Top 100 of 88

[Deleted]

Today I listened to the show and after the last 3 years I’ve listened to 86,87, and 88 I am really losing any belief these rankings are credible. Forget #1 for a sec. I can live based on the survey period with the songs that were #1 in those years, but for example: how does “Roll With It” that spend more weeks at #1 than any other song in 1988 finish #10 behind among other things “Hands to Heaven” which it kept out of #1? It isn’t like it had this monster 7 week stay at #2 or anything. While that was probably the most glaring thing I saw, I felt many of the rankings just didn’t pass the ear test.

Did Billboard legitimately have a formula for their year end show that made sense? Or did they just take what they thought were 100 of the best songs and just stick them in order somehow?

[mkarns]

Dec 28, 2018 17:55:50 GMT -5 @paul said:

Today I listened to the show and after the last 3 years I’ve listened to 86,87, and 88 I am really losing any belief these rankings are credible. Forget #1 for a sec. I can live based on the survey period with the songs that were #1 in those years, but for example: how does “Roll With It” that spend more weeks at #1 than any other song in 1988 finish #10 behind among other things “Hands to Heaven” which it kept out of #1? It isn’t like it had this monster 7 week stay at #2 or anything. While that was probably the most glaring thing I saw, I felt many of the rankings just didn’t pass the ear test.

Did Billboard legitimately have a formula for their year end show that made sense? Or did they just take what they thought were 100 of the best songs and just stick them in order somehow?

I think they used a formula which assigned a certain # of points for each week at a certain position, and bonuses for weeks at #1, top 5/10, etc. But it does seem to me that they may have put a thunb on the scale in favour of longevity over peak position, thus "Hands To Heaven" ranking in the top 10 ahead of "Roll With It" and others because it had a slower climb up the chart and thus accumulated more weeks. It also seems that they counted the "frozen" week in Dec 1987-Jan 1988 as a full week in its own right which they may not have always done before; note how many songs high on the chart in that time frame (including several single week #1's) were high up in the year end survey.

[woolebull]

I have none of my books near me, but if I had to guess I think mkarns might be onto something. Didn't "Hands To Heaven" take forever even to hit the Top 40? For some reason, I remember the song hitting the Hot 100 and then losing the bullet a few times before eventually hitting the top 40 and then becoming the hit that it did.

That being said, Paul is right. That's absolutely crazy that "Hands" is over "Roll". Of all of the songs that spent four weeks at the top between "Like a Virgin" and "Rush Rush", I can't remember any others being that low on a year end chart except for "Living On A Prayer". And it was topped on the year end by a #2 song by Robbie Neville. Oh well... "C'est La Vie" Seriously, that to me is another head scratcher from the time frame Paul is talking about.

[80sat40fan]

"Roll With It" spent 18 weeks on the Hot 100 while "Hands To Heaven" spent 29 weeks on the chart. "Roll With It" made it to #1 in only its eighth week on the Hot 100 while "Hands To heaven" didn't reach its peak until its 17th week on the chart.

Paul... I absolutely get what you say about RWI being ranked lower than HTH on the year end chart. But eleven extra weeks has to account for something.

I was listening to the 1985 year end show on iHeart today, and wondered how "Like A Virgin", which spent 6 weeks at #1, was the runner-up to "Careless Whisper" which spent three weeks at #1. Madonna spent 19 weeks on the Hot 100 while George Michael spent 21 weeks which isn't that much different.

[Deleted]

It just feels there’s no rhyme or reason to some of these positions. You mention what happened in 85 and there’s another “wtf” example.

Regarding HTH, I didn’t realize it had spent so many weeks on. But ok, what about all the songs in front of it on the chart? This is where this gets insane and feels so random. And as I said, based on listening to the weekly shows it doesn’t pass the ear test.

[vince]

BB did use some kind of a complex inverse point system for their 1988 YE recap. I was able to approximate it. Check out the thread Billboard Year End Pop Singles Charts Revised Versions on the General Music Discussion page. 1988 is on page 5 of the thread.