Top 40 Satellite Survey
Nov 13, 2006 22:19:05 GMT -5
Post by Hervard on Nov 13, 2006 22:19:05 GMT -5
I know there was a topic on this quite some time ago, but for the life of me, I sure can't find it!
Anyway, here is an aircheck of the show from WKTU in New York (It's the sixth one down). Based on several things I heard in the show, I inferred that it was from the weekend of December 22-23, 1984. I compared it to the "Countdown America" chart from that same weekend (which used the R&R chart from December 14), and I must say, whatever chart they used seems to be rather outdated. For instance, here are the songs included in the aircheck:
01 01 The Wild Boys/Duran Duran
02 02 All Through The Night/Cyndi Lauper
04 03 No More Lonely Nights/Paul McCartney
03 04 Out Of Touch/Daryl Hall & John Oates
?? 05 Sea Of Love/The Honeydrippers
07 06 Like A Virgin/Madonna
?? 07 We Belong/Pat Benatar
17 08 I Can't Hold Back/Survivor
09 09 Walking On A Thin Line/Huey Lewis & The News
Now, here is the Top Ten on the R&R chart for that same week:
02 01 Like A Virgin/Madonna
01 02 The Wild Boys/Duran Duran
04 03 We Belong/Pat Benatar
05 04 Sea Of Love/The Honeydrippers
15 05 All I Need/Jack Wagner
09 06 Valotte/Julian Lennon
10 07 Run To You/Bryan Adams
17 08 You're The Inspiration/Chicago
03 09 Out Of Touch/Daryl Hall & John Oates
11 10 Cool It Now/New Edition
Note that several of the Top 40 Satellite Survey songs were not in the Top Ten of the R&R chart. "All Through The Night", which was in the runner-up position, was all the way down at #16 on the R&R chart, and the #3 T40SS song, "No More Lonely Nights" was dropping from 6 to 11 on R&R. On the R&R chart, "I Can't Hold Back" was falling from 12 to 18, yet it was actually still on its way up the Top 40 Satellite Survey, and making a huge move at that. The biggest difference, however, was "Walking On A Thin Line". While it was holding steady at #9 on T40SS, it was falling from 13 to 24 on R&R.
The question is, at what positions on T40SS were songs like "All I Need", "Valotte", "Run To You", and "You're The Inspiration"? I'm guessing that Jack Wagner was at #10, but who knows - as far as we know, it could have been "I Feel For You" by Chaka Khan (dropping from 8 to 17 on the matching R&R chart)
I'm wondering when the Top 40 Satellite Survey started. If it had just started a few weeks before this show, then it would be understandable, since they would have a few kinks to work out. Another possible theory is that the chart would become a little slow at the end of the year. In late 1986, the chart got like that, but I assumed that had something to do with the fact that it was ceasing production (carelessness on the producers' part), but I'm not sure. I wasn't yet regularly listening to the show in December, 1985, so I have no idea how much the chart differed from the R&R chart then.
One feature from the show that I had almost forgotten about was the word for the day. When I listened to the show sporadically throughout 1985, he'd have one for every show, and I think he'd mention it several times during the show and have a different definition for it. He still did that schtick in early 1986, but by the time I was listening to the show on a regular basis in May, 1986, he no longer had the "word for the day" feature. Also gone by this time were his conversations with Melvin, the computer who would announce the positions for each song. For the rest of the show, that's all he would do, but he and Dan would joke around sometimes. I remember one of their bits from early 1986. When Dan asked Melvin to announce the position at which Stevie Nicks was with "Talk to me"...
Melvin: I'm not going to tell you!
Dan: Melvin, would you please tell us the number?
Melvin: Say please!
Dan: Alright, please!
Melvin: Three!
Dan: Thank you. I'm gonna get you Melvin! I'm gonna - I - I'm gonna get you!
So, even though I still enjoyed listening to the show for the rest of its short life, it just wasn't as funny as it had been before.
