American Top 40 - December 24 + 31, 2011

[Adam (UTR)]

Since Christmas and New Year's Day are both on the weekend again this year, this will most likely be airing for the next two weeks. It's the top 40 of the year.

40. Tinie Tempah featuring Eric Turner - Written In The Stars
39. Diddy-Dirty Money featuring Skylar Grey - Coming Home
38. Lupe Fiasco - The Show Goes On
37. Taio Cruz - Dynamite
36. Adele - Someone Like You
35. Rihanna featuring Drake - What's My Name?
34. Usher - More
33. Cobra Starship featuring Sabi - You Make Me Feel...
32. Nelly - Just A Dream
31. Lady Gaga - Born This Way
30. Pitbull featuring T-Pain - Hey Baby (Drop It To The Floor)
29. Chris Brown - Yeah 3X
28. Rihanna - Only Girl (In The World)
27. Lady Gaga - The Edge Of Glory
26. Bad Meets Evil featuring Bruno Mars - Lighters
25. Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks
24. Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull - On The Floor
23. Gym Class Heroes featuring Adam Levine - Stereo Hearts
22. Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song
21. Hot Chelle Rae - Tonight Tonight
20. OneRepublic - Good Life
19. Britney Spears - I Wanna Go
18. Ke$ha - Blow
17. Britney Spears - Till The World Ends
16. Pink - Raise Your Glass
15. Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera - Moves Like Jagger
14. Pink - Perfect
13. Ke$ha - We R Who We R
12. Nicki Minaj - Super Bass
11. Rihanna - S&M
10. Cee Lo Green - Forget You (F**k You)
09. Katy Perry - Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)
08. Katy Perry - Firework
07. Enrique Iglesias featuring Ludacris - Tonight (I'm Lovin' You)
06. Adele - Rolling In The Deep
05. Black Eyed Peas - Just Can't Get Enough
04. Bruno Mars - Grenade
03. Katy Perry - E.T.
02. LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock - Party Rock Anthem
01. Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer - Give Me Everything

[Top 40 Tracker]

Well...I nailed the entire Top 40 songs of the year...although not all in the right order...here's how they compare:

AT40 2011 Song
3 1 E.T. (6wks #1)
1 2 Give Me Everything (3wks #1)
5 3 Just Can't Get Enough
2 4 Party Rock Anthem (1wk #1)
7 5 Tonight (3wks #1)
6 6 Rolling In The Deep (5wks #1)
4 7 Grenade (5wks #1)
10 8 F**k You (1wk #1)
9 9 Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) (5wks #1)
8 10 Firework (4wks #1)
11 11 S&M (1wk #1)
12 12 Super Bass
14 13 F**kin' Perfect (1wk #1)
17 14 Till The World Ends
18 15 Blow
15 16 Moves Like Jagger (6wks #1)
19 17 I Wanna Go (2wks #1)
16 18 Raise Your Glass (2wks #1)
20 19 Good Life
13 20 We R Who We R
21 21 Tonight Tonight
23 22 Stereo Hearts (3wks #1)
27 23 The Edge Of Glory
24 24 On The Floor
22 25 The Lazy Song
26 26 Lighters
30 27 Hey Baby (Drop It To The Floor)
37 28 Dynamite (4wks at #1)
31 29 Born This Way (1wk #1)
33 30 You Make Me Feel…
25 31 Pumped Up Kicks
34 32 More
29 33 Yeah 3x
36 34 Someone Like You
32 35 Just A Dream (2wks #1)
28 36 Only Girl (In The World) (3wks #1)
39 37 Coming Home
35 38 What's My Name?
38 39 The Show Goes On
40 40 Written In The Stars

[Deleted]

Dynamite on this year's chart again is such a shame, lol

We R Who We R and Pumped Up Kicks are surprisingly high
S&M and Edge of Glory are surprisingly low

[mkarns]

Two weeks of the same songs is a real waste. If they're only going to play the top 40 of the year, then do a regular weekly AT40 during the second week. Get a guest host if needed.

[richie]

Dec 21, 2011 23:08:41 GMT -5 mkarns said:

Two weeks of the same songs is a real waste. If they're only going to play the top 40 of the year, then do a regular weekly AT40 during the second week. Get a guest host if needed.

Absolutely right!! Although last year they played 4 more optional extras each week, and 4-6 other extras. Different ones each week. So that makes it a little better.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Yeah, I can understand and try to justify a lot of the decisions of AT40, even if I personally don't like them but having two weekends of the same countdown doesn't quite cut it for me. I know the focus of the show is no longer about counting down the chart but give your listeners at least a little bit of credit.

