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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 06 October 2014 at 3:23am | IP Logged
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The latest Record Research book is now up for a pre-publication sale at out website (recordresearch.com).
It's an artist-by-artist compilation/comparison of the three big music trade publications from 1954-82.
The printing will be limited, so don't delay, order today!
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Brian W.
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| Posted: 06 October 2014 at 2:07pm | IP Logged
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That's one I'll definitely be buying. That's a great idea
for a book.
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80smusicfreak
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| Posted: 07 October 2014 at 6:53am | IP Logged
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Just went over to the RR web site and checked it out, including the sample pages - I agree it's definitely a great idea for a new book, Paul!
80smusicfreak wrote:
| (Just wish Record World had lasted about another 10 or 15 years beyond 1982, like Cash Box!) |
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When I made the above comment in response to another post of yours in a different thread all of three days ago, I had NO idea this new Comparison Book was in the works. The main reason I made that statement was because in 1982 - when Record World ceased publication - the music biz (including top 40 radio) was just starting its huge upward swing after going through the "post-disco slump". Thanks to the dawn of MTV, the "second British Invasion", etc., things were starting to get exciting again - not to mention that was exactly when I started to take a major interest in music myself. :-) So IMHO, Record World couldn't have gone under at a worse time - yet Cash Box still managed to hang on for another 14 years (until 1996), just long enough to cover the last interesting & worthwhile era for music. (I don't think I'm alone in saying that!)
So if I may offer some constructive criticism, I just wish that this upcoming Comparison Book could be extended to November 16, 1996 - when Cash Box ended its existence - instead of making 1982 the cut-off date, due to Record World throwing in the towel...
I also haven't forgotten the following comments you made only some five months ago (April 22) in the "Cash Box chart question" thread:
Paul Haney wrote:
| The problem with Cash Box in the late 1980s/early 1990s is the songs that were obviously hits that didn't even make their Top 100 chart. Some examples: "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" by Spin Doctors, "Nothin' To Hide" by Poco and "You Could Be Mine" by Guns N' Roses (although that one, at least, hit #104 on the "Looking Ahead" chart). |
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If extended to 1996 instead, wouldn't this Comparison Book be an EXCELLENT opportunity to expose those Cash Box vs. Billboard discrepancies that you mentioned above??? Heck, you certainly had my interest piqued back in April - in fact, are you sure that wasn't actually a veiled teaser for this new book, since it clearly would've already been in the works then?!? ;-)
RR's books have been a part of my life for 30 years now, and I'm thrilled to see that you guys have acquired the rights to use the CB and RW charts as well. So great work as always, Paul, but I really do think you could be losing some potential customers by making the cut-off date in this new book more than 32 years ago. Is it too late to reconsider??? I know I wouldn't mind any additional delay - and yes, if it means adding another $10 or $20 to the cost of the book, I'd definitely pay it! :-)
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 08 October 2014 at 4:14am | IP Logged
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One of our main objectives these days is to keep the costs down whenever possible and to pass the savings on to our customers. I'm sure that most of you are aware of how tough the book publishing business is nowadays. The costs for printing and binding of books has continued to go up (and must be paid by us upfront) while our book prices have stayed stable (and in some cases gone down) ever since I started at RR in 1992. The last book that I bought as a customer of RR was the original 1970s chart book, for which I paid $99.95. That same book today can be had for $10 less! In terms of printing and binding costs, the page count is what matters and in order to keep this book affordable, we had to limit it to around 500 pages. This is why we went to 2 columns per page and made it 1954-82. The focus is the comparison of the pop chart information of the "Big 3" national trades and we believe that this book delivers on that big time.
If you really want the Cash Box info through 1996, the other books ARE still available. However, they won't be around forever - the #101-150 Hit Records book is totally sold-out and the main Hit Records book is getting close to gone.
Thanks to everyone here who's already ordered or plans to order the new book. As a fellow chart fanatic, I'm sure you'll enjoy it!
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 09 February 2015 at 3:01pm | IP Logged
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The Comparison Book will be at our offices tomorrow morning (2/10) and we'll be shipping out all the pre-orders this coming week.
Thanks again to everyone here that purchased a copy!
