CHR Flashback - March, 2005

[Hervard]

As I once again work on trying to get caught up with this feature, we go back to the year that Abba was telling us all about The Name Of The Game, while Lynyrd Skynyrd was asking What's Your Name.  David Gates was assuring his Goodbye Girl that "goodbye doesn't mean forever" but England Dan and John Ford Coley was so glad that We'll Never Have To Say Goodbye Again, because Barry Manilow Can't Smile Without You (Weak intro, I know, but I just got up; cut me some slack ;))  It was 1978 and this is the R&R chart from March 4, 1978:

LC TC wc SONG/ARTIST
01 01 10 Stayin' Alive/The Bee Gees (6th week #1)
05 02 05 Night Fever/The Bee Gees
02 03 10 Emotion/Samantha Sang
03 04 08 (Love Is) Thicker Than Water/Andy Gibb
04 05 12 Sometimes When We Touch/Dan Hill
07 06 05 Lay Down Sally/Eric Clapton
11 07 04 Can't Smile Without You/Barry Manilow
08 08 06 The Way You Do The Things You Do/Rita Coolidge
10 09 06 Wonderful World/Art Garfunkel
06 10 13 Just The Way You Are/Billy Joel
13 11 04 Dust In The Wind/Kansas
09 12 07 Peg/Steely Dan
12 13 13 We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions/Queen
15 14 06 Thunder Island/Jay Ferguson
18 15 04 Happy Anniversary/Little River Band
17 16 05 Poor Poor Pitiful Me/Linda Ronstadt
14 17 09 What's Your Name/Lynyrd Skynyrd
19 18 06 I Go Crazy/Paul Davis
21 19 03 Falling/LeBlanc & Carr
23 20 03 The Name Of The Game/Abba
24 21 03 Ebony Eyes/Bob Welch
27 22 02 Jack and Jill/Raydio
29 23 02 Always & Forever/Heatwave
16 24 08 Theme From "Close Encounters"/John Williams
XX 25 01 Sweet Talkin' Woman/Electric Light Orchestra
XX 26 01 Running On Empty/Jackson Browne
XX 27 01 Thank You For Being A Friend/Andrew Gold
XX 28 01 Goodbye Girl/David Gates
XX 29 01 If I Can't Have You/Yvonne Elliman
XX 30 01 We'll Never Have To Say Goodbye Again/England Dan & John Ford Coley

Droppers:
#20: Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah)/Chic (8 weeks)
#22: Come Sail Away/Styx (15 weeks)
#25: Short People/Randy Newman (13 weeks)
#26: Baby Come Back/Player (16 weeks)
#28: You're In My Heart (The Final Acclaim)/Rod Stewart (14 weeks)
#30: How Deep Is Your Love/The Bee Gees (21 weeks)

Pretty interesting chart.  As you can see, the Bee Gees were gearing up to dethrone themselves from the top with their third song from Saturday Night Fever.  Between those two hits, they'd have twelve weeks at the top.  Meanwhile, they had just fallen off of the survey with their number one hit from earlier that year, "How Deep Is Your Love".  It had spent twenty-one amazing weeks on the chart (though, not counting the holiday break, it was only 19 - still impressive for late-70s standards). 
Many of you know that Paul Davis spent 40 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 with "I Go Crazy", 25 of them in the Top 40.  But the song was actually peaking this week on the R&R chart!  You might think that it stuck around for quite awhile after that, but, in fact, it spent only one additional week on the chart and then left the chart after that, never to return.  So it was clear that the song's success on the Hot 100 was due chiefly to singles sales.  Then again, maybe not, since the record wasn't certified platinum.  Maybe Billboard's reporting panel was made of many stations that played the song while R&R didn't have as many reporting stations that played the song in heavy rotation.  Who knows; it's as much a mystery as the weird chart drops of many songs back in 1982.
Well, I gotta jet now or else I'll be late for work.  I'll try to get the next CHR Flashback posted real soon.

[jimmy74747]

There are some strong songs here.

What's amazing is that the Gibb Brothers wrote the top four songs.

[Hervard]

That's right. I remember this chart being the flashback segment for the March 9, 1985 edition of "Countdown America with John Leader". On that show, every week before playing the number one song, he'd flash back to a past year and count down the top five songs from that year. He mentioned that the Bee Gees were responsible for the top four songs as he started playing a drop piece of "Sometimes When We Touch".

The top two songs of this week would wind up being the top two songs of the entire year.

