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Post by woolebull on Aug 22, 2013 19:53:40 GMT -5
As we are upon the 35th anniversary of the Top 14 songs staying the same for two weeks on American Top 40, I am curious if anyone ever did any research on why the phenomenon took place. I know that when it comes to 1978 through 1983 there always seems to be concern that the fixes were in for certain things to happen, particularly in '78/'79 with RSO songs. Of course in this case, an RSO song might have lost a week at 1 because of the logjam ("Grease").
Just curious if anyone has ever thought about or researched why the top fourteen stayed the way they were on 8/19/78.
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Post by mkarns on Aug 22, 2013 21:28:11 GMT -5
While considering that, we should also think of the top 11 being the same on both 3/26/ and 4/2/83. RSO-related chicanery doesn't explain that one.
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Post by dukelightning on Aug 22, 2013 21:35:45 GMT -5
It was not chart manipulation this time. It was the star rule rearing its ugly face. Because Billboard had their star rule in effect that a starred position could not drop the following week, it was almost inevitable that this would happen on 8/19/78. The only record in the top 14 on 8/12/78 that was not starred was "Miss You" at #4. It could have dropped but none of the other records except #1 could drop because of the star rule. And the #1 song had just climbed into that position that week so "Three Times a Lady" was likely to hold for a second week and it did. And "Miss You" did not drop because it was still a hot record. It had dropped from #1 that week but returned to #3 on 8/26. So since neither TTAL or MY dropped, everything else had no stay in place because they were blocked from moving up and could not drop because of the star rule. Simply put, if the star rule was not in effect then, this would not have happened.
BTW, this week's 80s show is a week where the top 12 records will be the same as in the following week. In this case all 12 records were starred guaranteeing a holding top 12 unless the #1 record dropped which did not happen. And if "Eye of the Tiger" had dropped, it would have had to drop all the way to 13 nearly tying the record for biggest drop from the #1 position because all of the other positions above it were in a sense occupied. Thankfully that did not happen but it almost did as EOTT fell from the top the week after that.
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Post by woolebull on Aug 22, 2013 22:30:48 GMT -5
It was not chart manipulation this time. It was the star rule rearing its ugly face. Because Billboard had their star rule in effect that a starred position could not drop the following week, it was almost inevitable that this would happen on 8/19/78. The only record in the top 14 on 8/12/78 that was not starred was "Miss You" at #4. It could have dropped but none of the other records except #1 could drop because of the star rule. And the #1 song had just climbed into that position that week so "Three Times a Lady" was likely to hold for a second week and it did. And "Miss You" did not drop because it was still a hot record. It had dropped from #1 that week but returned to #3 on 8/26. So since neither TTAL or MY dropped, everything else had no stay in place because they were blocked from moving up and could not drop because of the star rule. Simply put, if the star rule was not in effect then, this would not have happened. BTW, this week's 80s show is a week where the top 12 records will be the same as in the following week. In this case all 12 records were starred guaranteeing a holding top 12 unless the #1 record dropped which did not happen. And if "Eye of the Tiger" had dropped, it would have had to drop all the way to 13 nearly tying the record for biggest drop from the #1 position because all of the other positions above it were in a sense occupied. Thankfully that did not happen but it almost did as EOTT fell from the top the week after that. You know for all of my years looking at charts, following charts, etc. I never knew that 8.28.82 stayed the same at 12 up. I knew about the 11 in '83, but did not know about the '82 freeze. But to your point of "Eye" having to drop to 13 if it did drop from 1: If the rule was that a song with a star couldn't drop (unless it is at 1) then "Eye" could have theoretically dropped to any spot as long as no other songs dropped. "Eye" could have dropped to 2, with "Hurt" going to 1 and 12-3 could have stayed in place with only the Top 2 switching. Or "Eye" could have dropped to 3 with "Abracadabra" going to 1, and 4-12 and number 2 holding. That seems that would be legit under the "star" rule. For reference, check out the 10/23/82 and 10/30/82 charts where there could have been a frozen 9 situation, but 1 dropped to 2. Or the 8/8/81 and 8/15/81 charts where there could have been another frozen 9, but 1 dropped to 4. Back to the Frozen 14: That makes sense when thinking about the "star" rule. It almost makes the comments that are said at the end of the 8/19/78 show seem disingenuous when the tabulator for Billboard told Casey that the odds of this happening were astronomical (I'm paraphrasing...it was something like that though). It's not too astronomical when only two songs can actually move down, both of them still hot songs. |
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Post by dukelightning on Aug 23, 2013 8:08:51 GMT -5
You are correct about "Eye of the Tiger" dropping sir! My bad. BTW, there is one other week where all or nearly the whole top 10 held their positions. The week of 1/17/81 featured the top 9 songs being the same. Now in this case, the top 8 records had stars the week of 1/10. But at 9 was "Lady" dropping from 4. So it could have dropped from 9 on 1/17. However, the top 8 WERE locked in since "Starting Over" did not fall from #1.
