American Top 40's Top 40 of the Decade (January 2)

[KelownaGuy20]

AMERICAN TOP 40 (HOT AC VERSION) - TOP 40 OF 2000-2009 (JANUARY 2, 2010)
TY  Artist - Title
40  Jimmy Eat Worlf - The Middle
39  Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
38  Counting Crows featuring Vanessa Carlton - Big Yellow Taxi
37  Jason Mraz - The Remedy (I Won't Worry)
36  Nickelback - Gotta Be Somebody
35  Daughtry - It's Not Over
34  Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
33  Vanessa Carlton - A Thousand Miles
Extra:  Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)
32  Buckcherry - Sorry
31  Daniel Powter - Bad Day
Optional Extra:  Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends
30  Evanescence - My Immortal
29  matchbox twenty - If You're Gone
28  Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
27  Los Lonely Boys - Heaven
26  Avril Lavigne - Complicated
25  Dido - Thankyou
24  Rob Thomas - Lonely No More
23  3 Doors Down - Here Without You
Extra:  Nickelback - Photograph
22  Lifehouse - Whatever It Takes
21  Sheryl Crow - Soak Up The Sun
Optional Extra:  Enya - Only Time
20  The Fray - Over My Head (Cable Car)
19  Green Day - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
18  Avril Lavigne - I'm With You
17  Nickelback - Someday
16  Santana featuring Rob Thomas - Smooth
15  Daughtry - Feels Like Tonight
14  Train - Calling All Angels
13  3 Doors Down - When I'm Gone
12  Lifehouse - You and Me
11  Sara Bareilles - Love Song
Optional Extra:  Colbie Caillat - Bubbly
10  Train - Drops Of Jupiter (Tell Me)
09  Lifehouse - Hanging By A Moment
08  Uncle Kracker featuring Dobie Gray - Drift Away
07  Nickelback - How You Remind Me
06  Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want
05  The Fray - You Found Me
04  Hoobastank - The Reason
03  The Calling - Wherever You Will Go
Optional Extra:  Creed - With Arms Wide Open
02  Maroon 5 - This Love
01  matchbox twenty - Unwell

[at40forever]

Good chart, but I'm shocked to not see Bubbly on it, seeing that it had one of the longest stays on AT40. :o

[johnnywest]

Thanks for posting.

Glad they're playing Enya as an optional! The remix I'm assuming?

[KelownaGuy20]

Jan 1, 2010 21:13:12 GMT -5 johnnywest said:

Thanks for posting.

Glad they're playing Enya as an optional! The remix I'm assuming?

Yup.

[Battle601]

Jan 1, 2010 18:42:54 GMT -5 at40forever said:

Good chart, but I'm shocked to not see Bubbly on it, seeing that it had one of the longest stays on AT40. :o

While I've only been following the chart regularly since about late 2007, I was assuming "Bubbly" would have at least made the Top 40 for the same reason mentioned above. Then again, the same could be said for "Paralyzer" (it did not reach #1 but had a longer stay than "Bubbly" by one week) and it is nowhere to be found on this chart.

Too bad "Bubbly" is an optional extra - I would have at least swapped that song with "Big Girls Don't Cry" as an actual extra. My station replaces the optional extras in favor of songs from their playlist that are dayparted to evenings/overnights/weekends.

[Libra]

Jan 1, 2010 18:42:54 GMT -5 at40forever said:

Good chart, but I'm shocked to not see Bubbly on it, seeing that it had one of the longest stays on AT40. :o

Considering that the Pop year-end chart was sent to the AT40 staff directly from Clear Channel (go check that thread - there's a letter posted in there), I can only infer that there's absolutely no correlation between the year-end or decade-end chart and the weekly charts themselves.

Thus, anyone being left off the chart when they really should be there adds up to nothing more than a steaming pile of bullshit on the part of Clear Channel, which I'd say is merely par for the course.

[wavetunes]

Ha! Interesting chart.

A lot of Nickelback. Don't like them at all.

I love many of those songs. And YAY for 4 Rob Thomas/Matchbox songs, but how come Bent is not on the chart, while If You're Gone is there? I thought Bent was the bigger hit, no?

Thanks for posting!

[Hervard]

Jan 2, 2010 11:05:28 GMT -5 Libra said:

Considering that the Pop year-end chart was sent to the AT40 staff directly from Clear Channel (go check that thread - there's a letter posted in there), I can only infer that there's absolutely no correlation between the year-end or decade-end chart and the weekly charts themselves.