[mst3k]

ulij20 said:

16 24 08 Theme From "Close Encounters"

Artist is John Williams, I presume (since Meco's version didn't get that high, from what I recall).

And needless to say, I love this chart! 1978 was my year for music. :)

[Hervard]

Right, John Williams was the artist. Sorry, I forgot to insert it.

Surprised that you didn't mention that I also omitted Raydio as the artist for Jack and Jill.

[mst3k]

ulij20 said:

Surprised that you didn't mention that I also omitted Raydio as the artist for Jack and Jill.

Ack, I missed that one. Gettin' senile in my old age... ;)

[Hervard]

Yeah, that's all part of being old!

The good thing about it is, at least we old farts remember all the songs here. Some of the members of this boards - hell, their parents hadn't even met yet in 1978.

I myself was all of six years old back when these songs were popular. I was more into building with blocks than music back then, although I do remember some of these songs when they were popular. I remember the two Bee Gees songs at the top, "Lay Down Sally", "Can't Smile Without You" (that's what my grandmother said when I hid her dentures), "Just The Way You Are", "Dust In The Wind" "We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions", "Ebony Eyes", "Sweet Talkin' Woman", "Running On Empty", "Goodbye Girl", "If I Can't Have You" and "We'll Never Have To Say Goodbye Again". That's more than a third of the chart there. Of the droppers, the only song I don't remember is "Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah)". Actually, I don't really remember hearing "How Deep Is Your Love" during its popularity, but, seeing as it spent more than twenty weeks on the chart, I must have heard it at some point, but it probably didn't make much of an impression on me.

Well, I gotta go grab myself a sandwich or something for lunch. All this reminiscing is making me feel hungry.

[Hervard]

Now, we go back to the year that contained what would be the longest-running number one song for a little over ten years.  That song, however, isn't on the chart this week, because it came out in the late spring.  It will probably be on the next chart I do for this year which, as you have probably already figured out, is 1983.  Here is the chart for March 11, 1983, as my second March, 2005 Flashback:

LC TC wc SONG/ARTIST
02 01 07 Billie Jean/Michael Jackson
01 02 09 You Are/Lionel Richie
06 03 07 One On One/Daryl Hall & John Oates
07 04 06 Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)/Journey
03 05 08 All Right/Christopher Cross
05 06 08 Hungry Like The Wolf/Duran Duran
04 07 10 Do You Really Want To Hurt Me/Culture Club
09 08 06 Back On The Chain Gang/The Pretenders
14 09 05 Mr. Roboto/Styx
13 10 05 Come On Eileen/Dexy's Midnight Runners
11 11 06 I've Got A Rock & Roll Heart/Eric Clapton
08 12 08 Breakin' Us In Two/Joe Jackson
10 13 08 We've Got Tonight/Kenny Rogers & Sheena Easton
18 14 04 Jeopardy/Greg Kihn Band
17 14 04 I Know There's Something Going On/Frida
15 16 07 My Kind Of Lady/Supertramp
19 17 04 Make Love Stay/Dan Fogelberg
26 18 02 Beat It/Michael Jackson
25 19 03 Der Kommissar/After The Fire
22 20 03 Poison Arrow/ABC
12 21 13 Shame On The Moon/Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
16 22 10 Stray Cat Strut/The Stray Cats
20 23 18 Down Under/Men At Work
24 24 04 Dreamin' Is Easy/Steel Breeze
29 25 02 Change Of Heart/Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
30 26 02 Whirly Girl/Oxo
28 27 02 Winds Of Change/Jefferson Starship
XX 28 01 Take The Short Way Home/Dionne Warwick
23 29 14 Allentown/Billy Joel
21 30 07 Pass The Dutchie/Musical Youth

Dropped:
Heart To Heart/Kenny Loggins (13 weeks)

Top Ten New & Active:
It Might Be You/Stephen Bishop
Lies/The Thompson Twins
Little Red Corvette/Prince
I Won't Hold You Back/Toto
Some Kind Of Friend/Barry Manilow
Welcome To Heartlight/Kenny Loggins
Little Too Late/Pat Benatar
Be Good Johnny/Men At Work
Even Now/Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
Nice Girls/Melissa Manchester

This was an unusually slow chart, for early 1983. For the most part, songs fell pretty quickly, but this was an exception. Most notable was "Down Under", which was the oldest song in the survey at eighteen weeks (counting the holiday break), moved down only three spots. There was only one debut, which was unsual as well. I believe there was only one other chart in 1983 that had a single debut. After that, such an event was extremely rare, so much that the number of charts in the 1980s on which there was only one debut could be counted on one hand. Of course, after the PPW era started, the one-debut phenomenon became relatively commonplace.