So the top 14 in 1978, the top 9 in 1981, the top 12 in 1982 and the top 11 in 1983 were the biggest instances of a holding pattern. What about 1979 and 1980? Well nothing more than the top 4 were in a holding pattern in 1979. There was the week of 5/10/80 when the top 7 held their ground with all but the #5 record having held a star the previous week.
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Post by woolebull on Aug 23, 2013 8:30:24 GMT -5
You are correct about "Eye of the Tiger" dropping sir! My bad. BTW, there is one other week where all or nearly the whole top 10 held their positions. The week of 1/17/81 featured the top 9 songs being the same. Now in this case, the top 8 records had stars the week of 1/10. But at 9 was "Lady" dropping from 4. So it could have dropped from 9 on 1/17. However, the top 8 WERE locked in since "Starting Over" did not fall from #1. So the top 14 in 1978, the top 9 in 1981, the top 12 in 1982 and the top 11 in 1983 were the biggest instances of a holding pattern. What about 1979 and 1980? Well nothing more than the top 4 were in a holding pattern in 1979. There was the week of 5/10/80 when the top 7 held their ground with all but the #5 record having held a star the previous week. This is absolutely fascinating! And a point about the 1/17/81 show: for someone who started listening to AT 40 after the time frame of 1978-1981 or so, it is amazing to see how much of a force Kenny Rogers was back then. "Lady" was just a juggernaut, even holding in the Top 10, as you said, on its way down. Another question about the holding pattern: When did it end? A few weeks after the frozen 11 on 4.2.83 you had "Let's Dance" on 5.28.83 drop from 1 with a star, which had to be unique but I guess not against the star rules because the star rules didn't apply to the 1 position, however "Photograph" dropped from 12 to 16 that same week after having a black star. And by 6.4.83 Little Red Corvette dropped from 6 to 8 after having the white star at 6. Plus we would have had a frozen 8 on 7/2/83. So it seems some changes happened quickly after the frozen 11. |
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Post by davewollenberg on Aug 23, 2013 19:03:54 GMT -5
woolebull, you're right. From the 6-18-83 chart, thru the end of Sept., Billboard reverted back to its black star-only bullets.
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Post by woolebull on Aug 23, 2013 22:20:50 GMT -5
woolebull, you're right. From the 6-18-83 chart, thru the end of Sept., Billboard reverted back to its black star-only bullets. It looks like the whole "you have a star, you can't drop" ended with the 5.28.83 show. With the white stars disappearing,as Dave said by the end of June, and stars for bullets by the end of September (thank you for pointing that out, Dave). I wonder if the switch over on 5.28.83 didn't cost David Bowie an extra week at 1. Isn't it interesting that in the very first week of changing what the star meant, we had a 1 drop to 2 and keep its star. I think that only happened one other time until the end of 1991, when Paul Young would do it a couple of years later. Or maybe it just would have lost its star all together when it dropped to 2 if the old system had been in place. Still interesting that Bowie did that in the first week of the new methodology. |
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Post by blackbowl68 on Aug 24, 2013 10:26:52 GMT -5
I know most people find the current Hot 100 irrelevant, but the top 11 of this week (WE 8/24/2013) is frozen. This time there are no special rules regarding bullets as three recordings did not have one the previous week and one of them actually regains a bullet.
