Alternative Chart Longevity Champions

[friday]

Just thought I'd post this for anyone's edification. It's pretty interesting to look at how the mark has evolved over the last 11 years or so.

Artist	Song	Weeks	Peak	Length of Term
Nine Inch Nails	Closer	27	12	9/16/94 - 2/17/95
Stone Temple Pilots	Interstate Love Song	31	2	2/17/95 - 3/29/96
Toadies	Possum Kingdom	32	5	3/29/96 - 6/7/96
Everclear	Santa Monica (Watch The World Die)	33	5	6/7/96 - 11/13/98
Fuel	Shimmer	33	3	10/9/98 - 11/13/98
Eve 6	Inside Out	39	1	11/13/98 - 4/19/02
Incubus	Pardon Me	39	3	8/4/00 - 4/19/02
Linkin Park	In The End	43	1	4/19/02 - 8/29/03
Trapt	Headstrong	50	1	8/29/03 - present
Crossfade	Cold	50	2	5/20/05 - present

Of course, the 25/26 recurrent rule was implemented in 1996, and then the 20/20 rule in 1999 and ever since, save for a few weeks in 2001. However, it seems "Inside Out" was actually left on two extra weeks at the weeks surrounding the '98 two-week break. That was actually kinda important because Lit's "My Own Worst Enemy" had 37 weeks on, and could've laid partial claim to the title otherwise.

[halo19]

It's kind of sad to me. "Cold" and "Headstrong" making 50 weeks on Alternative is reason enough I no longer consider myself a fan of the format, in spite of NIN having had once been the longevity champion.

I'm not a huge LP fan but at least it was "In the End" and not one of the Meteora singles.

Another reason I'm not a big fan is if songs were really worthy of being in the top twenty after fifty weeks than it wouldn't have mattered so much. But since everyone has to "play the hits" they'll play something that's from a dead genre anyway.

[JCMF3]

Why do Trapt and Crossfade show their length of term till "present"? Those songs are not the Alternative chart anymore.

And I guess I don't understand the whole "length of term" column, considering Inside Out seems to have a length of 4 years! Plus, Fuel's Shimmer has like a 4 weeks length!!!

[friday]

jcmf3 said:

Why do Trapt and Crossfade show their length of term till "present"?  Those songs are not the Alternative chart anymore.

And I guess I don't understand the whole "length of term" column, considering Inside Out seems to have a length of 4 years!  Plus, Fuel's Shimmer has like a 4 weeks length!!!

"Length of Term" means for how long the song was the longest charting song in the chart's history. So, for example, no other song had 27 weeks other than "Closer" until the February 17th chart, when "ILS" reached its 27th week. So Trapt and Crossfade will have "present" until another song reaches 51 weeks on the chart (which I kinda hope never happens just for the sake of format; I mean, I like to see songs (that I like anyway) have long chart runs, but 1 year is kinda pushing it a bit unless its an incredibly good song).

[crash46]

That's how long they've held the record. What you're thinking of is signified in the "Weeks" column.

[DuckHead]

Here are the 1988-1994 pre-R&R records from the Billboard chart:

21- 01/28/1989- What I Am- Edie Brickell
22- 05/30/1992- One- U2
23- 06/06/1992- One- U2
24- 02/12/1994- Linger- Cranberries
25- 02/19/1994- Linger- Cranberries
26- 02/26/1994- Linger- Cranberries
27- 03/12/1994- Cannonball- Breeders
28- 03/19/1994- Cannonball- Breeders
29- 03/26/1994- Cannonball- Breeders

The 29 weeks record was not broken on Billboard until "Semi-Charmed Life" in late 1997.

[halo19]

I think that by the time "Closer" had its longevity record that on Billboard they already had their recurrent rule. At first I was fooled into thinking that that was the chart runs until I considered the times used on each of those.

I think on the Billboard chart, "Disarm" had 26 weeks on, but that may have been after the Breeders had broken the record.

In a way I wonder what those songs' lengths would be without the inclusion of a recurrent rule. That's how often the song is heard to begin with.

[Nicholas2.0]

halo20 said:

It's kind of sad to me. "Cold" and "Headstrong" making 50 weeks on Alternative is reason enough I no longer consider myself a fan of the format, in spite of NIN having had once been the longevity champion.

Another reason I'm not a big fan is if songs were really worthy of being in the top twenty after fifty weeks than it wouldn't have mattered so much. But since everyone has to "play the hits" they'll play something that's from a dead genre anyway.

But the whole reason most of these songs stuck around so long was not so much that they were immediately "great." Rather in most of these cases, they were unknown bands breaking through with their first big hit on the format. In Linkin Park's case, the song was added way early because they were just hitting their commercial stride, but then chose not to follow it up with an official 4th single.