Michael Jackson was indeed a hot act on the charts at this point. As he moved into the number one position for the first of two weeks, his follow-up single, "Beat It" was already on its way up the chart, making the biggest move of the week (26-18). The song would hit number one in late April. As it got closer to the top, I became unsure that it would make it, since it was held out of the top spot for two weeks by "Jeopardy" by the Greg Kihn Band, but it finally made it, only to be ousted from the top spot from "Overkill" by Men At Work, which was a cool song, so I was glad it got to be number one.

The following week, things would speed up. There would be six debut songs and the songs that would fall out were the songs on their way down below number 20 (including "Dreamin' Is Easy" by Steel Breeze, which was at #24 without a bullet on this chart). I didn't get to hear that chart on "Countdown America", however, since I couldn't seem to tune in B96 that weekend. Something must have been wrong with our radio, because when my Dad came to pick me up that afternoon, the station came in just fine on his radio, so at least I got to hear the number one song.

Well, that's about all for now. I'll try to get the two remaining Flashbacks for March posted sometime this weekend.

[Whi$tlin' Pete]

A major oddity at number 30. It wasn't a debut record! Very odd during that timeframe.

[Hervard]

I wouldn't call it a "major" oddity. About a month later, "Minimum Love" by Mac MacAnally spent his final week on the R&R Top 30 chart, falling 25-30. In June, "That's Love" by Jim Capaldi fell 23-30. For two weeks in a row in July, there was a drop to #30. It's true that was no longer the bottom rung of the chart (the chart had extended to 40 in June), but those songs probably would have been at #30 if the charts hadn't extended.
However, I find it hard to believe that number 40 was a debut nearly every week a few months after the chart extended. That made for several odd chart runs. For instance, "Don't Cry" by Asia moved 40-37 in its first few weeks, then suddenly took off, moving 37-24. John Cougar's "Crumblin' Down" moved 40-38-26 (and "Pink Houses" made a similar move). I wonder who the chart editor was at the time.

[Moonshadow]

Ulij, I must say, you are impressive. How you can remember vivid details of what played exactly on the radio 20-some years ago is incredible.

[Hervard]

Now, we take the trip back to the last year of the 1980s.  Here is the chart from March 17, 1989:

LC TC wc SONG/ARTIST
03 01 07 Eternal Flame/The Bangles
06 02 06 The Look/Roxette
04 03 10 My Heart Can't Tell You No/Rod Stewart
01 04 10 Lost In Your Eyes/Debbie Gibson
02 05 10 The Living Years/Mike + The Mechanics
07 06 09 Girl You Know It's True/Milli Vanilli
12 07 05 She Drives Me Crazy/Fine Young Cannibals
13 08 07 Walk The Dinosaur/Was (Not Was)
10 09 08 You're Not Alone/Chicago
11 10 08 Just Because/Anita Baker
15 11 06 Stand/R.E.M.
14 12 07 Dreamin'/Vanessa Williams
05 13 09 Roni/Bobby Brown
17 14 05 Superwoman/Karyn White
08 15 09 Don't Tell Me Lies/Breathe
18 16 07 More Than You Know/Martika
35 17 02 Like A Prayer/Madonna
22 18 04 Your Mama Don't Dance/Poison
27 19 03 Funky Cold Medina/Tone Loc
26 20 03 Heaven Help Me/Deon Estus
23 21 06 You Got It/Roy Orbison
09 22 09 Paradise City/Guns 'N Roses
33 23 02 I'll Be There For You/Bon Jovi
16 24 14 You Got It (The Right Stuff)/New Kids On The Block
30 25 04 Second Chance/38 Special
31 26 03 Room To Move/Animotion
34 27 02 Rocket/Def Leppard
19 28 09 I Beg Your Pardon/Kon Kan
29 29 05 She Won't Talk To Me/Luther Vandross
20 30 14 Straight Up/Paula Abdul
28 31 05 Cryin'/Vixen
36 32 02 Thinking Of You/Sa-Fire
38 33 02 Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)/Enya
21 34 11 Surrender To Me/Ann Wilson w/Robin Zander
40 35 02 Sincerely Yours/Sweet Sensation
24 36 08 The Love In Your Eyes/Eddie Money
32 37 04 Feels So Good/Van Halen
25 38 12 The Lover In Me/Sheena Easton
XX 39 01 After All/Cher w/Peter Cetera
XX 40 01 Forever Your Girl/Paula Abdul