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Post by woolebull on Aug 24, 2013 10:33:17 GMT -5
I know most people find the current Hot 100 irrelevant, but the top 11 of this week (WE 8/24/2013) is frozen. This time there are no special rules regarding bullets as three recordings did not have one the previous week and one of them actually regains a bullet. That was, "Get Lucky", correct? You know that is pretty impressive. In a day and age where songs can debut as high as 1 and then just disappear, to hold the same 11 is actually amazing. |
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Post by blackbowl68 on Aug 24, 2013 10:39:23 GMT -5
I know most people find the current Hot 100 irrelevant, but the top 11 of this week (WE 8/24/2013) is frozen. This time there are no special rules regarding bullets as three recordings did not have one the previous week and one of them actually regains a bullet. That was, "Get Lucky", correct? Absolutely. |
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Post by mstgator on Aug 25, 2013 21:59:54 GMT -5
woolebull, you're right. From the 6-18-83 chart, thru the end of Sept., Billboard reverted back to its black star-only bullets. It looks like the whole "you have a star, you can't drop" ended with the 5.28.83 show. With the white stars disappearing,as Dave said by the end of June, and stars for bullets by the end of September (thank you for pointing that out, Dave). Chart director Bill Wardlow (under whose nine-year run we saw lots of chart oddities) was replaced sometime in 1983, likely around the time the star rules were changed. |
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Post by jlthorpe on Jan 28, 2018 13:15:43 GMT -5
The same phenomenon happened on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart in 2008. The top 11 songs remained the same during the weeks of January 26 and February 2. This was probably because of the slow movement on the Adult Contemporary charts, though.
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Post by doofus67 on Jan 28, 2018 19:14:03 GMT -5
I'm glad to see that there is at least a little bit of a thread about the Frozen 14. It's my favorite chart event of all time. I have the songs memorized backwards, forwards, and alphabetically by title! Yes, Billboard's star and holding pattern rules were on full display here, for better and mostly for worse. I once did a comparison of the charts and all of the major trade magazines for that week. This comparison really hammers home the point that such a logjam could have been easily avoided, not only in the summer of 1978, but throughout the entire Bill Wardlow regime, if not for these rules. I agree that "Three Times a Lady" would have had to take a major tumble out of the number one spot just to generate any movement at all that week. But, as we know, it was way too strong a record at that point (and for the next month or so afterwards) to drop down at all, let alone out of the top 10. As woolebull said, the rest of the thread is intriguing as well. Over the years, these points have been brought up in other places, especially the Chart Manipulations and 80s show threads. But, just to summarize: Chart director Wardlow was dismissed effective with the issue of April 30, 1983. His star and holding pattern rules weren't officially eliminated until the issue of June 25, when Billboard got rid of the white stars, or superstars, on all of its charts. But it is plain to see that, from April 30 until then, they stopped using his rules. In fact, in that April 30 issue, "Mr. Roboto" by Styx became the first major hit in 6 years to drop down on the chart after receiving a black star the week before. Throughout May, June, and even into July and August, a lot of records would do the same thing. Back to the 8/19/78 story. Here is that comparison of the charts for that week in the three major trade magazines at the time, Billboard, Cash Box, and Record World: www.at40fg.proboards.com/thread/205/at40-70s-weeks-show?page=1432 |
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Post by at40fan14908 on Jan 30, 2018 18:10:23 GMT -5
On the 9/11/1993 Show, the Top 8 did not change (which was rare since it was an exclusively airplay chart). Before playing the #1 song, Shadoe mentioned that the Top 8 was frozen, and gave a shout out to fifteen years earlier when the Top 14 was stuck in place.
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