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Post by Hervard on Jan 19, 2009 12:42:34 GMT -5
I never did like beginning and end the various years in November. I realize the deadline aspect, but being in the newspaper business I realize that you can work overtime to make the calculations and such without compromising the charts' accuracy (with regard to the time element). I also never agreed with the frozen charts. It seemed to give a lift to too many songs and skewed the YE charts. Me neither, especially in the cases of 1987 and 1988, when "Walk Like An Egyptian" and "Faith" were #1 in their respective years because they were given the extra week at #1. Had that week not been counted, I have a feeling that they wouldn't have been #1 for the year. Some people disagree with "Look Away" being #1, but this was a tad different, because the song had fallen out of #1 by the holiday break. Still, since it was pretty high up in the Top Ten, it probably won the top spot of the year because of this. But hey, Chicago had been charting for practically 20 years and I think they earned it. Not sure if things would have been any different in 1982, since "Physical" spent many weeks at #1 and might have been the top song of the year either way. |
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Post by vince on Jan 19, 2009 20:46:50 GMT -5
Here is an estimate as to what the #1 song of each year in the 80s would have been if the frozen week was not counted. AT40 counted the frozen week when they did their own surveys and BB counted it beginning in 1984. 1987 – 1989 have different #1 songs.
1980: Call Me – Blondie
1981: Bette Davis Eyes – Kim Carnes
1982: Physical – Olivia Newton-John
1983: Every Breath You Take – Police
1984: Say Say Say – Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson
1985: Careless Whisper – Wham featuring George Michael
1986: That’s What Friends Are For – Dionne & Friends
1987: Alone – Heart
1988: I Need You Tonight – Inxs
1989: Miss You Much – Janet Jackson
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Post by mkarns on Jan 21, 2009 12:04:32 GMT -5
Were frozen weeks counted in the year end list for the late 1970s (starting in Dec 76/Jan 77, when the "freezing" began)? I wondered this because listening to the January 1978 show that was run this weekend, Casey doesn't seem to count it. For example, he said that Linda Ronstadt's "Blue Bayou" was #3 for 3 weeks, but if you count the "frozen" week ending 12/31/77, it was actually there for 4 weeks.
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Post by dougray2 on Jan 21, 2009 13:58:58 GMT -5
If I were calculating the top songs for the year, I would count the frozen week if the song was still #1 (or at the same position) on the next chart, but not if the song fell out of its peak position. For example, Like A Virgin by Madonna would be gven 6 weeks at #1 (12/22/84 to 1/26/85), but Tonights The Night by Rod Stewart would be given 7 weeks at #1 instead of 8.
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Post by mkarns on Jan 21, 2009 15:59:44 GMT -5
If I were calculating the top songs for the year, I would count the frozen week if the song was still #1 (or at the same position) on the next chart, but not if the song fell out of its peak position. For example, Like A Virgin by Madonna would be gven 6 weeks at #1 (12/22/84 to 1/26/85), but Tonights The Night by Rod Stewart would be given 7 weeks at #1 instead of 8. Therefore, under that standard, George Michael's "Faith" (1987) would have been #1 for 3 weeks instead of 4. So would Stevie B's "Because I Love You" (#1 on AT40 for four weeks in December 1990, the last of which was "frozen".) But would you count the week for Chic's "Le Freak" and Rupert Holmes' "Escape (Pina Colada Song)", whose #1 runs included the "frozen" week, dropped from the top the first week of the new year, and then returned? |
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Post by dougray2 on Jan 21, 2009 20:06:37 GMT -5
If I were calculating the top songs for the year, I would count the frozen week if the song was still #1 (or at the same position) on the next chart, but not if the song fell out of its peak position. For example, Like A Virgin by Madonna would be gven 6 weeks at #1 (12/22/84 to 1/26/85), but Tonights The Night by Rod Stewart would be given 7 weeks at #1 instead of 8. Therefore, under that standard, George Michael's "Faith" (1987) would have been #1 for 3 weeks instead of 4. So would Stevie B's "Because I Love You" (#1 on AT40 for four weeks in December 1990, the last of which was "frozen".) But would you count the week for Chic's "Le Freak" and Rupert Holmes' "Escape (Pina Colada Song)", whose #1 runs included the "frozen" week, dropped from the top the first week of the new year, and then returned? Those are the 2 most difficult ones because they went back to #1 2 or 3 weeks later. If I am being consistent, I would not count the frozen week and give Le Freak 5 weeks total and Escape 2 weeks total, but you can argue either way on those. Even Casey was inconsistent on Le Freak. On 1/27/79, he said it was spending its fourth non consecutive week at #1. However, on the 7/7/79 disco special, he said Le Freak spent 6 weeks at #1, which means he counted the frozen week. |
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Post by torcan on Jul 2, 2010 18:32:58 GMT -5
I have no idea why the heck the cutoff date for the 1980 chart was the last weekend of September. I realize that they can't stretch it all the way out to the end of the year for deadline purposes, but come on, was 1980's year-end chart really so difficult to tabulate that it took three months? Agreed. You'd figure since the year-end issue didn't come out until late Dec, they could use a Dec-Nov chart year (like they eventually did). In the early '80s you'd get songs that completed their chart runs by the end of that year, but not be ranked on a year-end chart until the following year. Didn't make sense... |
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