CHR Flashback - 10/4/03
Oct 2, 2003 21:37:32 GMT -5
Post by Hervard on Oct 2, 2003 21:37:32 GMT -5
Yes, you're seeing right. At long last, my CHR Flashback feature has returned. The September series is currently under construction and will be e-mailed to anyone who's interested.
For those of you new to the Message Boards, what I do is once a week (roughly), post an old R&R chart, from a random year between 1975 through 1999. This past year, I introduced a feature where I blank out one song, replacing the title with "Mystery Song" and then you have to guess what the song is. And your prize? Absolutely nothing! Well, except the thrill of winning.
Several features which were tried earlier this year but didn't work out, were "two weeks ago" positions and bullets. Also, I used to occasionally include a similar chart that I created, which had roughly a 92 percent lean towards the national chart, but the remaining percent was based on how I liked the songs. I'll try to do that more often, but it won't be a weekly thing
Well, without further ado, let's get down to business. This week, we journey back to the year that Journey wondered Who's Crying Now, Balance was Breaking Away while Bob Seger was Trying To Live My Life Without You and Kenny Rogers insisted Share Your Love with me. ELO and Eddie Rabbitt were giving advice on life to Hold On Tight to your dreams and take things Step By Step. Yes, it was the year that was hated by the AT40 Flashback staff, 1981, and here is the Top 30 chart from this very day in 1981, October 2. For those of you who listened to the AT40 Flashback the weekend of September 22, 2001, many of these songs just might take you back to that show.
LC TC WC SONG/ARTIST
01 01 08 Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)/Christopher Cross
02 02 12 Who's Crying Now?/Journey
05 03 09 For Your Eyes Only/Sheena Easton
07 04 06 Private Eyes/Hall & Oates
08 05 06 Hard To Say/Dan Fogelberg
04 06 11 Step By Step/Kenny Rogers
06 07 09 The Voice/Moody Blues
10 08 07 The Night Owls/Little River Band
03 09 13 Endless Love/Diana Ross & Lionel Richie
09 10 07 Start Me Up/Rolling Stones
12 11 05 Share Your Love/Kenny Rogers
11 12 11 Stop Draggin' My Heart Around/Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty
15 13 03 We're In This Love Together/Al Jarreau
16 14 04 Trying To Live My Life Without You/Bob Seger
14 15 11 Hold On Tight/Electric Light Orchestra
18 16 04 I've Done Everything For You/Rick Springfield
19 17 03 Just Once/Quincy Jones f/James Ingram
13 18 09 I Could Never Love Miss You (Like I Do)/Lulu
21 19 03 When She Was My Girl/The Four Tops
24 20 04 Say Goodbye To Hollywood/Billy Joel
26 21 03 Here I Am (Just When I Thought I Was Over You)/Air Supply
29 22 02 Atlanta Lady(Something About Your Love)/Marty Balin
?? 23 ?? Mystery Song/Mystery Artist
23 24 14 Urgent/Foreigner
22 25 06 Breaking Away/Balance
30 26 02 Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic/The Police
XX 27 01 Waiting For A Girl Like You/Foreigner
XX 28 01 Sausalito Summernight/Diesel
XX 29 01 Theme From "HilLStreet Blues"/Mike Post f/Larry Carlton
XX 30 01 Oh No/The Commodores
Droppers:
From #20: Lady (You Bring Me Up)/The Commodores (13 weeks on)
From #25: (There's) No Gettin' Over Me/Ronnie Milsap (14 weeks)
From #27: Cool Love/deleted Cruise (12 weeks)
From #28: Really Wanna Know You/Gary Wright (11 weeks)
Top Ten New & Active:
You Saved My Soul/Burton Cummings
Physical/Olivia Newton-John
Alien/Atlanta Rhythm Section
He's A Liar/The Bee Gees
Promises In The Dark/Pat Benatar
Working In A Coal Mine/Devo
The Old Songs/Barry Manilow
My Girl (Gone Gone Gone)/Chilliwack
She's A Bad Mama Jama (She's Built, She's Stacked)/Carl Carlton
No Reply At All/Genesis
Christopher Cross was spending his second of a total of four weeks on top of the chart en route to becoming the number three song of 1981, trailing - what else - "Endless Love" and "Bette Davis Eyes". This was definitely one of my favorite songs of the 1980's. And I have a strong suspicion that Air Supply had that song in mind when recording "Even The Nights Are Better", don't you?