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JMD1961
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| Posted: 14 February 2015 at 9:41am | IP Logged
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Got mine. Another nice book. Lots of interesting information. (Thanks for adding the "coat-tail" information for Music Vendor/Record World.)
What I found most interesting was the #1 hits list. Finally, I can see a chronological list of all #1 hits from the 50s to the early 80s.
Again, thanks for all the work.
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Yah Shure
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| Posted: 17 February 2015 at 3:34pm | IP Logged
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Santa brought my last gift today, and considering it's colder now than it was December 25th, and that there's maybe two inches of snow on the ground vs. none on 12/25, it's all the more timely.
Paul, what a great research tool/time-waster! :) The best part for me is being able to easily locate the many sub-100 (or thereabouts) charters from my college radio years in one super-convenient book.
It's also a great way to quickly date some non-Billboard unreported extras that were played on stations but never listed on their surveys.
Well done!
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 18 February 2015 at 4:51am | IP Logged
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Glad you guys like the new book. As a fellow chart fanatic, it's a dream come true to see all the data put together in one handy volume.
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Santi Paradoa
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| Posted: 18 February 2015 at 7:09pm | IP Logged
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I got my copy yesterday and I've yet to put the book
down. It is great having all the information there in the
one volume. This might be the most important release ever
for Record Research.
Now a question for Pat and/or any others who may have
important information to add to this discussion.
There are many songs in this book that have, if you were
to take the three chart peaks and average them out, an
average that would seem to qualify the song for inclusion
in the online Top 40 database. Here is just one example I
came across:
"So Close" by Jake Holmes from 1970. The three numbers
are 27 (RW), 29 (CB) and 49 (BB) for a total of 105 or an
average of 35 (rounding up). So the question is: Are
there any other music charts that would also be factored
in to determine if this song merits inclusion in the
online database?
BTW, even tho this song never made the Billboard Top 40,
Casey Kasem actually played the song on the first year of
AT40 for the Dec. 19 countdown. It was #39 instead of the
correct song "Love The One You're With" by Stephen
Stills. I recently heard the error on a replay at the end
of last year. I read on this board that there were a few
of these mistakes but never actually heard one myself
until now.
__________________
Santi Paradoa
Miami, Florida
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Hykker
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| Posted: 18 February 2015 at 8:25pm | IP Logged
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Santi Paradoa wrote:
BTW, even tho this song never made the Billboard Top 40,
Casey Kasem actually played the song on the first year of
AT40 for the Dec. 19 countdown. It was #39 instead of the
correct song "Love The One You're With" by Stephen
Stills. I recently heard the error on a replay at the end
of last year. I read on this board that there were a few
of these mistakes but never actually heard one myself
until now. |
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How did something like this happen? Were the charts that
BB sent to Watermark Productions preliminary and subject to
change, or was this a mistake on the part of AT40's
producers?
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Santi Paradoa
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| Posted: 18 February 2015 at 8:28pm | IP Logged
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Hykker wrote:
Santi Paradoa wrote:
BTW, even tho this song never made the Billboard Top 40,
Casey Kasem actually played the song on the first year of
AT40 for the Dec. 19 countdown. It was #39 instead of the
correct song "Love The One You're With" by Stephen
Stills. I recently heard the error on a replay at the end
of last year. I read on this board that there were a few
of these mistakes but never actually heard one myself
until now. |
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How did something like this happen? Were the charts that
BB sent to Watermark Productions preliminary and subject
to
change, or was this a mistake on the part of AT40's
producers? |
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The rest of the countdown matched the
chart so my guess is the error was made by someone
involved with AT40.
__________________
Santi Paradoa
Miami, Florida
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80smusicfreak
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| Posted: 19 February 2015 at 12:15am | IP Logged
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Hykker wrote:
Santi Paradoa wrote:
BTW, even tho this song never made the Billboard Top 40,
Casey Kasem actually played the song on the first year of
AT40 for the Dec. 19 countdown. It was #39 instead of the
correct song "Love The One You're With" by Stephen
Stills. I recently heard the error on a replay at the end
of last year. I read on this board that there were a few
of these mistakes but never actually heard one myself
until now. |
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How did something like this happen? Were the charts that
BB sent to Watermark Productions preliminary and subject to
change, or was this a mistake on the part of AT40's
producers?