I sure wish I'd gotten to hear the Top 80 of 1984, which Dan announced twice during the portion of the show included in the aircheck. I wonder who was number one on that? However, I did get to listen to the Top 80 of 1985. As I said before, I wasn't yet listening to the show on a regular basis. I just happened to flip on the radio on the night of December 29, 1985 and the show was just starting. Number 80 was either "Out Of Touch" by Hall & Oates or "In My House" by the Mary Jane Girls. I do know those were the first two songs on the countdown. I was especially glad to hear a full year-end countdown, since Dick Clark only did a Top 40 of 1985 (which would actually be coming up the next weekend). Number one on Top 40 Satellite Survey for 1985, by the way, was "Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon, which was cool, since the song just barely fell short of #1 on R&R's year-end chart. It lost to "Crazy For You" by Madonna, which was a good song, too. That was #2 on Top 40 Satellite Survey, as I recall, and "Like A Virgin" was #3. The time frame used for the Top 80 countdown must have been mid-November of 1984 through mid-November, 1985, since the song was so high despite being released the year before and "Out Of Touch" had just made the grade. Of course, again, the chart was kinda slow, so it might have been December-November just like R&R. The show was spread over a period of two weeks while, from what I heard, the Top 80 of 1984 was run all in a single week, just like AT40's Top 100 countdowns from 1984 through 1991 or so.
By the way, you're probably wondering how the Top 80 of 1986 was? Well, actually, it wasn't. Why this is, I have no idea. A year-end countdown would have been a great way to close out the show's run, but instead, they did a regular weekly show (with very slow movement for the songs, BTW). I have a feeling that the #1 song would have been "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood, since the song had spent two or three weeks at #1 and 17 weeks on the chart, which was unusually long at the time. But I guess we'll never really know, unless someone can get a hold of the charts from early 1986 and I can find my stack of the charts from Memorial Day weekend on.
Well, that's about all for my commentary on the Top 40 Satellite Survey with Dan Ingram and Melvin the computer. (I wonder if he got that new floppy disc from Christmas that year).
Anyway, here is an aircheck of the show from WKTU in New York (It's the sixth one down). Based on several things I heard in the show, I inferred that it was from the weekend of December 22-23, 1984. I compared it to the "Countdown America" chart from that same weekend (which used the R&R chart from December 14), and I must say, whatever chart they used seems to be rather outdated. For instance, here are the songs included in the aircheck:
01 01 The Wild Boys/Duran Duran
02 02 All Through The Night/Cyndi Lauper
04 03 No More Lonely Nights/Paul McCartney
03 04 Out Of Touch/Daryl Hall & John Oates
?? 05 Sea Of Love/The Honeydrippers
07 06 Like A Virgin/Madonna
?? 07 We Belong/Pat Benatar
17 08 I Can't Hold Back/Survivor
09 09 Walking On A Thin Line/Huey Lewis & The News
Now, here is the Top Ten on the R&R chart for that same week:
02 01 Like A Virgin/Madonna
01 02 The Wild Boys/Duran Duran
04 03 We Belong/Pat Benatar
05 04 Sea Of Love/The Honeydrippers
15 05 All I Need/Jack Wagner
09 06 Valotte/Julian Lennon
10 07 Run To You/Bryan Adams
17 08 You're The Inspiration/Chicago
03 09 Out Of Touch/Daryl Hall & John Oates
11 10 Cool It Now/New Edition
Note that several of the Top 40 Satellite Survey songs were not in the Top Ten of the R&R chart. "All Through The Night", which was in the runner-up position, was all the way down at #16 on the R&R chart, and the #3 T40SS song, "No More Lonely Nights" was dropping from 6 to 11 on R&R. On the R&R chart, "I Can't Hold Back" was falling from 12 to 18, yet it was actually still on its way up the Top 40 Satellite Survey, and making a huge move at that. The biggest difference, however, was "Walking On A Thin Line". While it was holding steady at #9 on T40SS, it was falling from 13 to 24 on R&R.