Foreigner was debuting on the chart this week with a song that would definitely have ranked higher on the year end chart had it been released a few months earlier. It's entirely possible that it could have been the top song of the year, seeing as it spent six weeks on top of the chart, one more than both Bette Davis Eyes and Endless Love, and spent sixteen weeks on the chart, the same number of weeks as BDE. On the R&R boards, I posted a chart of the Top 100 songs of the 1980's, but forget what ranked where, but I'm sure those songs were in or near the Top Ten. Anyway, since the cutoff date for the year end charts was November 27, 1981, the song only had nine weeks to its credit, four of them at number one, so it came in at number 23, which isn't too shabby, but nowhere near where it would be had the song been the first release from "Foreigner 4" instead of "Urgent". Then again, maybe not. The song may not have been as big in the fall, since it's more of a winter type song. Whenever I hear it, I think of a fire going in the fireplace and two lovebirds snuggling close to the fire trying to keep warm on a frigid winter's night. And there were plenty of chilly nights THAT winter. And that's very possibly what kept the song at number one for six weeks in late 1981 and at number two on Billboard for ten weeks, which is still, to this date, a record for the longest stay in the runner-up position on the Billboard Hot 100 (up to 1999, at least, which is where my records stop). The song was held at bay for all that time by Olivia Newton-John's "Physical", which only peaked at number two on R&R, due to a handful of their reporting stations refusing to play the song due to its lyrical content.
There were several acts that came out in the 1960's that were either still hot or had a comeback hit. The latter was true for Lulu, who had a monster hit back in 1967 called "To Sir With Love", which spent five weeks at number one, and the Four Tops, who'd had two number one songs, "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" and "I Can't Help Myself". Lulu was on her way down, having peaked at number 13 two weeks before, while the Four Tops were climbing the chart, just missing the Top Ten, peaking at number eleven in late October. And of course, there were bands that had been there throughout the years, like the Moody Blues, who were heading down the chart from their peak of number six the week before, and the Rolling Stones, who peaked rather fast with "Start Me Up", but would have a relatively slow fall, for the R&R chart back in those days. Songs tended to come and go rather fast and, typically, "Start Me Up" would have been out of there two weeks later, but they managed to squeeze out five additional weeks, which to me seems rather fast, considering how hot this song was. The radio station I listened to back then played the song to death well into the Christmas season, and it was their top song of 1981. To this day, I'm still rather burned out on it, since I never really liked it that much in the first place, but hearing it 100 times a day - yikes, it's enough to make a grown man cry!
Well, I'll hopefully be back next week with another edition of CHR Flashback,
For those of you new to the Message Boards, what I do is once a week (roughly), post an old R&R chart, from a random year between 1975 through 1999. This past year, I introduced a feature where I blank out one song, replacing the title with "Mystery Song" and then you have to guess what the song is. And your prize? Absolutely nothing! Well, except the thrill of winning.
Several features which were tried earlier this year but didn't work out, were "two weeks ago" positions and bullets. Also, I used to occasionally include a similar chart that I created, which had roughly a 92 percent lean towards the national chart, but the remaining percent was based on how I liked the songs. I'll try to do that more often, but it won't be a weekly thing
Well, without further ado, let's get down to business. This week, we journey back to the year that Journey wondered Who's Crying Now, Balance was Breaking Away while Bob Seger was Trying To Live My Life Without You and Kenny Rogers insisted Share Your Love with me. ELO and Eddie Rabbitt were giving advice on life to Hold On Tight to your dreams and take things Step By Step. Yes, it was the year that was hated by the AT40 Flashback staff, 1981, and here is the Top 30 chart from this very day in 1981, October 2. For those of you who listened to the AT40 Flashback the weekend of September 22, 2001, many of these songs just might take you back to that show.