Dropped:
#37: A Little Respect/Erasure (10 weeks)
#39: Wild Thing/Tone Loc (13 weeks)

A pretty good chart. As noted in my post below, I heard this countdown for the preceding week after coming home from a choir festival at Culver Military Academy. Many of these songs take me back to that time. The most memorable thing that happened that weekend was not exactly a fun thing, however. I was playing ball in the gym with a few members. Someone watching us said something to me, and I didn't hear what she said, so I went over to her and asked her to repeat herself and as I was doing so, WHAM!! The ball we'd been playing with nailed me in the temple. Sounds painful enough, but we were playing with a tetherball and the metal piece is what hit me. Needless to say, I got a bruise the size of Jupiter on the side of my head. There was one positive thing about it, however. Several girls in the choir felt sorry for me and spoiled me with hugs and stuff. Ahhh, the memories....

Ahem, back to the chart: I was hoping that Debbie Gibson would spend a fifth week on top, though I felt there was very little likelihood of that, since "The Living Years" was sure to take over this week, since it was #1 on Billboard. Well, when I heard that it dropped to #5, I was thinking, "Could it be?" Well, that hope was short-lived, as "Lost In Your Eyes" was played next, at number four. The Bangles were at number one this week, but that was cool, since I liked that song a lot. Roxette was zooming up the chart, at #2 and I felt sure the Bangles would only have a single week at #1 but they managed to hold off Roxette. This was about when I was starting to like the song, as I'd hated it with a passion when it first came out.
A song that I REALLY, REALLY hated at the time was "Like A Prayer" by Madonna. The song was screaming up the chart at the time. This week, it moved from 35 to 17, and the next week, it would shoot ahead to number six. I desperately hoped for it to hit a brick wall, but it went to #1. Fortunately, it fell fast after its three weeks on top and wound up as only #10 for the year. No matter; a song I hated worse got #1 for the year, "Miss You Much" by Janet Jackson. But I think that song's OK now. I sure hated it during its time, though.
My favorite song of 1989 was the #31 song, "Cryin'" by Vixen, which unfortunately only managed to climb to #28.
With several songs getting close to the Top Ten and Madonna sure to hit the Top Ten next week, I was wondering what three songs would fall out next week. I was thinking that Anita Baker and Chicago's songs had been out for awhile and would probably fall out next week, along with Debbie Gibson, unless Vanessa Williams managed to crack the Top Ten. Well, to my surprise, "Walk The Dinosaur" by Was (Not Was), which had made a good-sized move to #8, fell back to #11 the next week! That was so weird, every song that fell out of the top ten had been moving up the week before, although, as I said before, Chicago and Anita Baker were running out of gas anyway.
On Rockin' America Top 30 Countdown, Scott Shannon would always pick out a song as the "Rockin' America Chart Buster of the week". Usually, it was the biggest mover up, but this week, he gave it to Madonna, who had made the highest debut, since a debut at #17 was obviously a lot more impressive than the 27-19 move of "Funky Cold Medina". Several other examples of when he called the highest debut the "Chart Buster" was when Steve Winwood's "Roll With It" had debuted at 21, Milli Vanilli's "Girl I'm Gonna Miss You" debuting at 19 and the aforementioned "Miss You Much" by Janet Jackson coming in at #19 about two weeks later. Most other times, the biggest mover was the "Chart Buster of the week".
And that just about says it all for this chart.

[Michael1973]

I remember listening to Rick Dees' show the week before this 1989 countdown. There were six debuts, several of which had promise to be huge hits, and Rick made note of this fact by keeping the suspense as to who'd have the highest debut.

It's things like this that I miss about the old days of pop music.

[billme]

Okay, a couple of interesting things. The 1983 chart was broadcast on the Dick Clark National Music Survey the following week or March 19, 1983, which is 8 days later than the R&R chart date. The other interesting thing is the weeks on the chart don’t always correspond with the number of weeks on the DCNMS show.

