Mission Accomplished (Part 3)

Hello again everyone. Seriously, the weather across central Florida this week has really affected my vibe; I have had little motivation to get much of anything, let alone this blog done. Suffice to say the "Sunshine State" isn't living up to her nickname, and all this rain needs to leave.

Anyway, this is the third part of this series of posts (the first two an be found here and here) regarding my system that I have used to chart songs over the years. Now at the end of yesterday's entry, I said that I had found a website that allowed me (and anyone else who's interested) to access old Radio and Records magazines from yesteryear. Well, up to a point. You see in 2006, R/R was bought by VNU media and integrated with Billboard Magazine's Radio Monitor to create a new chart based off Neilsen Soundscan data. Billboard would buy Radio and Records outright three years later,ad effectively ended the publication.

But the methodology used by Radio and Records up until 2006, Mediabase 24/7, would continue, and does so to this very day. I think I mentioned how they went about compiling this data in an earlier entry to this blog, I think it was called "Radio Days." Anyway, the points system I go by is based off those findings, with a few exceptions.

First let me explain how my system works. For every song that reaches the Top 40, a preset point value is assigned. For the first 25 positions (40-16), it works like a reverse points system (40 gets 1, 39 gets 2, and so forth). Then the system starts getting weighted heavily towards the top, like this:

15. 28 pts
14. 30 pts
13. 32 pts
12. 34 pts
11. 37 pts
10. 40 pts
 9.  45 pts
 8.  50 pts
 7.  55 pts
 6.  60 pts
 5.  70 pts
 4.  80 pts
 3.  90 pts
 2. 100 pts
 1. 125 pts

There are also bonus points awarded for chart longevity, and where they are on the chart. I'll explain it over the weekend. Basically, the longer the song is on the chart, the bigger the bonus. Also, the year is the actual calendar year, not from November to November monitored by publications (which would explain "Walk Like An Egyptian" grabbing #1 song of 1987 even though it peaked in December of 1986).

In this weekend's post, I'll go into detail what I have found out from these charts, as well as my rankings for the top song of each year since 1980. Until then, stay dry...

CT

Mission Accomplished (Part 2)

Hello again everyone. As you may have read in my post yesterday, I decided to embark a quite ambitious project where I decided to create a points system for the top 40  pop charts. Today, I'll explain how I came up with this system. Now yesterday I mentioned that I thought that "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon, despite not finishing a week at number one on a weekly survey, finished as the top song for the year 2000. To me, that made little sense. I thought to myself, "how can this be possible?" It was like winning the (then-called) Winston Cup in NASCAR without winning a race. So I thought, "why not combine the two?"

So, I decided to embark on creating a points system for chart performance. No, it was nothing official, it was something coming from a chart geek that I wanted to keep to myself at the time. At first, I it was somewhat primitive, positions 31-40 would get 1 point, 2 points for 21-30, 5 points for 11-20, 10 for 10, 20 for 9, 30 for 8, and increasing by 10 points up to 100 for #1. I also assigned bonus points for chart longevity, and at the time a bonus for high debut and biggest mover. No, this wouldn't be permanent as time would go on, and I had to miss a few countdown shows on the radio because of work commitments. At times I would take my notebooks of said charts and brought them to work; I still have those notebooks by the way.

Eventually over time, I would lose interest in these charts, primarily because "American Top 40" had a new host, and their methodology for tabulating their charts changed dramatically; going away from R/R / Mediabase 24/7 to USA Today for some whatever reason. But the message board I mentioned on yesterday's entry existed, so I could still keep tabs.

Then a few years ago, I found a breakthrough, when old issues of "Radio and Records" was found on a radio archive site, this one to be exact, and from there I could finally go to town on completing this list.

Tomorrow, I'll explain what points system I eventually settled with, as well as a few differences in R/R charts and the ones I used to compile said list. Until tomorrow...

CT

Mission Accomplished (part 1)

Greetings once again. Ever set out on a project that you had an idea of executing in your spare time, tweak some parameters of said project as necessary, and then accomplish said project? Well, that's what I have done over the course of at least the past decade. I may or may not have mentioned it on this blog before, but if I have, indulge me.

For as long as I can remember, which stretches back some 40+ years, I have had a fascination with the Top 40 charts and countdown shows; from "American Top 40" to "Countdown America" and later in my youth, the "Rick Dees Weekly Top 40."  And as such, I would listen to these countdown shows whenever I had the opportunity; up until 2004 when Ryan Seacrest took over for Casey Kasem.

In the year 2000, I came across a website that's still in use today, which keeps tabs on every song that has ever charted on the old Radio and Records magazine, now MediaBase 24/7. What I wanted to at the time was attempt to recreate every R/R top 40 chart, but doing so using just that website would be impossible as they only gave the week a song debut and it's peak position at the time. Fortunately for me, I came across a web board would allow me to fill I those holes. By the end of that year, I had a new motivation; the top song of that year, "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon, didn't reach number 1 on a weekly survey. I thought to myself, "that doesn't make much sense." And so, I decided to come up with a points system based off those charts.

Tomorrow, I'll go into detail as to how I came up with my points system, and what I eventually learned from it. Stay tuned.

CT

My Endgame

Hello, I thought I would create this post as a roadmap of sorts to future dreams/aspirations. So I seem like I'm going somewhat over my head, indulge me.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you probably know by now that I am more than a little fed up with living in Florida, especially greater Tampa. Sure, the weather's nice in winter and the hockey team is good, but that's about it. #FloridaMan has made me lose almost what pride I had in this state. Combine the facts that our state is run by a Trump clone, a toxic at best radio scene (that I have refused to listened to since 2016), and general apathy about this region, and you can pretty much conclude that I want out.

