Re: No. 1's from 1974 -- American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century

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Date Posted: 21:55:50 07/14/02 Sun
Author: Christopher Elliott
Subject: Re: No. 1's from 1974
In reply to: JB 's message, "No. 1's from 1974" on 19:39:45 07/14/02 Sun

>With songs having long stays at No. 1 nowadays, it
>hard to believe that we could go through an entire
>year that no songs would spend 4 or more week at No. 1

If you ever get your hands on Billboard magazine from 1974, you will see that the record industry was in a flux during much of 1974 and 1975. Part of the problem was the energy crisis of 1973, which spilled into 1974. This affected the industry in many ways, some of which was the production of the records themselves. It also led to radio stations to become a bit more conservative, with tighter playlists. However, unlike today where the tighter playlists led to 10 week rides at #1, it led in 1974 to many songs on the Hot 100 unable to gather alot of points at one time. With shorter lists, a song was harder press to grab the necessary station adds to get into the #1 slot. And when it did, it couldn't keep it. So in essence, it led to a rapid turnover at #1. Notice, that on the Hot 100 itself, many songs took there own sweet time moving up and down the chart. Songs could take 10-12 weeks to drop off the chart after hitting the top 10, something unthinkable in 1972.

The problem reached its peak in the summer of 1974, leading to many front page articles in Billboard to address the AM radio problem. A look at a typical Hot 100 of August 1974 shows the problem in all its glory. All agreed that looser playlists were needed. So some stations began to adopt this policy.

However, the pendulum swung too much in the other direction. In the Winter of 1974 into much of 1975, you had alot of debuts on the Hot 100 in the 91-100 area. Which is indictive of a longer playlists. But the top of the charts, there would have songs drop from #1-#15, or #14-#41, and so on. This is a practice of stations and retail outlets of dropping a song once they felt it has reached its peak.

Sorry for the muttering, but I've always been fascinated on why the charts behave as they do :)

Christopher

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Replies:

Re: No. 1's from 1974 -- Craig, 01:27:26 07/15/02 Mon
- 1982 -- Christopher Elliott, 20:48:49 07/15/02 Mon