Examples of differences (all others match Chris’s weeks on the chart):
09 vs. 08 You Are/Lionel Richie 26-18-10-8-7-6-1-2
07 vs. 06 One On One/Daryl Hall & John Oates 25-19-16-13-6-3
06 vs. 05 Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)/Journey 27-19-16-7-4
05 vs. 04 Mr. Roboto/Styx 28-23-14-9
05 vs. 04 Come On Eileen/Dexy's Midnight Runners 27-22-13-10
06 vs. 03 I've Got A Rock & Roll Heart/Eric Clapton 29-11-11
08 vs. 06 Breakin' Us In Two/Joe Jackson 28-23-20-18-8-12
08 vs. 07 We've Got Tonight/Kenny Rogers & Sheena Easton 27-19-16-13-11-10-13
04 vs. 02 Jeopardy/Greg Kihn Band 18-14
04 vs. 06 I Know There's Something Going On/Frida 29-26-23-20-17-15
07 vs. 03 My Kind Of Lady/Supertramp 27-15-16
04 vs. 02 Make Love Stay/Dan Fogelberg 19-17
03 vs. 02 Der Kommissar/After The Fire 25-19
03 vs. 02 Poison Arrow/ABC 22-20
13 vs. 10 Shame On The Moon/Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band 21-15-11-9-7-6-5-5-12-21
10 vs. 08 Stray Cat Strut/The Stray Cats 25-15-5-4-3-3-16-22
18 vs. 17 Down Under/Men At Work 30-21-14-10-6-6-6-2-1-1-1-1-1-2-4-20-23
04 vs. 02 Dreamin' Is Easy/Steel Breeze 24-24
14 vs. 10 Allentown/Billy Joel 26-22-19-17-16-15-14-15-23-29

At first I thought maybe Chris made a mistake, however, the difference in weeks on the chart is because of DCNMS changeover from the Cashbox charts to R&R. This happened March 12, 1983, which featured 10 debut songs on his Top 30 chart. March 5, 1983 was the date that the Cashbox charts were no longer featured a national music countdown until Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 show would debut in the fall of 1983 as I’m told. I can track back the earliest Dees’ show as 2-17-84.

March 19, 1983 Solid Gold Top 10 was not aired this week, as the show was a repeat. I do have the Solid Gold Top 10 for 3/12 & 3/26/83.

*The showcase song for 3-19-83 on Dick Clark’s National Music Survey was “Always Something There To Remind Me”/Naked Eyes

[billme]

ulij20 said:

I didn't get to hear that chart on "Countdown America", however, since I couldn't seem to tune in B96 that weekend.  Something must have been wrong with our radio, because when my Dad came to pick me up that afternoon, the station came in just fine on his radio, so at least I got to hear the number one song.

I don't know the debut date of this show. However, i found that I noted the Top 5 of this show on the earilest date of May 8, 1982.

"Countdown Am. 5. COF 4. 65 3. DTTs 2. E+I 1. DTTS"

[Whi$tlin' Pete]

Regarding my statement as the number 30 song on the March 1983 chart being an oddity, I based that on the fact that each chart posted from 1982 and 1981 thus far has had number 30 as being a debut record.

Some quick facts about the 1989 chart. Even though "Walk The Dinosaur" was moving up 5 points to number 8, it was spending its only week in the top 10. The next week it dropped to number 11. Roy Orbison passed away in November or December 1988. I often wondered how much effect his passing had regarding the success of "You Got It." "Second Chance" was the first hit for Thirty Eight Special. They had two previous names beforehand: 38 Special, and .38 Special.

Some of my personal favorites include: "Don't Tell Me Lies," "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)," "Heaven Help Me," and "Feels So Good."

[Hervard]

Michael1973 said:

I remember listening to Rick Dees' show the week before this 1989 countdown.  There were six debuts, several of which had promise to be huge hits, and Rick made note of this fact by keeping the suspense as to who'd have the highest debut.

Yeah, I remember that show. I usually obtained my chart information through Casey's Top 40, which was the first show that was on during the weekend that used the R&R charts. But my concert choir had spent the weekend performing at a festival at Culver Military Academy, so I missed CT40 that week. Fortunately, Zip 104 aired the Rick Dees show. I listened to the first hout of the countdown and then waited and listened to the Rockin' America Top 30 Countdown to get the rest. I had missed #40, so I called the station and found out that it was the Sweet Sensation song. I'd never heard of them before. This wasn't one of the songs that promised to be huge hits. Those were the songs by Madonna and Bon Jovi, both of which went to number one in April.

There were also six debuts the following week. Two that I can remember off the top of my head were "Real Love" by Jody Watley and "Birthday Suit" by Johnny Kemp. "Seventeen" by Winger might have also been one of them. I also recall the piece of crap that was called "Rock On" by Michael Damian debuting around this time, but don't even get me started on how much I hate that song.

[Hervard]

billme said:

ulij20 said:

I don't know the debut date of this show.  However, i found that I noted the Top 5 of this show on the earilest date of May 8, 1982.