LC TC WC SONG/ARTIST
01 01 08 Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)/Christopher Cross
02 02 12 Who's Crying Now?/Journey
05 03 09 For Your Eyes Only/Sheena Easton
07 04 06 Private Eyes/Hall & Oates
08 05 06 Hard To Say/Dan Fogelberg
04 06 11 Step By Step/Kenny Rogers
06 07 09 The Voice/Moody Blues
10 08 07 The Night Owls/Little River Band
03 09 13 Endless Love/Diana Ross & Lionel Richie
09 10 07 Start Me Up/Rolling Stones
12 11 05 Share Your Love/Kenny Rogers
11 12 11 Stop Draggin' My Heart Around/Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty
15 13 03 We're In This Love Together/Al Jarreau
16 14 04 Trying To Live My Life Without You/Bob Seger
14 15 11 Hold On Tight/Electric Light Orchestra
18 16 04 I've Done Everything For You/Rick Springfield
19 17 03 Just Once/Quincy Jones f/James Ingram
13 18 09 I Could Never Love Miss You (Like I Do)/Lulu
21 19 03 When She Was My Girl/The Four Tops
24 20 04 Say Goodbye To Hollywood/Billy Joel
26 21 03 Here I Am (Just When I Thought I Was Over You)/Air Supply
29 22 02 Atlanta Lady(Something About Your Love)/Marty Balin
?? 23 ?? Mystery Song/Mystery Artist
23 24 14 Urgent/Foreigner
22 25 06 Breaking Away/Balance
30 26 02 Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic/The Police
XX 27 01 Waiting For A Girl Like You/Foreigner
XX 28 01 Sausalito Summernight/Diesel
XX 29 01 Theme From "HilLStreet Blues"/Mike Post f/Larry Carlton
XX 30 01 Oh No/The Commodores
Droppers:
From #20: Lady (You Bring Me Up)/The Commodores (13 weeks on)
From #25: (There's) No Gettin' Over Me/Ronnie Milsap (14 weeks)
From #27: Cool Love/deleted Cruise (12 weeks)
From #28: Really Wanna Know You/Gary Wright (11 weeks)
Top Ten New & Active:
You Saved My Soul/Burton Cummings
Physical/Olivia Newton-John
Alien/Atlanta Rhythm Section
He's A Liar/The Bee Gees
Promises In The Dark/Pat Benatar
Working In A Coal Mine/Devo
The Old Songs/Barry Manilow
My Girl (Gone Gone Gone)/Chilliwack
She's A Bad Mama Jama (She's Built, She's Stacked)/Carl Carlton
No Reply At All/Genesis
Christopher Cross was spending his second of a total of four weeks on top of the chart en route to becoming the number three song of 1981, trailing - what else - "Endless Love" and "Bette Davis Eyes". This was definitely one of my favorite songs of the 1980's. And I have a strong suspicion that Air Supply had that song in mind when recording "Even The Nights Are Better", don't you?
Foreigner was debuting on the chart this week with a song that would definitely have ranked higher on the year end chart had it been released a few months earlier. It's entirely possible that it could have been the top song of the year, seeing as it spent six weeks on top of the chart, one more than both Bette Davis Eyes and Endless Love, and spent sixteen weeks on the chart, the same number of weeks as BDE. On the R&R boards, I posted a chart of the Top 100 songs of the 1980's, but forget what ranked where, but I'm sure those songs were in or near the Top Ten. Anyway, since the cutoff date for the year end charts was November 27, 1981, the song only had nine weeks to its credit, four of them at number one, so it came in at number 23, which isn't too shabby, but nowhere near where it would be had the song been the first release from "Foreigner 4" instead of "Urgent". Then again, maybe not. The song may not have been as big in the fall, since it's more of a winter type song. Whenever I hear it, I think of a fire going in the fireplace and two lovebirds snuggling close to the fire trying to keep warm on a frigid winter's night. And there were plenty of chilly nights THAT winter. And that's very possibly what kept the song at number one for six weeks in late 1981 and at number two on Billboard for ten weeks, which is still, to this date, a record for the longest stay in the runner-up position on the Billboard Hot 100 (up to 1999, at least, which is where my records stop). The song was held at bay for all that time by Olivia Newton-John's "Physical", which only peaked at number two on R&R, due to a handful of their reporting stations refusing to play the song due to its lyrical content.
There were several acts that came out in the 1960's that were either still hot or had a comeback hit. The latter was true for Lulu, who had a monster hit back in 1967 called "To Sir With Love", which spent five weeks at number one, and the Four Tops, who'd had two number one songs, "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" and "I Can't Help Myself". Lulu was on her way down, having peaked at number 13 two weeks before, while the Four Tops were climbing the chart, just missing the Top Ten, peaking at number eleven in late October. And of course, there were bands that had been there throughout the years, like the Moody Blues, who were heading down the chart from their peak of number six the week before, and the Rolling Stones, who peaked rather fast with "Start Me Up", but would have a relatively slow fall, for the R&R chart back in those days. Songs tended to come and go rather fast and, typically, "Start Me Up" would have been out of there two weeks later, but they managed to squeeze out five additional weeks, which to me seems rather fast, considering how hot this song was. The radio station I listened to back then played the song to death well into the Christmas season, and it was their top song of 1981. To this day, I'm still rather burned out on it, since I never really liked it that much in the first place, but hearing it 100 times a day - yikes, it's enough to make a grown man cry!
Well, I'll hopefully be back next week with another edition of CHR Flashback,