[Cerebro]

After last year's year-end chart, I emailed AT40 to, politely, express my displeasure with the new format. Never got a response (wasn't, entirely, expecting to, either...but, hey, you never know). My opinion hasn't changed. Two weeks of the same chart is just stupid...plain and simple. >:(

The rankings are, also, a little different than I was expecting. Based on previous years, the time frame for the AT40 chart year (by my best guesstimation) seemed to be mid-November to mid-November. From this year's rankings, it would appear that they went all the way to the end of November (possibly, into early December, given the higher placements of "newer" songs like "Pumped Up Kicks" and "Moves Like Jagger"). Looks like they started later in December 2010, too, given the lower rankings of 2010 carry-overs like "Only Girl (In The World)" and "Just A Dream" compared to the published Mediabase year-end rankings.

[Top 40 Tracker]

I think they do this because Christmas falls on the weekend and some stations switch to a Chritsmas only format and do not play the show.

[Cerebro]

Here are the non-charting songs that were played this week…

EXTRAS:
Justin Bieber - Mistletoe (between #38 and #37)
The Black Eyed Peas - The Time (The Dirty Bit) (between #28 and #27)
Jason Derülo - Don't Wanna Go Home (between #18 and #17)
Far*Movement featuring Ryan Tedder - Rocketeer (between #8 and #7)

OPTIONAL EXTRAS (In Order Played):
Taylor Swift - Back To December
Avril Lavigne - What The Hell
Lady GaGa - Yoü And I
Britney Spears - Hold It Against Me

[Lozzy]

The last optional (between #2 and #3) was "Hold It Against Me".

It looks like they went later than usual in their eligibilty period this year. The newer songs were higher than I expected, and the older ones were lower than I would have thought. I was expecting "E.T." to be the #1 here, not "Give Me Everything" (or "Party Rock Anthem", which also placed ahead of "E.T."), since they both owe a lot of their overall success to their longevity later in the year.

That's not a bad thing at all, though. However, the suspense in this show really annoyed me. It's bad enough saying that Artist X has a song coming up next and playing a snippet of it, but right after #6 was played and he was about to go to a commercial break, he announced that Bruno, Katy and BEP had songs in the top five. He revealed three of the top five songs just then. I knew that they would be there since it's obviously not hard to guess, but still, I would have liked at least a little more suspense in this countdown.

[richie]

So Mistletoe was the SFBSOTW?

[mkarns]

Dec 24, 2011 9:59:19 GMT -5 Lozzy said:

That's not a bad thing at all, though. However, the suspense in this show really annoyed me. It's bad enough saying that Artist X has a song coming up next and playing a snippet of it, but right after #6 was played and he was about to go to a commercial break, he announced that Bruno, Katy and BEP had songs in the top five. He revealed three of the top five songs just then. I knew that they would be there since it's obviously not hard to guess, but still, I would have liked at least a little more suspense in this countdown.

I don't care for it when at the beginning of the regular weekly shows he announces that there's a new #1, thus killing some of the suspense right at the start (to be fair to Ryan, Casey often did that in the 70s.) More regularly, I'd also prefer that the intro not include the "Artists A, B, and C are up, X, Y, and Z are down" part which is in there nearly every week. Often those mentioned are already moving in that direction, but it's more fun to be completely surprised during the countdown.

[Johnser]

Seacrest just had to play Justin Bieber didn't he?

[richie]

Very impressive that Katy Perry has 3 songs in the top 10. While Rihanna had 9 top 40 hits this year, which as Ryan said is the most since The Beatles in '64, she just misses the top 10 for the year. Surprisingly, Brit, Pink, Lady GaGa and Kesha also didn't make the year-end top 10. All the
non-optional extras were placed between x8 and x7. That was easy.

Apparently the song with the fewest votes gets the Subway song spot:
www.at40.com/pages/subway-fresh-buzz
LOL

I forgot that I also e-mailed them last year about this inferior format and didn't get a reply. I'm
afraid it has nothing to do with it being a weekend.

Here's what I sent them yesterday:
"Hi, folks, and Merry Christmas. I think the old format of a top 100 was much better than the current way
of doing it. At least you play different extras each of the two weeks, but it's fun to hear more songs that can
bring back memories of the year just gone by. Just my opinion, but I hope you'll consider it for the future.
Happy 2012."

[johnnywest]

Dec 24, 2011 10:44:50 GMT -5 richie said:

So Mistletoe was the SFBSOTW?

I don't believe it was billed as such. Or even a Break Out. It was just an extra. I also heard it on Rick Dees show. However, it's rare for a Christmas song to chart on CHR.

[richie]

Dec 26, 2011 22:59:22 GMT -5 johnnywest said:

Dec 24, 2011 10:44:50 GMT -5 richie said:

So Mistletoe was the SFBSOTW?

I don't believe it was billed as such. Or even a Break Out. It was just an extra. I also heard it on Rick Dees show. However, it's rare for a Christmas song to chart on CHR.