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The specific incident that Santi Paradoa refers to was detailed nicely in Rob Durkee's excellent 1999 book, American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century (pgs. 112-113):
Quote:
| If you prefer mistake-filled AT40 shows, the list is extensive. The earliest notable goof came on the December 19, 1970 show, when "Love the One You're With" by Stephen Stills was supposed to debut at number 39. Instead, a song that had never even made the Top 40, "So Close" by Jake Holmes, was identified as number 39. Billboard usually phoned in the new chart to an AT40 staffer, who'd write the new numbers in the margin of the previous week's chart. On the previous week's chart, Holmes was at number 57 and Stills at number 67. It is believed that the staffer wrote "39" beside the song at position 57 instead of the one at position 67. Nobody caught the goof when the show was recorded, but measures were taken to prevent a repeat of this error. Stew Hillner, an original AT40 staffer, recalled, "Yeah, we played a wrong song. And Don [Bustany] said, 'As we're assembling the programs from now on, you must hear the lyric or the title of that song.' There was always somebody listening to how it was being laid down as we were assembling it." |
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If you're an "AT40" fan, I HIGHLY recommend this book! Unfortunately, it's long out-of-print, and now goes for big $$$. (Bought mine off the shelf back when it first came out; cover price was $24.95.) Listing/reviews on Amazon, where you can currently buy it from third-party sellers, starting at $85: ROB DURKEE - "American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century" (1999)
I first became an "AT40" addict in 1982, and like many regular listeners, it wasn't long before I started writing down all of the songs and keeping track, week after week. The first (and only) time I heard such an error on the show was in the Summer of '83. On August 6, 1983, the group Charlie entered the Billboard top 40 for the first time ever, w/ "It's Inevitable", and I was listening. In fact, it was the first time I'd ever heard the song, and I thought it was catchy as heck - so I quickly ran out and bought the entire album on cassette. The following week - August 13, 1983 - "It's Inevitable" peaked at #38, spending its second and final week in the top 40. (It only got as high as #43 in Cash Box, so alas, it's not included in Pat's db.) However, "AT40" played a DIFFERENT (non-top 40) song at #38 instead (can't remember which one it was, off the top of my head). At that time, I'd just started buying Billboard every week off the newsstand, and noticed that one of my new favorite songs had somehow been CHEATED from being played on the show, and couldn't understand why. Sure enough, near the beginning of the following week's countdown (August 20, 1983), Casey came on and explained how there'd been a "mistake" in the previous week's show, and that Charlie should've been at #38, instead of "XXX" - while adding that we wouldn't be hearing "It's Inevitable" on the show ever again, because it had now fallen out of the top 40, to number fifty-something. :-( I recall Casey saying that the error was due to some sort of last-minute change in the tabulation of the "Hot 100" that prior week...
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80smusicfreak
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| Posted: 19 February 2015 at 5:00am | IP Logged
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Santi Paradoa wrote:
| I got my copy yesterday and I've yet to put the book down. It is great having all the information there in the one volume. This might be the most important release ever for Record Research. |
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My copy arrived on Wednesday, and yes, I've been spending quite a bit of time flipping through it, too. :-) I agree that it's fantastic having the charts from all three publications in one book...
Quote:
Now a question for Pat and/or any others who may have important information to add to this discussion.
