "From 1983, here is Daryl Hall and John Oates with "Say It Isn't So". That song was the #18 song of 1984 so I have always considered that song from 1984. It got me thinking... What year is a song really from? Is it the year the album that song is on is released? Is it the year the single debuted on the Hot 100 or Top 40? Is it the year where it starts its peak position on the chart? Is it the year where the song spent most of its peak weeks? "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John spent 6 of its 10 weeks at #1 in 1981 so an argument can be made it's from 1981. On the other hand, it's the #1 song of 1982 so I can see people saying it's from 1982. A local DJ recently played "Glory Days" by Bruce Springsteen and announced the song was from 1984. Its album, "Born in the USA", was released in 1984 but GD didn't hit the Hot 100 until June of 1985. "My Hometown", the 7th release from that album, didn't peak until early 1986 so it would seem odd to call MH a 1984 song. For you... what determines what year a song is from? Keep in mind that, when it comes to year-end charts, there's a difference between a chart year and a calendar year. With Billboard or AT40's year-end charts, the survey period is usually late November to late November.
"Physical," for instance, had just reached #1 by late November of '81. Therefore, it racked up most of its weeks at #1 within the 1982 year-end survey period. "Say It Isn't So" reached its #2 peak in the third week of December of '83, which fell within the 1984 year-end survey period. Personally, I base it on calendar years. In both of these cases, I would go with the earlier year -- the calendar year in which the song was released and reached its peak.
There are songs, like the aforementioned Sheena Easton and John Fogerty, that were released in one calendar year, but didn't hit the top 40 or peak until the next. In those cases, I'd go with the later year.
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Post by djjoe1960 on Sept 29, 2015 6:42:35 GMT -5
I have always noticed that Joel Whitburn's books seem to pick the peak date of a song to be the indicator of the peak year of popularity. Example: Lots of hits debut on a chart near the end of a year but reach their peak in the next calendar year, and most of Record Research's books consider the song to be a hit from the year the song peaked. I tend to agree as most of us are certainly aware of a song when it reaches its peak rather than when it first debuts or is released.
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Post by reachinforthestars on Sept 30, 2015 1:06:28 GMT -5
For me, it's when a song peaked on my own personally weekly Top 40 chart. Or if I wasn't charting at that particular time, I would associate the year to when the song peaked on my local radio station's survey. With those guidelines in mind, "Nights In White Satin" will always be a 1972 song for me.
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Post by at40nut on Sept 30, 2015 3:21:14 GMT -5
Here's a tricky one- "Red Red Wine" by UB40. It originally charted in March of 1984 as a single version that was just over 3 minutes long. In 1988, "Red Red Wine" was re-released as a just over 5 minute song in which at that time went all the way to #1. However, that version was the album cut from UB40's 1983 album "Labour of Love." It was not re-mixed than some of the re-released singles were at that time. I always classify songs that got the most airplay and chart release which often came hand in hand. I would say that "Red Red Wine" is more of an 88' song than an 84' song due to the success of it's secong go around.
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Post by bestmusicexpert on Sept 30, 2015 7:34:08 GMT -5
For me, especially when doing a countdown special, I go with when it first peaked.
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Post by dukelightning on Sept 30, 2015 9:08:03 GMT -5
^Are you sure about that? In your Canada countdown, you said John Parr had his first hit with "Naughty Naughty" in 1984. Except that did not even chart until 1985. Probably recorded in 1984 though seeing as it charted very early in 1985.
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Post by purplerush on Sept 30, 2015 11:26:50 GMT -5
I guess I go with when the song was at it's highest in popularity. That is the time frame I would associate the song with.
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Post by mkarns on Sept 30, 2015 12:28:47 GMT -5
Here's a tricky one- "Red Red Wine" by UB40. It originally charted in March of 1984 as a single version that was just over 3 minutes long. In 1988, "Red Red Wine" was re-released as a just over 5 minute song in which at that time went all the way to #1. However, that version was the album cut from UB40's 1983 album "Labour of Love." It was not re-mixed than some of the re-released singles were at that time. I always classify songs that got the most airplay and chart release which often came hand in hand. I would say that "Red Red Wine" is more of an 88' song than an 84' song due to the success of it's secong go around. This is one case in which it depends on who, or where, you ask the question. Most Americans probably would think of "Red Red Wine" as a 1988 song. In most other places it was a bigger hit in 1983-84, or wasn't reissued later.
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Post by matt on Sept 30, 2015 15:37:34 GMT -5
This is a great question, and one that sometimes catches my attention when hearing a DJ say that or when I'm listening to SXM 70's, 80's, or 90's and the year on the display doesn't seem right to me. The year-end top 100s from AT40 always got thrown off somewhat because of where they had to make the cut-off point such that the specials could be aired around New Year's Day.
If a song was released as a single, then I usually consider it to be from the year in which I remember hearing it the most on the radio, MTV, etc. For instance, "Walk Like an Egyptian" was the #1 song of 1987 (which still to this day surprises me), but to me it was always a late 1986 song since I mostly remember hearing that song during November and December of that year. "What Have I Done To Deserve This" by the Pet Shop Boys comes to mind as well--that song didn't peak on the Hot 100 until late January or February of 1988, but I remember it getting a ton of airplay in December and around the holidays, so it feels more late-1987 to me.
On the flip side of that, if a song was released in November or December and didn't hit the top 40 or get significant airplay until January or later, then to me it falls in that year. Think "Easy Lover" by Phil Collins and Phillip Bailey--that song was released in late 1984, but IIRC 99% of the times that I heard it on the radio were after New Years, so it's a 1985 song to me.
For the most part I would say that I associate a song with the time period during the song's climb (i.e. the time of its release to when it reached its peak). If I were to go song by song that I remember from my past and try to place it in a month or couple-month period from which I remember it, that's where I find most songs fit for me. The weeks around a song's peak are when the song is heard the most, but I also find that there's something significant about the first time you heard a song and it left an impression on you--hence why the beginning of a song's run/climb is also important.
As for when the album comes out, that is insignificant unless I bought the album and listened to it a bunch before all of the singles were released. Sometimes there are singles that come out later, but my memories of that song may be more tied to when I was listening to the album right after I bought it.
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Post by matt on Sept 30, 2015 15:46:30 GMT -5
Here's a tricky one- "Red Red Wine" by UB40. It originally charted in March of 1984 as a single version that was just over 3 minutes long. In 1988, "Red Red Wine" was re-released as a just over 5 minute song in which at that time went all the way to #1. However, that version was the album cut from UB40's 1983 album "Labour of Love." It was not re-mixed than some of the re-released singles were at that time. I always classify songs that got the most airplay and chart release which often came hand in hand. I would say that "Red Red Wine" is more of an 88' song than an 84' song due to the success of it's secong go around. This is one case in which it depends on who, or where, you ask the question. Most Americans probably would think of "Red Red Wine" as a 1988 song. In most other places it was a bigger hit in 1983-84, or wasn't reissued later. "Red Red Wine" will always be a Fall 1988 song to me--I don't know that I ever heard it (or at least I don't remember hearing it) prior to then.
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