AT20 - Top 30 of 2003

[Hervard]

Well, this weekend, AT20 counted down the 30 biggest songs of 2003. They used the same "Mediabase sans Delilah" chart they've been using since early February. And here is the list:

1 The Game Of Love/Santana f/Michelle Branch
2 Can't Stop Loving You/Phil Collins
3 Drift Away/Uncle Kracker f/Dobie Gray
4 Beautiful/Christina Aguilera
5 Cry/Faith Hill
6 Have You Ever Been In Love/Celine Dion
7 A Thousand Miles/Vanessa Carlton
8 If You're Not The One/Daniel Bedingfield
9 Unwell/Matchbox Twenty
10 Don't Know Why/Norah Jones
11 Forever And For Always/Shania Twain
12 Big Yellow Taxi
13 Dance With My Father/Luther Vandross
14 Hole In The World/The Eagles
15 Soak Up The Sun/Sheryl Crow
16 Forever For You/Daryl Hall & John Oates
17 Landslide/The Dixie Chicks
18 A Moment Like This/Kelly Clarkson
19 I Can Only Imagine/MercyMe
20 One/Faith Hill
21 Calling All Angels/Train
22 I Drove All Night/Celine Dion
23 Superman (It's Not Easy)/Five For Fighting
24 I'm Gonna Getcha Good/Shania Twain
25 Peacekeeper/Fleetwood Mac
26 Try It On My Own/Whitney Houston
27 Sunrise/Simply Red
28 This Is The Night/Clay Aiken
29 Look Through My Eyes/Phil Collins
30 No Such Thing/John Mayer

Countdown Extras:
Don't Dream It's Over/Sixpence None The Richer
We Can/LeAnn Rimes
These Foolish Things/Rod Stewart

One notable point of this chart is that, for the second year in a row, "No Such Thing" by John Mayer kicked off the show. I'm not kidding; last year, John Mayer's first hit commenced the show, which was another Top 30 of the year, since so many stations flipped to an all-Christmas format.
When Casey was introing the first two extras, he said they were "bubbling under" the Top 30, but he didn't say that about "These Foolish Things", he just talked about how Rod Stewart recorded two albums of standards. I wonder how close any of these songs came to making the Top 30. Unfortunately, we'll probably never know, since no site that I know of posts the Top 100 songs of the year using the Mediabase chart that AT20 used most of last year.
I can't really compare this to the Top 100 A/C chart listed in R&R, since I haven't yet looked at it. That's because it's possible that I can get my hands on the Dick Clark's US Music Survey Top 60 of 2003, which uses the R&R chart. If anyone here has, or will have, that show and is willing to work out some kind of a trade, please let me know, either in this topic or via private message. Thanks in advance.

[Arson]

For a split second when I heard "No Such Thing" at #30, I thought the station had mixed up the tapes and played last year's countdown.

I miss the days when they did the Top 60. The second half of the chart was always interesting. With the Top 30, you only have the songs which you hear every single time you turn on an AC station. Hearing "Drift Away" and "The Game of Love" for the umpteenth time is fine but only if there's a couple of fresher songs thrown in.

I was disappointed that there were only 3 extras this year instead of 4. They did 4 last year, perhaps because it was the first year they only did a Top 30. I wonder why they chose "We Can", "Don't Dream It's Over" and "These Foolish Things". I had expected "Your Body Is A Wonderland", "You're Still You" and "Picture" to be played.

On the bright side, the countdown removed a couple of holdovers from 2002 such as "Hero" and "A New Day Has Come" from the countdown (who knows why they let "Superman" and "A Thousand Miles" stay). In fact, there were only five songs on the countdown which were also on the AT20 Top 30 of 2002: "No Such Thing" [last year #30], "Superman (It's Not Easy)" [LY #2], "Soak Up The Sun" [LY #23], "A Thousand Miles" [LY #12] and "Cry" [LY #29].

[Hervard]

Arson said:

For a split second when I heard "No Such Thing" at #30, I thought the station had mixed up the tapes and played last year's countdown.

That's sort of what I thought at first. It doesn't seem to make sense that the song made it, seeing as it only spent eight weeks on the chart within the year, only got up to number twelve and doesn't get that much recurrent airplay. I wonder if it was a statistical error.

I miss the days when they did the Top 60. The second half of the chart was always interesting. With the Top 30, you only have the songs which you hear every single time you turn on an AC station. Hearing "Drift Away" and "The Game of Love" for the umpteenth time is fine but only if there's a couple of fresher songs thrown in.