Thus, anyone being left off the chart when they really should be there adds up to nothing more than a steaming pile of bulls**t on the part of Clear Channel, which I'd say is merely par for the course.

So Clear Channel probably just threw this together (although the #1 song was feasible, as it spent 20 weeks at #1). But other than that...

Anyway, I just put together what I consider to be a more accurate listing. It's very evenly balanced, with four songs from each year (according to weeks at #1), and one song per year per quarter of the chart. Here's what I came up with:

1) Wherever You Will Go/The Calling (2002)
2) Unwell/Matchbox Twenty (2003)
3) How To Save A Life/The Fray (2006)
4) Photograph/Nickelback (2005)
5) Smooth/Santana f/Rob Thomas (2000)
6) This Love/Maroon 5 (2004)
7) Bubbly/Colbie Caillat (2007)
8) You Found Me/The Fray (2009)
9) Drops Of Jupiter (Tell Me)/Train (2001)
10) Bleeding Love/Leona Lewis (2008)
11) Here Without You/3 Doors Down (2003)
12) Complicated/Avril Lavigne (2002)
13) Everything You Want/Vertical Horizon (2000)
14) Bad Day/Daniel Powter (2006)
15) She Will Be Loved/Maroon 5 (2004)
16) Use Somebody/Kings Of Leon (2009)
17) You And Me/Lifehouse (2005)
18) Home/Daughtry (2007)
19) Love Song/Sara Bareilles (2008)
20) Thankyou/Dido (2001)
21) Bent/Matchbox Twenty (2000)
22) The Game Of Love/Santana f/Michelle Branch (2002)
23) The Reason/Hoobastank (2004)
24) Boulevard Of Broken Dreams/Green Day (2005)
25) I'm With You/Avril Lavigne (2003)
26) It's Not Over/Daughtry (2007)
27) I'm Yours/Jason Mraz (2008)
28) Second Chance/Shinedown (2009)
29) Hanging By A Moment/Lifehouse (2001)
30) Black Horse & The Cherry Tree/K.T. Tunstall (2006)
31) If You're Gone/Matchbox Twenty (2000)
32) Lonely No More/Rob Thomas (2005)
33) Why Don't You And I/Santana f/Alex Band (2003)
34) Soak Up The Sun/Sheryl Crow (2002)
35) Big Girls Don't Cry/Fergie (2007)
36) Viva La Vida/Coldplay (2008)
37) You're Beautiful/James Blunt (2006)
38) Follow Me/Uncle Kracker (2001)
39) Gotta Be Somebody/Nickelback (2009)
40) My Immortal/Evanescence (2004)

The charts I used were the R&R charts (and Billboard charts starting in August, 2006) since I didn't really feel like going back and checking all the AT40 or Mediabase charts. I took the four songs that spent the longest time at #1 each year and ranked them accordingly. To balance the chart out even more, each quarter of the chart contains one song per year. That will account for songs that spent double digit weeks at #1 (such as "If You're Gone" and "Lonely No More" being ranked low on the charts, while songs that spent less than ten weeks on top (i.e. "Thankyou" by Dido) are way up in the Top 20. I felt this was a fair way of ranking the charts, since nowadays, songs are not spending anywhere near as many weeks at #1 as they were in the early part of the decade.

The year assigned to each song was determined by what year it spent its first week at #1, in case of songs that spilled over into the following year (and the holiday weeks were counted, even in the years of R&R, which did not count the holiday break when figuring the year-end charts). That was how "Wherever You Will Go" ended up on top, as it actually spent 22 weeks at #1 - but it would have won out anyway, as it spent more weeks on the chart than "Unwell". Speaking of "Wherever You Will Go", I sort of bent the rules with that song. You see, it did first hit #1 in 2001, but if I were to list it with that year's songs, there wouldn't have been enough #1 songs in 2002 to work with (and I wanted the list to consist solely of #1 songs), so that was the only such case. All other songs that were #1 between years were assigned the first year that they reached the #1 position.

Yeah, I thought it was totally wrong that big #1 songs like "Photograph" and "Bubbly" were omitted from the AT40 list (at least they played those songs as extras, but still). That was what inspired me to come up with the list above.