"Countdown Am. 5. COF 4. 65 3. DTTs 2. E+I 1. DTTS"

5) Chariots Of Fire
4) '65 Love Affair
3) (You seem to have it listed as "Don't Talk To Strangers"; however, I believe "Did It In A Minute" was charting around this time)
2) Ebony & Ivory
1) Don't Talk To Strangers

Moreover, this can't have been Countdown America, since that show debuted in January, 1983. But I do remember they did the Top Five songs from 1982 and they were in the same order, so that's what you must have been remembering.

[billme]

ulij20 said:

5) Chariots Of Fire
4) '65 Love Affair
3) (You seem to have it listed as "Don't Talk To Strangers"; however, I believe "Did It In A Minute" was charting around this time)
2) Ebony & Ivory
1) Don't Talk To Strangers

Moreover, this can't have been Countdown America, since that show debuted in January, 1983.  But I do remember they did the Top Five songs from 1982 and they were in the same order, so that's what you must have been remembering.

Very Good!  I made a mistake in copying my 23 year note.  I did have it handwritten as 3. DIIAM

Hey, I still need to talk about '78 & '89.  If time permits, maybe yet today.  I have an interesting chart to share from 1989.  Hint Jeff Wyatt....

[Hervard]

Go ahead. I'm on and off the computer throughout the afternoon, so whatever you post, I'm sure I'll be able to respond to within a few hours.

[billme]

Okay,

1989….The National Music Survey & Countdown America both went all AC by this time with different hosts, kinda sorta.  They used to be a CHR countdown.  However, if you were looking for a CHR countdown, you had five national shows to pick from either Top 30 or 40 (Casey Kasem, Rick Dees, Shadoe Stevens, Dave Sholin or Scott Shannon).  This was truly, the peak of Pop CHR countdown.  Imagine five different CHR countdowns today?  Well, we are close.

The hybrid of CHR/Rhythmic was CHR dance stations of the late 80’s & one national show called “American Dance Traxx” hosted by Jeff Wyatt featured a three-hour Top 25 countdown.  Below is the chart for the weekend of March 18-19, 1989. Time compare it with the R&R chart for differences.

(2nd week) #25 Straight Up/Paula Abdul
#5 Most Requested Song Thinking Of You/Sa-Fire
(-8) #24 Dial My Heart/The Boys
(Debut) #23 Real Love/Jody Watley
(Debut) #22 Like A Prayer/Madonna
First Break after almost 25 minutes

(Debut) #21 Funky Cold Medina/Tone Loc
Fresh New Track: Safe In The Arms Of Love/Shooting Party
(+3) #20 Birthday Suit/Johnny Kemp
Second Break after 16 mintues

(+2) #19 Iko Iko/Belle Stars
#4 Most Requested Song 24/7/Dino (previous week #2 most requested)
(Debut) #18 Just Collin’/Levert
Third Break after 15 minutes

(+3) #17 Don’t Turn Your Back On Love/Kristin Baio
(+3) #16 That’s The Way Love Is/Ten City
(2nd week) #15 Notice Me/Sandee
(-5) #14 You Got It (The Right Stuff)/New Kids On The Block
Fourth Break after 24 minutes

#3 Most Requested Song Heaven Help Me/Deon Estus (previous week #4 most requested)
(-7) #13 Get On The Floor/Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock
Fifth Break after 9 minutes

(+2) 12 I Wanna Be The One/Stevie B.
Import Track: I Only Want To Be With You/Samantha “the” Fox
(+2) 11 She Won’t Talk To Me/Luther Vandross
(2nd week) 10 A Little Respect/Erasure
(+2) 9 More Than You Know/Martika
Local break after 22 minutes

(+4) 8 She Drives Me Crazy/Fine Young Cannibals
#2 Most Requested Song Superwoman/Karyn White (previous week #3)
(+1) 7 Fading Away/Will To Power
(-3) 6 Roni/Bobby Brown
Break

(2nd week) 5 Walk The Dinosaur/Was (Not Was)
(2nd week) 4 Good Life/Inner City
Break

(+4) 3 Sincerely Yours/Sweet Sensation
(-1) 2 Girl, You Know It’s True/Milli Vanilli
#1 Most Requested Song Lost In Your Eyes/Debbie Gibson (8th week in-a-row) & more weeks were to come
Break

(+1) 1 I Beg You Pardon/Kon Kan

Droppers:
From #17 Love Is On Her Mind/Sa-Fire
From #18 Wild Thing/Tone Loc
From #22 Can You Stand The Rain/New Edition
From #24 Walking Away/Information Society
Also Dreamin’/Vanessa Williams from the most requested song chart #5 position

[billme]

1978, yes I know all of these songs.  These were songs that we sang in class, bought, and played at friends’ houses & heard on the radio.  I know that one of those Top 30 songs were from the first album that I purchased.

