AT40 ON XM

[mkarns]

Now playing October 15, 1977, making this the fourth month in a row they've done a 1977 show. Oddly, during that time when SXM has done four 1977's they haven't played a single one from 1971 or 1972 (though I wouldn't have wanted 1971 this weekend from SXM as Premiere is playing it.) And the "moving away from the early 70s" theory can't explain this as they've played 1970 three times in that period (July to October.)

[jgve1952]

I do believe SXM is not favoring the early 70's. Now in the middle of October, 1971 has only been played twice this year--once in February, and once in March, and that was the last time. 1970 has only been played once (except on July 4th when a special was aired of the first episode). 1972 was played in January, April and June, and no 1972 since June.

[mkarns]

Oct 15, 2017 15:20:47 GMT -5 jgve1952 said:

I do believe SXM is not favoring the early 70's. Now in the middle of October, 1971 has only been played twice this year--once in February, and once in March, and that was the last time. 1970 has only been played once (except on July 4th when a special was aired of the first episode). 1972 was played in January, April and June, and no 1972 since June.

1971 was played at the beginning of July, but not in the three and a half months since. 1970 was aired in late August and just last week, in addition to the July 4 special .

[jgve1952]

Thank you for those corrections, mkarns! You really on top of this as well as the other countdowns!

[doofus67]

This week: 10/21/72.

We have a rare occurrence at the end of this show. The new #1 song moves in from outside the top five, while the old one drops out of the top five. Earlier, back to back are a song that falls all the way from #9 to #35, and a song about summer that is just debuting at #34, one month into fall.

[cachiva]

Something else pretty bizarre happened, too. After backselling Witchy Woman at #22, Casey
tells a 45-second story about the ladies of the Fifth Dimension, who have If I Could
Reach You at #21.  At the end, his outro for the song includes the comment,
"At #21, moving up seven notches."  Then it's on to Johnny Nash at #20,
"Moving up six this week" with I Can See Clearly Now.

But at the end of that tune, Casey reads this:

"The Fifth Dimension move up seven big notches to #21 with that one, If I Can Reach You.


You can hear Johnny's song in the background behind Casey, so I think this was
done over 45 years ago out in Hollywood, and not on Friday at Sirius XM!

My theory is that on his first take Casey got the name of the 5th Dimension tune wrong,
so they scrapped it and tried again.  The good take was put in the correct place
in the show.  And the muffed take was mistakenly added to the end of
the Johnny Nash song.  And nobody caught it.  Collector's item!

The 70's were a wacky time...

[OnWithTheCountdown]

^Wow, good catch - my copy of the original show has that as well. And this is an episode Premiere has yet to air in the AT40: The 70s series. Sneak preview here!

Sure sounds like the 70s were wacky. I missed the first half. Lots of great tunes all around though.

[jgve1952]

Casey made a boo boo when he stated that Gallery had a #3 song earlier in 1972 with "Nice To Be With You," but it only peaked at #4.

[slf]

Oct 22, 2017 9:00:12 GMT -5 jgve1952 said:

Casey made a boo boo when he stated that Gallery had a #3 song earlier in 1972 with "Nice To Be With You," but it only peaked at #4.

Casey made an even bigger boo boo when he outro-ed "Nights In White Satin" (what little of the song they actually played--but I digress).  He said that song had been plucked from their album In Search Of The Lost Chord, but somebody got their Moody Blues albums confused.  This song actually came from their earlier, groundbreaking album Days Of Future Passed.

[cachiva]

I have some serious questions now about this funked-up show!
Maybe you guys can talk me down from the ledge!

First, Casey intros the show with his standard comment that the countdown
data comes "from the most authoritative survey in the record business,
Billboard's Hot 100." But at the end of the show he doesn't cite a date
for the shart, like he always does. I mean, he always does, doesn't he?
Seems fishy now, in light of the rest of what I'd like to share.

It is uncommon, but not unusual, for a song to get stuck at the same position two
weeks in a row. But this week's show has FOUR songs that hold their place from
the week before. That is A LOT!

Also there are three songs that had held their position for 2 weeks, and then this week
they all went UP in the charts. I've been listening for about four years now, and one
thing I've learned is that when a song stalls, it means it has peaked. It is VERY rare
that a song would regain its lost momentum, and seems implausable that THREE songs
should perform this way in one week. In fact a FOURTH, "Popcorn" had held at #10 for THREE
weeks, and then moved up in the chart. That is wild!

Lastly, there is no song at #16 in this week's show. Did anyone else
notice that? What happened to #16?

As mentioned earlier, "Ben" went from #1 to #6, and "My Ding-A-Ling" went from #7 to #1. (Not to
mention the O'Jays "Back Stabbers" plummeting from #9 to #35!" What a volatile week!

What do you think? Did the AT40 crew make up a chart so they could have a long weekend? Are
all of these uncommonalities merely a coincidence? And what about poor #16?

Comments welcomed!

[mkarns]

I didn't notice it until now, but SXM at least is apparently responsible for skipping Rick Springfield's "Speak To the Sky", which was at #16 on the 10/21/72 chart. I don't know how that happened; there don't seem to be any extras in the original show. Maybe they were cutting out questions/answers from the original and messed up somehow?

Speaking of SXM goofs, the display for #20 read "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Cash, instead of Johnny Nash. Maybe Cash did record the song sometime, but he didn't have a pop hit with it.

[OnWithTheCountdown]

To comment on the chart date mention, Casey didn't start doing that until the 7/14/1973 show (done in the show closing). The only time I know of where he mentioned the chart date before that was the very first show, using the 7/11/1970 chart (mentioned in both show open and close).

[dukelightning]

^That is correct countdown. Now as far as songs holding at the same position. Four is by no means an unusual amount in the top 40. In fact on 4/2/83, fully half of the top 40...yes 20 songs were holding at their position.

[OnWithTheCountdown]

^Now that is more unusual. Of course, it was during a time of strange chart rules, particularly in the early 1980s (which changed by the end of April 1983, leading to a bit more free-moving chart). And I know all that's been discussed before.

[cachiva]

Thank you guys for all of the comments. I appreciate the feeedback!