Exactly. That's one thing I hate about A/C stations going all-Christmas every year. Even when they still did a Top 60 countdown, I haven't heard one for five years. Since WLIT was all-Christmas in 2001, they only aired Part 2 of the show instead of just running the whole thing in a six-hour block (something some stations do on either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day). In 2000, while the station didn't start their Christmas marathon in November like they do now, they did it Christmas weekend and eliminated the first half. And, of course, they only did a one-part show for 1999, since they did a decade end countdown the week after. So, yeah, it was 1998 when Casey last had a Top 60 that was broadcast in full on WLIT.

I was disappointed that there were only 3 extras this year instead of 4. They did 4 last year, perhaps because it was the first year they only did a Top 30. I wonder why they chose "We Can", "Don't Dream It's Over" and "These Foolish Things". I had expected "Your Body Is A Wonderland", "You're Still You" and "Picture" to be played.

"Picture" is one of the songs that I would have expected to be ranked way above "No Such Thing". That song got up to number twelve and spent umpteen weeks on the chart. It must have gotten absolutely no recurrent airplay. And, yeah, it would have been good to hear "You're Still You". I don't know about "Your Body Is A Wonderland", though, since John Mayer already had a song on the chart while Kid Rock and Josh Groban had none. "I'm With You" would have been a good choice, since Avril Lavigne didn't have any songs on the Top 30 either. I wonder if that song "bubbled under". I know that "Picture" can't have been too far off, unless it's another mistake made by the AT20 staff - remember 2000, when "The Way You Love Me" and "Man! I Feel Like A Woman" were both absent from the chart even though they should have ranked way over the other songs that DID make the chart (i.e. "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon).
I was glad, however, that they played songs from this year that didn't make the countdown instead of ho-hum number one songs of the past like "Truly Madly Deeply", "Breathe" and "Because You Loved Me".

On the bright side, the countdown removed a couple of holdovers from 2002 such as "Hero" and "A New Day Has Come" from the countdown (who knows why they let "Superman" and "A Thousand Miles" stay).

"Hero" and "New Day" weren't "removed" from the countdown. They had fallen out by February and were pretty low on the chart. I'm guessing that the time frame started in January, so that would have only given them about six weeks or so. Of course, with all the recurrent play they received, I'm guessing that they were right outside the Top 30 (but I'm SO glad Casey didn't play "Hero" as an extra!) "Superman", however, stayed on the chart into mid-March and "A Thousand Miles" was on the chart well into the summer, so that's why they were ranked on the chart. The latter of the two, by the way, was the only song that was number one in 2002 but not anytime this year.

In fact, there were only five songs on the countdown which were also on the AT20 Top 30 of 2002: "No Such Thing" [last year #30], "Superman (It's Not Easy)" [LY #2], "Soak Up The Sun" [LY #23], "A Thousand Miles" [LY #12] and "Cry" [LY #29].

That's right. Since they implemented the 50/10 recurrent rule, that kept a ton of songs from the previous year from spilling into the current year. AT20's chart must have the same rule as R&R, that a song must spend at least a week on the chart within the time frame to be counted.
All in all, it was IMO a very enjoyable countdown, despite the fact that it was just a two-parter.

[BillboardBoy]

Casey also mentioned tops of the other charts. I like it when he does that. During the 90s, I don't remember him ever doing that on any of his year-end shows. Did he ever do that during the 70s or 80s?

Active(!) Rock and Alternative - Headstrong - Trapt
Pop - When I'm Gone - 3 Doors Down
Country - 19 Somethin' - Mark Wills

#1s mentioned going into the commercial break:

15 - I'll Always Love You
5 - Truly Madly Deeply

Casey also mentioned that Faith Hill will be in the new "Stepford Wives."

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"I'll just die if I don't get this recipe. I'll just die if I don't get this recipe. I'll just die if I don't get this recipe."

[j]

I don't wanna be a FreakyFlyBry, but I did notice that you had Rod Stewart instead of Celine Dion at #6.

[af18c]

Christina's "Beautiful" at #4 MAKES ME HAPPY!

[Hervard]

jae said:

I don't wanna be a FreakyFlyBry, but I did notice that you had Rod Stewart instead of Celine Dion at #6.

Wups, I guess I was thinking about the song "Have I Told You Lately".

[StephL]

OZ-FM messed up my routine last weekend. If they played AT40 part 2, I would have recorded Dick Clark's show. Instead, my time was wasted recording part 1 multiple times. Dick Clark plays 30-1 this week, so if there is a recap somewhere, I can get all 60 charted songs . We'll see what happens.