The question is, at what positions on T40SS were songs like "All I Need", "Valotte", "Run To You", and "You're The Inspiration"? I'm guessing that Jack Wagner was at #10, but who knows - as far as we know, it could have been "I Feel For You" by Chaka Khan (dropping from 8 to 17 on the matching R&R chart)
I'm wondering when the Top 40 Satellite Survey started. If it had just started a few weeks before this show, then it would be understandable, since they would have a few kinks to work out. Another possible theory is that the chart would become a little slow at the end of the year. In late 1986, the chart got like that, but I assumed that had something to do with the fact that it was ceasing production (carelessness on the producers' part), but I'm not sure. I wasn't yet regularly listening to the show in December, 1985, so I have no idea how much the chart differed from the R&R chart then.
One feature from the show that I had almost forgotten about was the word for the day. When I listened to the show sporadically throughout 1985, he'd have one for every show, and I think he'd mention it several times during the show and have a different definition for it. He still did that schtick in early 1986, but by the time I was listening to the show on a regular basis in May, 1986, he no longer had the "word for the day" feature. Also gone by this time were his conversations with Melvin, the computer who would announce the positions for each song. For the rest of the show, that's all he would do, but he and Dan would joke around sometimes. I remember one of their bits from early 1986. When Dan asked Melvin to announce the position at which Stevie Nicks was with "Talk to me"...
Melvin: I'm not going to tell you!
Dan: Melvin, would you please tell us the number?
Melvin: Say please!
Dan: Alright, please!
Melvin: Three!
Dan: Thank you. I'm gonna get you Melvin! I'm gonna - I - I'm gonna get you!
So, even though I still enjoyed listening to the show for the rest of its short life, it just wasn't as funny as it had been before.
I sure wish I'd gotten to hear the Top 80 of 1984, which Dan announced twice during the portion of the show included in the aircheck. I wonder who was number one on that? However, I did get to listen to the Top 80 of 1985. As I said before, I wasn't yet listening to the show on a regular basis. I just happened to flip on the radio on the night of December 29, 1985 and the show was just starting. Number 80 was either "Out Of Touch" by Hall & Oates or "In My House" by the Mary Jane Girls. I do know those were the first two songs on the countdown. I was especially glad to hear a full year-end countdown, since Dick Clark only did a Top 40 of 1985 (which would actually be coming up the next weekend). Number one on Top 40 Satellite Survey for 1985, by the way, was "Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon, which was cool, since the song just barely fell short of #1 on R&R's year-end chart. It lost to "Crazy For You" by Madonna, which was a good song, too. That was #2 on Top 40 Satellite Survey, as I recall, and "Like A Virgin" was #3. The time frame used for the Top 80 countdown must have been mid-November of 1984 through mid-November, 1985, since the song was so high despite being released the year before and "Out Of Touch" had just made the grade. Of course, again, the chart was kinda slow, so it might have been December-November just like R&R. The show was spread over a period of two weeks while, from what I heard, the Top 80 of 1984 was run all in a single week, just like AT40's Top 100 countdowns from 1984 through 1991 or so.
By the way, you're probably wondering how the Top 80 of 1986 was? Well, actually, it wasn't. Why this is, I have no idea. A year-end countdown would have been a great way to close out the show's run, but instead, they did a regular weekly show (with very slow movement for the songs, BTW). I have a feeling that the #1 song would have been "Higher Love" by Steve Winwood, since the song had spent two or three weeks at #1 and 17 weeks on the chart, which was unusually long at the time. But I guess we'll never really know, unless someone can get a hold of the charts from early 1986 and I can find my stack of the charts from Memorial Day weekend on.
Well, that's about all for my commentary on the Top 40 Satellite Survey with Dan Ingram and Melvin the computer. (I wonder if he got that new floppy disc from Christmas that year).