If you think AT40 didn’t have an influence on the Hot 100, I beg to differ.  Several times on the show, Casey mentioned that Paul Davis was going for the record.  What programmer wouldn’t want him to beat Johnny Mathis’s longevity record?  You must remember that PD/MD submitted playlists to Billboard to help compile the chart.  How many gave him a couple of extra weeks after hearing this on AT40?

Funny thing, Thank You For Being A Friend was a mid-size hit; however, it became a staple LDD song & even years later became a TV theme song.  Hey, Dust In The wind was featured in a recent movie, so that one stood the time of time.  It was sung at the funeral scene in “Old School”?  The song was sure different than the rest of the “Point Of Know Return” album.  Buy it to find out what I mean.  I heard this album hundreds of times.

If you like “Thunder Island”, you should check out Wet Willie’s “Street Corner Serenade”, they sure similar in a certain part of the song.  Because of the success of Thunder Island, Jay Ferguson was given a spot on the TV show, Midnight Special.  He sang two songs.  The second one, “Losin’ Control” turned out to be one of my favorites of the time.  They sang songs live on that TV show at lot.  Before VCR, you would buy a tape recorder and place it next to the TV speaker to record the song.  Sound quality was poor, by today’s standards.  Even Wet Willie sang a couple of songs on the Midnight Special with Wolfman Jack.

I think that some people might think that (What A) Wonderful World is a remake of Louis Armstong’s classic.  It’s not.  Actually, it it’s by Art with Paul Simon (yes, mini reunion) & James Taylor.  Well, done recording.

Steely Dan was very successful with the Aja album.  If I haven’t looked it up, I would have guessed that it was #1 on the chart (#3 was its peak).  I heard half of the songs on that album on the radio.  It might have gone to #1 on an album countdown I heard (local or nation, not sure, too long ago-too far away).  Imagine that, there used to be a show that did a countdown of the Top 40 albums of the week.  Almost of those stations have become conservative talk outlets.

I thought that the Clapton’s song was called ”Lay Down Sallad” instead of Sally.  That’s good enough this time around.

[Hervard]

billme said:

Okay,

1989….The hybrid of CHR/Rhythmic was CHR dance stations of the late 80’s & one national show called “American Dance Traxx” hosted by Jeff Wyatt featured a three-hour Top 25 countdown.  Below is the chart for the weekend of March 18-19, 1989.  Time compare it with the R&R chart for differences.

(2nd week) #25 Straight Up/Paula Abdul
#5 Most Requested Song Thinking Of You/Sa-Fire
(-8) #24 Dial My Heart/The Boys
(Debut) #23 Real Love/Jody Watley
(Debut) #22 Like A Prayer/Madonna
First Break after almost 25 minutes

(Debut) #21 Funky Cold Medina/Tone Loc
Fresh New Track: Safe In The Arms Of Love/Shooting Party
(+3) #20 Birthday Suit/Johnny Kemp
Second Break after 16 mintues

(+2) #19 Iko Iko/Belle Stars
#4 Most Requested Song 24/7/Dino (previous week #2 most requested)
(Debut) #18 Just Collin’/Levert
Third Break after 15 minutes

(+3) #17 Don’t Turn Your Back On Love/Kristin Baio
(+3) #16 That’s The Way Love Is/Ten City
(2nd week) #15 Notice Me/Sandee
(-5) #14 You Got It (The Right Stuff)/New Kids On The Block
Fourth Break after 24 minutes

#3 Most Requested Song Heaven Help Me/Deon Estus (previous week #4 most requested)
(-7) #13 Get On The Floor/Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock
Fifth Break after 9 minutes

(+2) 12 I Wanna Be The One/Stevie B.
Import Track: I Only Want To Be With You/Samantha “the” Fox
(+2) 11 She Won’t Talk To Me/Luther Vandross
(2nd week) 10 A Little Respect/Erasure
(+2) 9 More Than You Know/Martika
Local break after 22 minutes

(+4) 8 She Drives Me Crazy/Fine Young Cannibals
#2 Most Requested Song Superwoman/Karyn White (previous week #3)
(+1) 7 Fading Away/Will To Power
(-3) 6 Roni/Bobby Brown
Break

