Country on the Hot 100 (1998 and Prior)
Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
Forum Name: Chat Board
Forum Description: Chat away but please observe the chat board rules
URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9168
Printed Date: 17 May 2025 at 7:06am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.07 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Country on the Hot 100 (1998 and Prior)
Posted By: Scanner
Subject: Country on the Hot 100 (1998 and Prior)
Date Posted: 23 September 2019 at 6:12pm
|
Once Billboard converted its Hot 100 methodology from
tracking records to songs, it became more common for country songs to chart and even reach the Hot 100's Top 40 with airplay only at country radio. For example, just look at how many times Tim McGraw has reached the Top 40 of the Hot 100 since 1999 with only one of his country hits, "Live Like You Were Dying," getting any Pop airplay. Prior to 1998, there were many country songs that reached or bubbled under the Hot 100. How many of these songs truly crossed over or did they chart just based on their sales? Usually, airplay at AC was a good indicator a song was crossing over. But, some of the biggest country hits of the 1970's such as "Satin Sheets" (No. 26) and "Heaven's Just A Sin Away" (No. 47) never charted AC. |
Replies:
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 24 September 2019 at 4:08am
|
For this question, I like to consult the Radio & Records
Top Pop Hits book. During the 1970s, crossover was fairly common. Artists like Glen Campbell, John Denver, Kenny Rogers and Ronnie Milsap did it a lot. But a lot of their music could also be considered AC. The more "traditional" acts like Merle Haggard and Loretta Lynn never really did it. After the Urban Cowboy craze in the early 1980s, true Country crossovers were very few and far between. There's only a few that I can think of post 1984. "I'll Still Be Loving You" by Restless Heart managed to get to #34 on R&R in 1987. "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus got to #27 in 1992. Shania Twain had a few crossover hits in 1998-99. "I Hope You Dance" by Lee Ann Womack got to #24 in 2001. "You'll Think Of Me" by Keith Urban got to #32 in 2005. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 24 September 2019 at 8:48am
|
I asked a similar question in another thread (1999 and later), in case
anyone is interested in reading the replies there: http://www.top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9117 ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: Scanner
Date Posted: 24 September 2019 at 10:27am
|
It's ironic that you replied, Paul - it's one of the
Hot 100 books that inspired my question! The songs you cited were obvious crossovers that charted AC and, since the 90's, at Pop/Top 40 radio as well. What about country songs that made or bubbled under the Hot 100 without any clear crossover activity? For example, Ronnie Milsap had several crossover hits, but also charted with songs like "Please Don't Tell Me How The Story Ends" and "Cowboys And Clowns" on the Hot 100 or Bubbling Under, but nowhere else other than country. Same with Dolly Parton whose "Light Of A Clear Blue Morning" hit the Hot 100, but no other chart except Country. Were songs like these crossing over or just selling well enough to register on the Hot 100/Bubbling Under charts? |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 24 September 2019 at 11:15am
|
I guess I misunderstood your question.
Yeah, I'd say most of those were strictly sales-driven. Although there were some reporting Top 40 stations that were more apt to give a big Country hit a shot at some airplay. |
Posted By: AutumnAarilyn
Date Posted: 24 September 2019 at 4:09pm
|
Back in the early 80's, I was quite young but do
remember WALL, our local Top 40/AC leaning station played tons of country crossover like Kenny Rogers. When they recently revived the station, they left that chapter out along with some big hits that should be left behind by artists like Rick Dees, Debbie Boone, and Shaun Cassidy. This market is about 70 miles west of New York City. |
Posted By: PopArchivist
Date Posted: 24 September 2019 at 9:50pm
Autumn, Did you grow up in NYC? I always heard Kenny alongside a lot of popular pop during the 80's. |
AutumnAarilyn wrote:Posted By: Paul C
Date Posted: 27 September 2019 at 1:09pm
|
Another factor to keep in mind is that during the time that the Hot 100
