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Billboard Hot 100 Celebrates 60th Anniversary With All Time Rankings
It's the so-called Bible of the music biz. And it was the basis of Casey Kasem's American Top 40 syndicated show. And while a lot has changed in the industry, one thing has not - the Billboard Hot 100 continues to be the last word in charting the hits, going from record sales to streaming in determining its rankings.
To celebrate its 60th aniversary, the magazine has released its all time Top 100 list (which is actually 600 songs long.) It's fascinating to contemplate and equally maddening by some of the choices. (The Beatles are not in the Top 10 and are beaten out by Debby Boone!)
Tough, though, to argue against the #1 all time song, which is the only tune in history to reach the top position twice in separate years. No other record can make that claim and to my knowledge, it's never happened before or since.
You can see the chart here.
- Dale Patterson
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Re: Billboard Hot 100 Celebrates 60th Anniversary With All Time Rankings
To my knowledge, the only other song to make it to #1 in two or more separate years is "White Christmas" by Bing Crosby (1942, 1945 and 1947). Of course, that was way before the Hot 100.
It happened once on the CHUM Chart with "Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett going to #1 in 1962 and 1973.
"Life without echo is really no life at all." - Dan Ingram
- Old Codger
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Re: Billboard Hot 100 Celebrates 60th Anniversary With All Time Rankings
I have to say it...particularly after all my years in the 'biz'...I do not trust ANY 'chart'. So many songs saw 'success' bought and paid for along the way... So many radio stations being involved in the 'payola thing' in its many forms along the entire path... Full page 'ads' manipulating placements... Bogus reporting...
I mean really!!! From the Top 4 at 4:00 to the Top 6 At 6:00 all based on 'our' phone call votes tallied over the course of the day...[even though they were spewed out by the computer the day before...it's a LOT smoke and mirrors and a very little bit of 'fact'.
It's why I have always said that hits can't be picked with your eyes. Music/Program Directors have to use their ears. Otherwise you're living a lie. And for oldies stations...to program using the old payola induced numbers?!?!?! It can't work.
There's way more 'Moonlight Feels Right' to Debbie Boone's placement than there is in terms of any semblance of quality. It explains why so many songs just never stood the test of time. Why? 'Cause they suck. [and they always have.]
- Fitz
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Re: Billboard Hot 100 Celebrates 60th Anniversary With All Time Rankings
agree with you sentiment OC after 1974 but have a listen to Dale's comp and there's some great tunes topping the CHUM CHART along with the requisite schlock.
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- Old Codger
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Re: Billboard Hot 100 Celebrates 60th Anniversary With All Time Rankings
Don't get me wrong. Not every song on the Hot 100 was a piece of shyte. There were great tunes...but there were also a bunch of losers. And what really made it into the top 10 as opposed to what was 'promoted' to those lofty heights?
Dale has to work with the info provided. He can't make it up. It is what it was...bogus or not.
More recently...like these past 2 decades the payola would have been more corporate. Pay once rather than multiple times. target the vast companies with multitudes of 'holdings'. Get THEM to play your stinky little song and the world's your oyster. All the monkey-see/monkey-do programmers would then have followed in step. It's obvious and it explains why the 'top 30' over these past 25 years has been so chock full of crap. OH SO FEW obvious hits on the charts in recent memory. But if you like pablum and pure unadulterated horse shit...it's been nothing but 'great'. 
- cGrant
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Re: Billboard Hot 100 Celebrates 60th Anniversary With All Time Rankings
And for oldies stations...to program using the old payola induced numbers?!?!?! It can't work.
It can. And it does. Look at Boom's numbers for proof. Their playlist is populated with those payola tunes. I would argue that over the decades those "bought" songs have saturated into the earwigs of listeners and became acceptable and popular.
- alangee
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Re: Billboard Hot 100 Celebrates 60th Anniversary With All Time Rankings
Call me an old fart, but it's impossible to take a chart seriously that doesn't have a single Beachboys, Four Seasons or Bruce Springsteen hit on it.
- geo
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Re: Billboard Hot 100 Celebrates 60th Anniversary With All Time Rankings
alangee wrote:
Call me an old fart, but it's impossible to take a chart seriously that doesn't have a single Beachboys, Four Seasons or Bruce Springsteen hit on it.
Call me an older phart as it is also impossible to take a chart seriously that has Archie & the Jugheads at #81
- Old Codger
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Re: Billboard Hot 100 Celebrates 60th Anniversary With All Time Rankings
And for oldies stations...to program using the old payola induced numbers?!?!?! It can't work.
It can. And it does. Look at Boom's numbers for proof. Their playlist is populated with those payola tunes. I would argue that over the decades those "bought" songs have saturated into the earwigs of listeners and became acceptable and popular.
You're right. Boom is like the exception to the rule proving that it can be done. CHUM and Q, on the other hand, suggest mightily that there is a shelf life to spinning an oldies format unless certain criteria are addressed. I'll delve into it for my own enlightenment. They've been at it about what? 8 years? Good for them.
- geo
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Re: Billboard Hot 100 Celebrates 60th Anniversary With All Time Rankings
Look at Boom's numbers for proof. Their playlist is populated with those payola tunes
Payola hearings that toppled Alan Freed and almost brought down Dick Clark took place in 1960. The height (or depth) of payola-influenced charts happened in the late 1950s and VERY early 1960s (pre-Beatles). How many tunes from that wonderful era are on Boom's playlist?
- Old Codger
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Re: Billboard Hot 100 Celebrates 60th Anniversary With All Time Rankings
That ***and*** peer pressure and parental pressure will entice some kids [especially girls] to buy *anything*...if only in the hopes of being accepted...if not, against all odds, appearing to be construed as cool. Boom's main area of success is the younger to mid 50s women isn't it? Honestly? I don't know what they play. Mainly 70s to 90s? Like I said...I'm gonna check them out.
geo...I think there's a ton of evidence that payola has ruled the airwaves all along the watchtower. Using America's Top 40 as the cumulative playlist...These past 20-25 years have truly been a horror-show for anyone with ears. They base their 'thing' on the Billboard list [someone here wrote]. The payola 'methodology' has changed over time. First it was specific, influential d.j.s. Then music directors/program directors were targeted. Then 'they' took it corporate. Why pay everybody? No need to. And it sounds like it. Although things have trended towards a little more hopeful quality-wise over these past couple of years. [again...a little]
Barbie-Doll and Ken generated music might be, at L O N G last, on the way back to the manure pile it emerged from. One wonders if it'll ultimately prove to have pivoted too late. How does the industry recover from 2 decades of teaching and encouraging people to turn the radio OFF?