You're right. It wasn't called that, and there was no buzz song this week.

[BillboardBoy]

It looks like Rick Dees will also only do a Top 40 of the year. So the only Top 100 syndicated countdown we'll get is AT40: The 80s - 1983.

[richie]

I just got this reply from AT40:

"Hi Richard,

Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, it wasn't our staff that made the decision, but someone higher up in the company. All we were told is that it had something to do with the people meter. It looks like it will be a year-end Top 40 show from here on out.

Thanks,

AT40 Staff"

[Cerebro]

Dec 27, 2011 14:50:15 GMT -5 richie said:

I just got this reply from AT40:

"Hi Richard,

Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, it wasn't our staff that made the decision, but someone higher up in the company. All we were told is that it had something to do with the people meter. It looks like it will be a year-end Top 40 show from here on out.

Thanks,

AT40 Staff"

Well, of course it was some suit at Premiere who made the call. Heaven forbid it be someone who, actually, cares about the program being produced who makes these critical decisions.

Nevertheless, this confirms what many of us suspected. It seems we need to get used to this as the status quo from here on out.

Would it kill them, though, to come up with something...anything...different to program into that second holiday week? Surely, that'd be a marginal improvement.

[at40forever]

Dec 27, 2011 14:50:15 GMT -5 richie said:

I just got this reply from AT40:

"Hi Richard,

Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, it wasn't our staff that made the decision, but someone higher up in the company. All we were told is that it had something to do with the people meter. It looks like it will be a year-end Top 40 show from here on out.

Thanks,

AT40 Staff"

what people meter?!?

[richie]

Dec 31, 2011 9:08:50 GMT -5 at40forever said:

Dec 27, 2011 14:50:15 GMT -5 richie said:

I just got this reply from AT40:

"Hi Richard,

Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, it wasn't our staff that made the decision, but someone higher up in the company. All we were told is that it had something to do with the people meter. It looks like it will be a year-end Top 40 show from here on out.

Thanks,

AT40 Staff"

what people meter?!?

Further correspondence with AT 40:
Thanks for letting me know. What's a people meter?
Richard

Reply:
It's a new way of measuring radio's audience size that's more accurate than a diary.

[jayman]

These are the extras that were played for this weekend (12/31/11-1/1/12):

HOUR 1
Extra-Who Says-Selena Gomez & the Scene (between #38 and #37)
Optional Extra-Mr. Know it All-Kelly Clarkson

HOUR 2
Extra-Best Thing I Never Had-Beyonce (between #29 and #28)
Optional Extra-Dirty Dancer-Enrique Iglesias featuring Usher & Lil Wayne

HOUR 3
Extra-Rain Over Me-Pitbull featuring Marc Anthony (after #11)
Optional Extra-Price Tag-Jessie J featuring B.o.B

HOUR 4
Extra-Stereo Love-Edward Maya featuring Vika Jigulina (between #6 and #5)
Optional Extra-Waiting for the End-Linkin Park

[johnnywest]

Although 2 weeks in a row of the same countdown isn't great, I'd rather hear that than 4 hours of Christmas music. No offense to Rick Dees. He did a nice job, but I'm so burned out on holiday music that I never want to hear it again.

[richie]

