Two "Unchained Melody's"??

[iceman]

I was looking at some 1990 Billboard 100 charts and noticed that "Unchained Melody" by the Righteous Brothers appeared in the top 40 portion of the chart for many weeks at the same time. I am assuming they re-recorded it and assuming if AT40 was using the Billboard chart for their show at that time would they have played both versions?

[mst3k]

Yeah, the cassette-only version was re-recorded (and inferior, IMO). It charted mostly on sales, while the re-released original (which was only available as a vinyl single) charted primarily from airplay. AT40 did play both versions for at least the first week that both songs were in the countdown, but most of the time they only played one of the versions (and just mentioned the other one's position).

[Hervard]

Actually, Shadoe played both versions almost every week, I think. I remember one week, he just did a medley of both songs.
On the year end chart, he combined the point totals of both songs and it came up about where it would have had only one version of the song charted.

[BillboardBoy]

From what I can remember, the single version had an odd chart run. One week, it plummeted 10 notches to #40. The next week, it inched back up to #39. It fell to #40 after that. And then it was gone.

I guess that would be pretty common today on AT40.

[iceman]

BillboardBoy said:

From what I can remember, the single version had an odd chart run. One week, it plummeted 10 notches to #40. The next week, it inched back up to #39. It fell to #40 after that. And then it was gone.

I guess that would be pretty common today on AT40.

Here is the single versions chart run:

45-30-25-22-19-22-28-31-30-40-39-40 (christmas) 41-49-47-47-76-80-82-74-75-76-85-89

[johnnywest]

ulij20 said:

Actually, Shadoe played both versions almost every week, I think.  I remember one week, he just did a medley of both songs.
On the year end chart, he combined the point totals of both songs and it came up about where it would have had only one version of the song charted.

I guess they weren't using the Billboard chart for the year-end show. What about 1991?

[mst3k]

johnnywest said:

I guess they weren't using the Billboard chart for the year-end show. What about 1991?

I believe AT40 compiled their own yearend chart in 1991, based on the Hot 100.

[Hervard]

They also compiled their own chart for the Top 100 of 1990, since Billboard went back to their old-fashioned figuring system that year.

As for the weird run on Billboard - songs that were fueled exclusively (or almost exclusively) by sales figures tended to do that, even before the figuring system was changed in late 1991.

[dth1971]

One time in place of the original Unchained Melody, Shadoe played a medley of other artist's renditions of Unchained Melody.