was based on airplay and sales data supplied to Billboard by radio stations and retailers (that is, prior to late 1991, when Billboard started to use BDS and Soundscan data), for a record to appear on the Hot 100, at least ten stations on the Hot 100 ‘reporting panel’, all of whom at the time were ‘Top 40/CHR’ stations, had to report that they were playing the record. That is why a country or R&B record could sell hundreds of thousands of copies and not chart on the Hot 100. For the retail component of the data used to tabulate the Hot 100, sales data from retailers that specialized in country, R&B, or any other genre was not used. Prior to late 1991, country songs that appeared on the Hot 100 were legitimate crossover hits. All that changed in late 1991, when the minimum ‘pop’ airplay requirement was dropped and country records started to appear on the Hot 100 solely from sales. Airplay data from country stations was not incorporated into the Hot 100 until late 1998, when even more country songs started appearing on the Hot 100. |
Posted By: AutumnAarilyn
Date Posted: 27 September 2019 at 7:02pm
|
Hey PopArchivist:
I grew up in the outer ring suburbs of NYC but was fully aware of what got played chiefly on Black radio in NYC. Listening to the radio was a daily ritual in the 80s and early 90s. Billboard accurately represented what was being played as back then they had a feel for what songs crossed over to what chart. |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 28 September 2019 at 5:56am
|
To Paul C:
Very interesting paragraph here: "Another factor to keep in mind is that during the time that the Hot 100 was based on airplay and sales data supplied to Billboard by radio stations and retailers (that is, prior to late 1991, when Billboard started to use BDS and Soundscan data), for a record to appear on the Hot 100, at least ten stations on the Hot 100 ‘reporting panel’, all of whom at the time were ‘Top 40/CHR’ stations, had to report that they were playing the record. That is why a country or R&B record could sell hundreds of thousands of copies and not chart on the Hot 100." I never knew that!! I've been a subscriber to Billboard since about 1976 and I never recall reading that - But looking back it seems like it could have very well been true! Do you, or anyone else out there for that matter have any "documentation" of that minimum ten stations to hit the Hot 100, or was it kept underground? That really explains why some big sellers never charted on the Hot 100 at all - which I never could figure out as I was growing up. Comments are welcome from everybody... Thanks! Andy |
Posted By: KentT
Date Posted: 28 September 2019 at 6:15am
|
Also consider this situation. In the USA Southeast, quite
a few Top 40 stations did program a Country record or two from pop friendly artists. To cater to local tastes. And also some Country stations would program Country friendly pop hits likewise. ------------- I turn up the good and turn down the bad! |
Posted By: jebsib
Date Posted: 28 September 2019 at 7:02am
|
Also, Country was the first genre to really cut back on physical mass merchant
retail singles, an essential Hot 100 component. No availability, no chart entry. |
Posted By: torcan
Date Posted: 28 September 2019 at 9:12am
What Paul said is correct. Also, in order to chart, a record had to have a minimum no. of "points". Billboard converted all the sales and airplay data into points, and if a record didn't meet the minimum criteria, it couldn't chart even if it had the 10 stations. This explains why, through much of the '80s, records never came in at the very bottom of the chart. They set the minimum points criteria much higher than records sitting at 100, 99, etc. would typically have. Much of this was documented (I think in a late '80s issue, when Michael Ellis ran the charts). They had an insert explaining exactly how it was compiled. Too bad they couldn't have had another when they switched in Nov 1991, because things were much different after that date. |
Posted By: Paul C
Date Posted: 28 September 2019 at 10:48am
It is indeed this insert that is the source of the info I posted. It was a 12-page insert titled, "How We Track The Hits", and it outlined in considerable detail the methodologies used in compiling the various charts. I still have the insert but not the issue in which it came. Since the insert is not dated, I don't know the date of the issue of Billboard in which it was included. One of the charts included was the Modern Rock chart, which first appeared in the September 10, 1988, issue. When the insert was produced, the country chart was already an airplay-only chart but was not yet using BDS data, which it began doing on January 20, 1990. So this insert dates from sometime between September 10, 1988, and January 20, 1990. The insert states that in order for a record to chart on the Hot 100, at least ten of the 240 'reporting stations' had to report playing it, and it had to have at least 125 'airplay points'. The R&B chart (then still called the 'black' chart) had a similar rule. In order to chart, of the 102 reporting stations, at least ten had to report playing it and there was likewise a minimum 'airplay points' requirement. Because the country chart was already an airplay-only chart, it had no such rule. |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 28 September 2019 at 12:16pm
|
Thanks for all the info!