There are many songs in this book that have, if you were to take the three chart peaks and average them out, an average that would seem to qualify the song for inclusion in the online Top 40 database. Here is just one example I came across:
"So Close" by Jake Holmes from 1970. The three numbers are 27 (RW), 29 (CB) and 49 (BB) for a total of 105 or an average of 35 (rounding up). So the question is: Are there any other music charts that would also be factored in to determine if this song merits inclusion in the online database? |
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Excellent example. In fact, before I came on here late last night and read your post, I'd already noticed the same thing for some different songs. However, I was going to refrain from inquiring about it here, for fear of opening up a can of worms - but now that you brought it up first, I'll go ahead and weigh in w/ some additional examples and questions... :-)
Based on this post that I remembered from Pat, which he left on 08 April 2013 in response to edtop40 over in the "aretha franklin ain't no way" thread, it would certainly seem that RW, CB, and BB are the only sources:that he uses to determine which songs should qualify:
Pat Downey wrote:
| Ed, I do not know how many times I have responded to how I derived a "concensus" top 40 that appears in the database but I will respond one more time. There were 3 major trade publications in the rock and roll era, Record World, Billboard and Cash Box. Each had their own system for rating hit singles and quite often, chart positions were actually purchased so to even the playing field so to speak I averaged chart positions to form a concensus Top 40. Let's look at "Ain't No Way" which reached #71 on Cash Box, #38 on Record World and #16 on Billboard. Sum those 3 numbers to get 125 and divide by 3 to get an average chart position of 41.6. Billboard's chart position of #16 does look a little out of line with the other trade publications don't you think? |
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So w/ that methodology in mind, don't forget, besides ADDING songs like Jake Holmes' "So Close" to the db, the reverse would also be true - i.e., we'd be DELETING some as well! Case in point, which I just spotted while looking through the new Comparison Book: Gene Cotton's 1978 hit, "Like a Sunday in Salem (The Amos & Andy Song)". It hit #37 in CB, #40 in BB, and #46 in RW, for a total of 123, or an average of 41 - yet Pat DOES currently include it in the db! Now don't get me wrong, as I've said this here before, I'm not looking to get "Sunday in Salem" removed, as I'm all for having as many songs in the db as possible, whether they were consensus top 40 hits or not. :-) But I feel an explanation is in order here, too...
Of course, another song that's always been included in the db but I've questioned in the past (see here) is the 1980 hit, "What I Like About You" by the Romantics. It hit #49 in BB, #53 in CB, and #64 in RW, for a total of 166, or an average of 55.3. Heck, it didn't actually crack the top 40 in ANY of the big-three publications! So if we're going to be consistent and stick to the apparent methodology, this now-classic would unquestionably need to be cut loose, too...
We can easily take this debate even further, by going past the April 10, 1982, cut-off date in RR's new Comparison Book (when Record World ceased publication), and continue through November 16, 1996, when only Billboard and Cash Box were left. Again I will quote Paul Haney from the "Cash Box chart question" thread last year:
Paul Haney wrote:
| The problem with Cash Box in the late 1980s/early 1990s is the songs that were obviously hits that didn't even make their Top 100 chart. Some examples: "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" by Spin Doctors, "Nothin' To Hide" by Poco and "You Could Be Mine" by Guns N' Roses (although that one, at least, hit #104 on the "Looking Ahead" chart). |
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Looking at just the three songs that Paul cited (although I'm sure he knows of others, which I'd be curious to learn about!), 1990's "Nothin' to Hide" hit #39 BB and missed in CB altogether, 1991's "You Could Be Mine" hit #29 BB and #104 CB, and 1992's "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" hit #17 BB while also missing in CB altogether. "You Could Be Mine" has a total of 133, or an average of 66.5, yet it's in the db. Technically, "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" shouldn't qualify, either, yet it's also in there. However, conversely, "Nothin' to Hide" is (ahem) nowhere to be found - go figure...
But we can also flip this: If a song was only a #17 hit in BB, while missing in CB altogether (like "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong") - and that is enough to qualify it for inclusion in the db - then surely a song that went all the way to #1 in CB should also be included, even if it missed in BB altogether, right??? So why is Wayne Newton's 1992 smash, "The Letter", not in the db???
This is NOT meant to be an assault on all the time & hard work that Pat has understandably put into compiling the db over the years! Just some food for thought, as I think this could get interesting... :-)
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 19 February 2015 at 5:11am | IP Logged
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That 1983 song was "Pieces Of Ice" by Diana Ross. I remember that particular AT40 show very well.
Probably the biggest AT40 "blunder" was the show for June 29, 1974. According to Rob Durkee's excellent book (which I also HIGHLY recommend), Billboard didn't get the Hot 100 to AT40 on time, so they just guessed at the Top 40 that week! That's how ZZ Top's "La Grange" got played at #33 that week, despite only peaking at #41 in Billboard. In fact, iHeart Radio has been playing that show on their classic AT40 channel recently. I started writing down the Top 40 each week in August of 1974, so I (thankfully) missed that particular show the first time around!