deshanw posted this top 100 recently:
2011 Song Pts Wks Pk
1 E.T. (6wks #1) 2050 37 1
2 Give Me Everything (3wks #1) 1954 32 1
3 Just Can't Get Enough 1943 40 2
4 Party Rock Anthem (1wk #1) 1900 30 1
5 Tonight (3wks #1) 1846 43 1
6 Rolling In The Deep (5wks #1) 1814 34 1
7 Grenade (5wks #1) 1804 33 1
8 F**k You (1wk #1) 1634 42 1
9 Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) (5wks #1) 1633 25 1
10 Firework (4wks #1) 1603 27 1
11 S&M (1wk #1) 1550 33 1
12 Super Bass 1505 27 3
13 F**kin' Perfect (1wk #1) 1490 30 1
14 Till The World Ends 1488 35 3
15 Blow 1472 37 3
16 Moves Like Jagger (6wks #1) 1403 19 1
17 I Wanna Go (2wks #1) 1354 23 1
18 Raise Your Glass (2wks #1) 1345 29 1
19 Good Life 1313 30 6
20 We R Who We R 1299 22 2
21 Tonight Tonight 1295 30 5
22 Stereo Hearts (3wks #1) 1229 18 1
23 The Edge Of Glory 1223 24 3
24 On The Floor 1210 29 5
25 The Lazy Song 1161 23 3
26 Lighters 1152 20 2
27 Hey Baby (Drop It To The Floor) 1109 27 6
28 Dynamite (4wks at #1) 1109 48 14
29 Born This Way (1wk #1) 1102 21 1
30 You Make Me Feel… 1098 19 4
31 Pumped Up Kicks 1082 18 3
32 More 1076 27 6
33 Yeah 3x 1017 24 6
34 Someone Like You 994 14 2
35 Just A Dream (2wks #1) 979 21 2
36 Only Girl (In The World) (3wks #1) 970 19 1
37 Coming Home 964 26 9
38 What's My Name? 955 17 4
39 The Show Goes On 941 22 6
40 Written In The Stars 906 22 7
41 Rocketeer 861 22 7
42 Just The Way You Are (3wks #1) 843 23 4
43 Without You (2wks #1) 792 12 1
44 Hold It Against Me 791 14 3
45 For The First Time 774 26 11
46 How To Love 734 20 9
47 Down On Me 689 19 8
48 DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love 685 22 8
49 In The Dark 675 14 8
50 You & I 672 15 7
51 Stereo Love 635 23 13
52 What The Hell 625 18 11
53 Please Don't Go 598 14 8
54 Sexy And I Know It 596 11 4
55 Don't Wanna Go Home 546 13 10
56 Price Tag 541 17 12
57 The Time (The Dirty Bit) 531 11 8
58 It Girl 525 13 10
59 If I Die Young 525 16 12
60 We Found Love 521 9 2
61 Like A G6 503 13 5
62 Back To December 473 15 12
63 Cheers (Drink To That) 461 12 10
64 Where Them Girls At 428 14 12
65 Hello 422 18 20
66 Animal 413 15 9
67 Teenage Dream (4wks #1) 405 16 17
68 Mr Know It All 390 11 13
69 Bottoms Up 390 12 11
70 Mr Saxobeat 369 13 19
71 Higher 369 12 13
72 Roll Up 344 11 14
73 Jar Of Hearts 344 13 17
74 Who Says 331 11 17
75 Back Seat 316 12 17
76 Nothing 310 11 20
77 It Will Rain 296 7 8
78 Pretty Girls 294 11 17
79 Keep Your Head Up 293 12 24
80 Club Can't Handle Me 290 10 16
81 Best Thing I Never Had 286 10 17
82 The One That Got Away 277 6 8
83 Secrets 273 12 22
84 She Ain't You 263 9 18
85 Pretty Girl Rock 258 10 19
86 I Like It 258 10 19
87 The Story Of Us 246 10 24
88 Right There 242 8 16
89 Good Feeling 239 7 10
90 Fly 239 8 16
91 Maybe 239 10 26
92 I Need A Doctor 238 9 20
93 California King Bed 228 9 21
94 Airplanes 224 11 28
95 Waiting For The End 222 11 24
96 Dirty Dancer 218 8 20
97 Moment 4 Life 214 8 21
98 I'm Into You 213 8 21
99 Black & Yellow 212 8 18
100 Who Dat Girl 210 10 26

So the extras(not counting Mistletoe) placed at 41, 44, 50-52, 55-57, 62, 68, 74, 81, 95, 96 (and according to a longer
chart) 108 for Rain Over Me. No new songs this week.

14 of the AT40 year-end are still on the weekly chart including the top 2, which may be
on next year's chart also.
I wish everyone a happy new year and happy listening. By the way, at 8PM Eastern time tonight, ABC has the 40th anniversary of New Year's Rockin' Eve for 2 hours. They will have
40 performances, and we'll see how fashions changed and Dick Clark when he was still a "teenager."

[Lozzy]

Dec 28, 2011 11:49:41 GMT -5 Cerebro said:

Would it kill them, though, to come up with something...anything...different to program into that second holiday week? Surely, that'd be a marginal improvement.

The station which I normally listen to for AT40 (that is WFIZ-FM) didn't broadcast the show this weekend. While I would prefer a top 100 of the year, I'm perfectly content with the same year-end chart being broadcast two weeks in a row, because it obviously gives stations who would rather play holiday music in the first weekend a second chance to play the countdown.

[Arson]

Thanks for posting AT40's replies to why they are sticking with just the top 40. I used to be really psyched listening to Part 1 of the Yearend show back when Casey Kasem did the top 100 for Pop, and even moreso for Part 1 of the AC and HAC shows because of the more obscure songs at the bottom of those charts. I'm usually just so burned out on the former top 5's. The main interest in Part 2 for me were the interesting chart stats and trivia which are lacking nowadays.

[shadster]

PPM is the Personal People Meter, the new way to determine ratings for radio stations these days. and so it would seem, trends as well.

[johnnywest]

There were a few fun stats mentioned. Like Britney being the first artist to have #1 hits in three straight decades since Janet Jackson [Christina Aguilera later did it].

And Katy Perry being the first act to have 6 Top 10 hits from one album since Janet Jackson.

I'm also glad that this was pure CHR. Rick Dees only did one chart for both CHR and Hot AC.