If anyone out there knows which issue it appeared in please let me know. I have a lot of old Billboard stored, but they are not in very good order, so an issue date would save me quite a bit of rummaging... Edit to add: I just did a Google search - americanradiohistory seems to have it archived! The second page has an intro by Director Of Research Marty Feely. Is this what everyone is referring to? Thank you. Andy |
Posted By: Paul C
Date Posted: 28 September 2019 at 12:29pm
|
Yes, that’s it! |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 28 September 2019 at 1:14pm
|
Very interesting info, gentlemen!
Paul (Haney), had Joel ever considered adding in a [SALES] indicator in his pop books, similar to the [AIR] symbol? These would obviously be songs that made the Hot 100 sales chart but did not make the overall Hot 100 chart. Is there such a resource (even if only fan made) that lists those hits? ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 29 September 2019 at 4:03am
Aaron, we did show "sales only" hits for a few editions of the Top Pop Singles book (the 1955-2002 edition was the last to show them and the 2003 Music Yearbook also had them). We did list all the #1 Sales-only hits in the 1955-2012 edition. However, Joel decided to take them out completely once the sales chart started consisting of obscure rap titles, some of which were literally being sold out of the trunks of the artists cars! Billboard finally quit compiling that chart a few years ago. |
Posted By: jebsib
Date Posted: 29 September 2019 at 10:44am
| I believe that insert was in the April 9, 1988 issue. |
Posted By: AndrewChouffi
Date Posted: 29 September 2019 at 3:17pm
|
Thanks for the info Jebsib and Paul C!
Andy |
Posted By: Scanner
Date Posted: 29 September 2019 at 3:40pm
|
Wow, I was not expecting so many replies...thank you
all! Unfortunately, the 4/9/88 issue saved on americanradiohistory.com does not have the insert and Google Books does not even have that issue. This does explain why country essentially disappeared from the Hot 100 in the late '80's until the Soundscan era began. (Ironically, so many country songs charted thereafter since a record label was more likely to release a country cassingle than a pop one hoping to drive album sales instead.) Here's another example from my original question - Johnny Lee's "Bet Your Heart On Me." It spent a week atop the Country chart and made # 54 on the Hot 100. Was it a pop crossover just as "Lookin' For Love" was (# 3 Pop, # 10 AC)? Or did it just sell so well that it was able to chart that high on the Hot 100? "Bet" never reached the AC chart. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 30 September 2019 at 4:04am
|
I can confirm that indeed it first appeared in the
Billboard issue dated April 9, 1988. Here is the link for the insert: https://americanradiohistory.com/ ArchiveBillboard/Billboard-How-we-track-the-hits.pdf As for "Bet Your Heart On Me" I would guess that it got at least some Top 40 airplay in 1981, but not enough to make much of a dent on the Hot 100. As a #1 Country hit, I'm sure most of its points came from sales. |
Posted By: Scanner
Date Posted: 30 September 2019 at 7:29pm
|
Thanks for the link, Paul. This explains why the
country superstars of the late '80's such as Randy Travis and the Judds never charted on the Hot 100. Although they likely had the sales, they did not have the crossover airplay. It would have been interesting if Billboard had published something like this in the '70's as well. |
Posted By: RoknRobnLoxley
Date Posted: 01 October 2019 at 4:48am
|
Hmmm... this link doesn't work for me for some strange reason, "page not found." But I probably have this insert in my stash upstairs in a box.
I noticed that a lot of the UK chart magazines on AmericanRadioHistory.com have suddenly vanished from the overhead menu boxes, but are still in the home page index. Scared me for a sec! Then read over on the 'site features-latest additions' that David has been reorganizing the UK magazines and search capabilities. Maybe he's moving around Billboard archive special pdf's as well. It sure would be fab if we could get all these special Billboard rules across the decades listed and documented somewhere. I agree that updates to methodology are needed as technology advances, yada yada, but there sure were/are a lot of manipulative chart rules that Billboard put on over the years to favor some records over others. New records over old records. The UK likewise now has all these special chart rules put in to deal with streaming. It sure is crazy these days as to what a 'single' is, but I digress... Edit: Ha, I discovered the insert off to the side, Paul's link needed a www. for me to work: https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/Billb oard-How-we-track-the-hits.pdf Dagnabbit, the link isn't being saved correctly, you'll need to close the space between the b and the o in the second Billboard. |