Debut on 100 in AT40 - missed Top 10 (Classic era)

[number39]

After hearing CHRISTOPHER CROSS "All Right" on the '80's recently, I wondered how many songs that debuted on the HOT100 in the Top 40 failed to make the Top 10. It's happened a lot less than I would've expected in the "classic era" (though very common now in the digital era):
1970's:
NONE!
(Honorable mention for 1970's: (4/21/71) - C COMPANY feat TERRY NELSON "Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley" - (41-37-37-40-off!).
1980's:
(3/14/81) - JAMES TAYLOR & JD SOUTHER "Her Town Too" - (38-29-23-18-15-13-12-11-11-29-51-72-92-97)
(10/30/82) - SUPERTRAMP "It's Raining Again" - (31-29-25-22-14-13-11-11-11-19-52-83)
(1/22/83) - CHRISTOPHER CROSS "All Right" - (29-23-19-16-16-16-12-12-12-19-19-27-36-53-80-96)

[Hervard]

And, oddly enough, all three songs from the 1980s peaked well inside the Top Five on the R&R chart.

[number39]

If R&R is based mainly on airplay, that would make sense. These songs debuted so high, probably because radio jumped on them - they were HUGE artists - and were coming off big success (especially Supertramp - following up Breakfast in American, and Christopher Cross, who dominated the Grammy Awards with his debut album). Radio airplay was instantly saturated, giving them high debuts, but the songs didn't click with the public - so they petered out before hitting the BB Top 10.

[mkarns]

The early 80s hits in question were also in a time when Billboard had a set of rules that had the effect of slowing many songs' rise up the chart and keeping songs stuck in the same position for several weeks, so they may have been roadblocked.

But while they went higher in Radio & Records, their chart run on that list was rather brief (9 to 11 weeks, shorter than their Billboard top 40 runs), meaning a lot of stations probably did jump on them fast due to previous momemtum and then dropped them pretty quickly in favor of other records, often from newer acts.