AT40: The 80s ... This Week's Show

[retromike32]

Fleetwood Mac got stuck #4 for 7 weeks with "Hold Me"....5 months later Diana Ross tied with Foreigner by staying at the same postion for 10 weeks with Muscles. "Waiting For A Girl Like You" started that feet by spending 10 weeks at #2..while Diana spend 10 weeks at #10 with "Muscles"...1982 was a cheesy year for Billboard Pop chart...imo



Mike B

[vince]

"Muscles" by Diana Ross actually spent 6 weeks at #10 on the BB's Hot 100. Still a long time for a peak at #10. Paul McCartney's "Take It Away" that was at #10 in the 9/4/82 countdown would eventually spend 5 weeks at #10. I think "Hold Me" holds the record for longest stay at a position other than #1 or #2 on the pre Soundscan chart.

Other songs to spend 6 weeks at a positions other than #1 or #2 are "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" by Tom Petty & Stevie Nicks that spent 6 weeks at #3 in 1981, "Separate Ways" by Journey that spent 6 weeks at #8 in 1983, and "Allentown" by Billy Joel that spent 6 weeks at #17 in 1983.

[reachinforthestars]

Sept 1, 2008 0:03:55 GMT -5 retromike32 said:

Fleetwood Mac got stuck #4 for 7 weeks with "Hold Me"....5 months later Diana Ross tied with Foreigner by staying at the same postion for 10 weeks with Muscles. "Waiting For A Girl Like You" started that feet by spending 10 weeks at #2..while Diana spend 10 weeks at #10 with "Muscles"...1982 was a cheesy year for Billboard Pop chart...imo

Mike B

Check out the posts in the thread: "Songs on AT40 that climbed, then fell off" beginning with Reply #7 on Jul 29, 2008 for a discussion on why this was happening in 1981 & 1982.

[redsox]

I think this week both shows will air new episodes:

The 70s show will air episode that originally aired either in 1971 or 1976 and it will be the chart for the week ending date of September 11 of both of those years.

The 80s show will air a new episode on 1986 for the date of 9/06 of that year.

Just taking a guess.

[mrjukebox]

In early 1979,Casey did a weekly recap of the top three songs from the previous week-As the 1980's drew to a close,Casey was unable to play all three songs in their entirety-He either played the #1 song from the previous week or simply mentioned the top three songs-He does this on "American Top 10" & "American Top 20" each week.

[reachinforthestars]

I hated those recaps. It just gave songs that were already horribly overplayed on the radio more exposure and it delayed hearing my favorite part of the countdown, which were songs from #40 to #30 (the songs that weren't being played to death).

[mkarns]

I also frankly don't get the point of playing last week's top three songs in their entirety, as they were just going to show up later in the countdown anyway. Eventually Casey (and later Shadoe) took to just reading off the titles and artists of the previous week's top 3, although as late as 1985 he still often played the top song of the previous week at the start of the countdown (two weeks ago we heard the 8/31/85 broadcast on which "The Power of Love" was both the first and last song played.)

Incidentally, earlier this year we heard the 1/10/81 rebroadcast in which the recap was not the top 3 of the previous week (1/3/81, "frozen" from 12/27/80) but instead the top 3 which Casey had actually played on his last broadcast--which was the top 3 songs for the entire year 1980.

The 9/4/82 show was a great one, though I have a question about it. Was the Hondells' 1964 hit "Little Honda" about the car? Because Casey answered a trivia question about cars mentioned in top 40 hits and overlooked that song.

[laura]

Sept 1, 2008 19:41:45 GMT -5 reachinforthestars said:

I hated those recaps. It just gave songs that were already horribly overplayed on the radio more exposure and it delayed hearing my favorite part of the countdown, which were songs from #40 to #30 (the songs that weren't being played to death).

Yeah, during last week's show, I could have cared less. Found it rather pointless. If I were him, I would have just played short clips of the top three songs because you know they were gonna be played again later on in the show. I mean, the second hour started with #33, when they usually start at 30 or 31, Flashback wise, even though 9/4/82 was not a Flashback show.

[laura]

Aug 31, 2008 14:48:18 GMT -5 freakyflybry said:

Not really surprised at "You Dropped A Bomb On Me" or "The One You Love", as those are probably the only non-obscure songs that debuted the week after, despite all the others being by well-known acts. A little surprised about "Up Where We Belong" as that was 4 weeks away from debuting, and "Mickey" didn't debut for another 5 weeks!

I thought "Don't You Want Me" or "Tainted Love" would've been an extra, as both fell out of the top 40 that week, and are both still among the most played 80's songs to this day.

I would have thought so too. The week before, they did 1987, and I was expecting one of the extras to be "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" because that was a huge song that fell out of the 40 that week, but they didn't.

[mkarns]

Sept 2, 2008 11:22:52 GMT -5 laura said:

Sept 1, 2008 19:41:45 GMT -5 reachinforthestars said:

I hated those recaps. It just gave songs that were already horribly overplayed on the radio more exposure and it delayed hearing my favorite part of the countdown, which were songs from #40 to #30 (the songs that weren't being played to death).

Yeah, during last week's show, I could have cared less. Found it rather pointless. If I were him, I would have just played short clips of the top three songs because you know they were gonna be played again later on in the show. I mean, the second hour started with #33, when they usually start at 30 or 31, Flashback wise, even though 9/4/82 was not a Flashback show.

I'll bet Casey must have found it really pointless at the time, since it was the exact same top 3 recap for the fourth straight week (that early 80s multi-level star system in action.)

A better recap idea, similar to what you suggest, might have been something like the AT40 Flashbacks of the Shadoe Stevens era, when Shadoe would play bits of the top 5 from that week in a previous year, with sound effects separating the songs.

[dougray2]

The reason they did the top 3 recap was because after the show expanded to 4 hours, they had extra time to fill. The archives feature filled part of that, but not all. In the first 4 hour shows from Oct 78 to Feb 79, they had to play 4 to 6 extras and 2 LDD's to fill the time. As the 80s came along, songs continued to get longer, so they started playing just the #1 song from last week (Although 9/4/82 was an exception) After 85, they just did a rundown and didn't play any of the top 3.

[shadster]

Precisely what I was going to say, Xtra songs to fill the time to get the show to time out properly. Plus If you know how CHR radio works, as some of us do, stations typically play their entire rotation in about 3 hours, and their "POWER rotation" songs are heard every 90mins. So in a 4 hour show, hearing the top3 again almost 4 hours later was "almost" a violation of format (not played enough anotherwords).

And when Caseys top40 started, Casey resumed playing the #1 from last week an ran only 2 dedications. I'm guessing that was so they could get the NEW mailing address out there, get enough cards an letters coming in, so they could drop the #1 replay and add a 3rd dedication which is what they ended up doing.

[ontheair]

No, because Honda cars weren't that plentiful back in the USA in '64. The Honda they're referring to is the motorcycle.

[ontheair]

What stations, if any, play the optional extras on AT40 The 80s? And is there a site to see the Premiere cue sheets for the 80s version (similar to WHNN's weekly posts of the 70s show cues)?

[laura]

Does anyone know what this week's show is?