Edited by Paul Haney on 19 February 2015 at 12:33pm
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 19 February 2015 at 5:59am | IP Logged
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80smusicfreak wrote:
| I first became an "AT40" addict in 1982, and like many regular listeners, it wasn't long before I started writing down all of the songs and keeping track, week after week. The first (and only) time I heard such an error on the show was in the Summer of '83. On August 6, 1983, the group Charlie entered the Billboard top 40 for the first time ever, w/ "It's Inevitable", and I was listening. In fact, it was the first time I'd ever heard the song, and I thought it was catchy as heck - so I quickly ran out and bought the entire album on cassette. The following week - August 13, 1983 - "It's Inevitable" peaked at #38, spending its second and final week in the top 40. (It only got as high as #43 in Cash Box, so alas, it's not included in Pat's db.) However, "AT40" played a DIFFERENT (non-top 40) song at #38 instead (can't remember which one it was, off the top of my head). At that time, I'd just started buying Billboard every week off the newsstand, and noticed that one of my new favorite songs had somehow been CHEATED from being played on the show, and couldn't understand why. Sure enough, near the beginning of the following week's countdown (August 20, 1983), Casey came on and explained how there'd been a "mistake" in the previous week's show, and that Charlie should've been at #38, instead of "XXX" - while adding that we wouldn't be hearing "It's Inevitable" on the show ever again, because it had now fallen out of the top 40, to number fifty-something. :-( I recall Casey saying that the error was due to some sort of last-minute change in the tabulation of the "Hot 100" that prior week... |
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Here's some more details on that situation:
The AT40 show for 8/13/83 was guest-hosted by Keri Tombazian and instead of "It's Inevitable" by Charlie, they played "Pieces Of Ice" by Diana Ross. The interesting thing is that if you look at the actual Hot 100 that week, Charlie is #38 and Diana Ross is #45. However, at the bottom of the chart in the A-Z index, they show "It's Inevitable" at #45 and "Pieces Of Ice" at #38! So there really does appear to be some sort of mix-up from Billboard that week!
Edited by Paul Haney on 19 February 2015 at 6:00am
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Hykker
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| Posted: 19 February 2015 at 7:42am | IP Logged
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80smusicfreak wrote:
So why is Wayne Newton's 1992 smash,
"The Letter", not in the db??? |
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I hope this was meant sarcastically. There is no way a CHR
(or even an AC) station would have played Wayne Newton in
1992, and singles sales had already gone off the cliff by
then so I doubt it was a sales success either. I've never
even heard it.
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Yah Shure
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| Posted: 19 February 2015 at 10:26am | IP Logged
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80smusicfreak wrote:
| So why is Wayne Newton's 1992 smash, "The Letter", not in the db??? |
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It ended up in the Dead Letter Office. Turns out the "33 1/3 Years Of Payola!" commemorative stamp on the envelope was bogus.
;)
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Paul Haney
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| Posted: 19 February 2015 at 12:28pm | IP Logged
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Hykker wrote:
| I hope this was meant sarcastically. There is no way a CHR (or even an AC) station would have played Wayne Newton in 1992, and singles sales had already gone off the cliff by then so I doubt it was a sales success either. I've never even heard it. |
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The funniest/saddest part of the whole "The Letter" deal is that it actually knocked out one of the biggest singles of all-time (Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You") from the #1 spot (although Whitney would knock out Wayne the next week)!