(2nd week) 5 Walk The Dinosaur/Was (Not Was)
(2nd week) 4 Good Life/Inner City
Break

(+4) 3 Sincerely Yours/Sweet Sensation
(-1) 2 Girl, You Know It’s True/Milli Vanilli
#1 Most Requested Song Lost In Your Eyes/Debbie Gibson (8th week in-a-row) & more weeks were to come
Break

(+1) 1 I Beg You Pardon/Kon Kan

Droppers:
From #17 Love Is On Her Mind/Sa-Fire
From #18 Wild Thing/Tone Loc
From #22 Can You Stand The Rain/New Edition
From #24 Walking Away/Information Society
Also Dreamin’/Vanessa Williams from the most requested song chart #5 position

I remember American Dance Traxx! WZZP, South Bend, started airing it on Saturday nights at 7:00 on November 5, 1988 and ran it for exactly a year. I just listened to it; I didn't take notes or anything, since it wasn't that appealing to me, but it was cool to listen to nonetheless. This week was one of the weeks that I didn't get to hear it (since that was the weekend I was in Culver), so thanks for posting the chart.
I remember the week that the show started running on WZZP, one of the top requested songs was "Cars With The Boom" by L'Trimm, and it was the most annoying piece of crap I'd ever heard of! Thank God it was only on for a few more weeks. The way they rapped the song made me want to pull all the hair out of my head (so needless to say, the few weeks the song was played on the show, I turned down my radio for about four minutes).
A song I really liked that charted in the first few weeks that I heard the show was "You Came" by Kim Wilde. Its chart run from November 5, I believe, was 9-6-5-10-18-off. So at least it did well on one countdown show that I listened to (It just missed the AT40 chart, peaking at 41).

[Hervard]

Now for the final CHR Flashback for March, we go back to the year that Mariah Carey was turning nine. It was the year 1979, and here is the chart for the week of March 30, 1979:

LC TC wc SONG/ARTIST
01 01 09 What A Fool Believes/The Doobie Brothers
03 02 08 Sultans Of Swing/Dire Straits
02 03 09 Tragedy/The Bee Gees
08 04 05 Knock On Wood/Amii Stewart
09 05 05 Heart Of Glass/Blondie
06 06 05 Music Box Dancer/Frank Mills
05 07 10 Lady/Little River Band
04 08 10 I Will Survive/Gloria Gaynor
14 09 06 Stumblin' In/Suzi Quatro w/Chris Norman
11 10 07 I Just Fall In Love Again/Anne Murray
07 11 08 Crazy Love/Poco
10 12 15 Da Ya Think I'm Sexy/Rod Stewart
21 13 03 I Want Your Love/Chic
20 14 05 Precious Love/Bob Welch
13 15 06 Big Shot/Billy Joel
23 16 03 Livin' It Up (Friday Night)/Bell & James
16 17 08 Everytime I Think Of You/The Babys
23 18 03 Blow Away/George Harrison
17 19 09 Shake Your Groove Thing/Peaches & Herb
15 20 07 What You Won't Do For Love/Bobby Caldwell
18 21 05 Maybe I'm A Fool/Eddie Money
12 22 11 Heaven Knows/Donna Summer
24 23 03 Love Ballad/George Benson
19 24 06 Forever In Blue Jeans/Neil Diamond
27 25 03 I Don't Know If It's Right/Evelyn "Champagne" King
XX 26 01 Reunited/Peaches & Herb
XX 27 01 In The Navy/The Village People
30 28 02 Goodnight Tonight/Wings
XX 29 01 Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)/The Jacksons
25 30 17 Fire/The Pointer Sisters

Droppers:
#26: Don't Cry Out Loud/Melissa Manchester (9 weeks)
#28: Dancin' Shoes/Nigel Olsson (8 weeks)
#29: A Little More Love/Olivia Newton-John (16 weeks)

Top Ten New & Active:
He's The Greatest Dancer/Sister Sledge
Love Is The Answer/England Dan & John Ford Coley
Take Me Home/Cher
Love Takes Time/Orleans
Dog And Butterfly/Heart
Renegade/Styx
Just When I Needed You Most/Randy Vanwarmer
Roxanne/The Police
Got My Mind Made Up/Instant Funk
Such A Woman/Tycoon

[johnnywest]

Where did you get all these charts from the 70s? I didn't start my R&R subscription till the 90s. Before that (going back to 1989), I just wrote them down from Casey or Rick's countdowns.