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80smusicfreak
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| Posted: 19 February 2015 at 6:34pm | IP Logged
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Hykker wrote:
80smusicfreak wrote:
| So why is Wayne Newton's 1992 smash, "The Letter", not in the db??? |
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I hope this was meant sarcastically. There is no way a CHR (or even an AC) station would have played Wayne Newton in 1992...I've never even heard it. |
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Yes, my use of the word "smash" in the question was absolutely meant to be sarcastic. ;-) However, just to be clear, my point was, whether it was a "genuine" hit or not, IMO excluding "The Letter" from the db is essentially re-writing history - or at the very least, would be inconsistent w/ the methodology that is apparently used to qualify songs for inclusion in the db. Just how big of a "hit" the song was is certainly debatable, but the fact that practically everyone would say it wasn't a #1 doesn't mean it should simply be erased. Did Pat still list the song in his 1994 book, Cash Box Pop Singles Charts, 1950-1993??? Yes (pg. 247). Did Joel Whitburn still list the song in his new Cash Box Pop Hits, 1952-1996 book??? Yes (pg. 278, complete w/ a footnote). So whether you love/hate "The Letter", heard it/never heard it, think it was a #1 hit/only a #202 hit, it would certainly seem that it still ranked high enough in CB to qualify for the db - especially if you include such songs as "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong". (And I've always said, the more entries/info in the db, the better.) Whether or not you choose to take that info and invest in adding "The Letter" to your own personal music library is certainly your call, but I know that we do have quite a few "completists" around here... :-)
On a side note - and using the same reasoning - I didn't agree w/ Paul Haney & RR's decision to exclude another 1992 "hit", "Mother Tone" by Truce, from the new Cash Box Pop Hits, 1952-1996 book, as was ultimately done. (Pat DID include it in his, BTW.) As Paul inquired here on Pat's board a little over a year ago back when the book was still in production (see his "Mystery song" thread), the single charted for two weeks in August of '92, peaking at #90. Paul said that RR suspected the song was a "plant", as they could find no proof if its existence. Fair enough, and I certainly have no evidence myself that that conclusion is wrong - but since it WAS actually listed in the magazine, include the song in the book, too! And if you need to add a footnote w/ it - as was done w/ "The Letter" - so be it. (Although you never got a response from Paul, I see that even you asked about it over in that thread, Hykker.) Who knows, maybe the additional exposure in Whitburn's new CB chart book - w/ a footnote included - could've led to a more concrete answer had they listed it??? That was how RR handled the similar situation w/ D.A.'s "Ready 'n' Steady" in their Bubbling Under the Billboard Hot 100, 1959-2004 book, anyway (pg. 71)...
Quote:
| ...and singles sales had already gone off the cliff by then so I doubt ["The Letter"] was a sales success either. |
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If you mean on vinyl, absolutely. But as I've mentioned on this board before, singles sales here in the U.S. in 1992 were still very healthy, and had rebounded nicely since the full-blown rollout of the cassette single in early '87. The problem was, by '92, the labels had developed a misguided fear that these healthy new singles sales were somehow "cannibalizing" album sales. So beginning in the Summer of '89, labels actually started deleting cassette singles at the height of many songs' popularity on the charts, or not releasing huge video/airplay hits as commercial singles at all. That clearly stunted the singles market, and was the beginning of the downward spiral for physical singles sales...
As for "The Letter", there was no commercial single (on cassette or CD, anyway). Whitburn's new CB chart book lists the song as a "Curb album cut", and while Pat's old CB chart book shows it as being on "Curb 1008", that matches the label & no. of the promo CD single, which cmmmbase said he owns in a post he made on 21 April 2014 over in the "Cash Box chart question" thread:
cmmmbase wrote:
| The Wayne Newton song "The (Elvis) Letter" (the way it is titled on the cd) is on the promotional cd single Curb 1008. |
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For those who didn't/don't follow the CB charts, you have to understand that they started allowing airplay-only hits onto their pop chart by early 1990, nearly nine years before BB did (late '98)! "The Letter" was just such an example - so it's safe to say that CB considered it a huge "airplay" hit, whether there was any evidence to support that or not...
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80smusicfreak
MusicFan
Joined: 14 October 2004
Location: United States
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 527
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| Posted: 19 February 2015 at 6:36pm | IP Logged
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Yah Shure wrote:
80smusicfreak wrote:
| So why is Wayne Newton's 1992 smash, "The Letter", not in the db??? |
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It ended up in the Dead Letter Office. Turns out the "33 1/3 Years Of Payola!" commemorative stamp on the envelope was bogus.
;) |
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lol! Always enjoy your humor around here, Yah Shure! :-)
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Top 40 Music on Compact Disc : Chat Board
Topic: The Comparison Book 1954-82