Right now, I'm on disability because of my stroke two years ago, and other than somewhat regular visits to the VA clinic, I practically have zero life. I have been out on my own twice since my stroke; once to celebrate my birthday at Hooters, and the other occasion was to see "Avengers Endgame." I plan on taking a bus to St. Louis soon (I don't know when exactly), and I do have a few plans on carrying out while I'm there.

There is someone who I am talking to who I would love to see, but also I want to check out the area to see if I would like it. You see, the place where I was employed at, the Postal service, has their main facility right downtown; right across the street from Enterprise Center on one side, and Union station on the other. I want to investigate whether I can get back to working THERE (instead of Tampa; I have no car currently, and that place redefined toxic). If so, I could look at apartments in the area (looking around downtown or across the river in Illinois) and see if it could be possible to relocate there.

Of course, this is very preliminary and is speculative, nothing is being planned; yet. Just speaking about leaving Florida to existance...

CT

Food For Thought...

I was listening to my early 80s playlist on Spotify the other day, and "Human Touch" by Rick Springfield was starting to play. The opening lyrics go lie this.

    Everybody's talking to computers,
    They're all dancing to a drum machine...

The song came out in summer of 1983. I had just left Orlando Christian School and was going to attend a different elementary school for next year (I wasn't aware I was going to move to NC yet). Social media was eons away; we communicated through a land line telephone or via mail. We actually danced to live bands back then.

Look at us in 2019. Our primary form of communication is via computer (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Younger people dance to EDM (electronic/digital music), so essentially a drum machine. Could it be possible that Rick Springfield somehow could sense the future? Food for thought...

CT

Video for someone...

Looking at my pageviews, and I've noticed that over the frame of the past year or so, I've had hits from Germany. Now while I don't know exactly where in Germany, I know it's somewhere in the country.

That said, I thought I would post a video near and dear to someone in particular over there. If that person is seeing this, contact me at twitter.com/bonyscribe.

CT

Radio Daze

I was having a discussion on Twitter the other day with Diane, who lives in Central Florida, about how one particular radio station in Orlando used to play awesome music on the weekends, then suddenly stopped when their parent company, Clear Channel, thought it would be a better idea by axing their locally-produced programming with a cookie cutter default classic rock station from their iHeart Radio service sometime around 2010. Those in greater Orlando who listened to their "real music weekends" for the better part of about a decade or so I imagine were none too pleased with the decision; I know I wasn't.

Long story short, I stopped listening to that station (living in Tampa being a factor), and truth be told, I really haven't listened to radio in about three years. A big reason is because of Spotify and Pandora. Another reason is that radio in the Tampa market absolutely sucks. We have two pop stations, both of which suck to me. Both stations to my knowledge alter the pitch and speed of the music they play, I guess to make it sound fresher. No Bueno if you ask me. Another reason is the other genres of music on the radio aren't quite up my alley (especially country) and talk/sports radio is pretty much hot garbage, especially where I'm located. Oh, and don't get me started on that heaping pile of crap (in my opinion) known as BTLS.

Radio seeming to be substandard is something I've had to deal with for sometime now. Beginning in the 90's all the way up until present-day. Late 1993 was especially horrible for me from a listening standpoint; I had just transferred from Orlando to Goose Creek, SC (just outside Charleston) for Naval Nuclear Prototype School, and the station that was closest to XL 106.7 (which I listened to for about a couple of years, including high school) had just tweaked their format to a more AC-leaning. There were three Urban stations and three country stations there. And no dance songs at all. Plus I don't think any station there played either Casey Kasem, Shadoe Stevens, or Rick Dees' countdown shows (remember when those were a thing?). No thank you.

When I transferred to Norfolk six months later, it was more balanced at first. Z104 up there was akin to G105 in Raleigh or the aforementioned XL. You could practically listen to most of the top 40, as well as other hits, without changing the station. Then I was deployed for six months overseas; when I returned, the radio scene kinda shifted slightly. Of course, I had discovered sports talk radio at this point, so I didn't think it was a big deal. In 1996, it all changed. Z104 had gone from pop to rhythmic CHR. Plus WWDE (2WD) had become a pop lite station. Another station was pop-leaning rock. To put it bluntly, it was like segregation had come to music radio; if you wanted one particular song, it was on station A. If you wanted a different song, you had to switch to station B, and so forth. Oh, and one vivid memory was this hideous commercial, which is even lamer because the audio cuts out at the worst possible time:

Yes, they took off from "Friends." Pathetic.

Anyway, to get a sense of Norfolk radio at the time, here was a list of songs played on WNVZ, Z104  at this time 23 years ago this week:


 BRANDY /Sittig' Up In My...
MARY J. BLIGE/Not Gon' Cry
PLANET SOUL/Set U Free
TONY RICH PROJECT/Nobody Knows
3T /Anything
MARIAH CAREY /One Sweet Day
TONI BRAXTON /Let It Flow
DIANA KING/Ain't Nobody
 LA BOUCHE/Be My Lover
GROOVE THEORY /Keep Tryin
MONICA/Before You Walk_.
 DEBORAH COX/Who Do U Love
L.L. COOL J/Hey Lover
MAX -A- MILLION /Sexual Healing
EVERYTHING BUT... /Missing
SEAL/Don't Cry
SIMPLY RED/Fairground
WHITNEY HOUSTON /Exhale (Shoop...)
DEVONE' /Energy
J'SON/Take A Look
 SOPHIE B. HAWKINS/Only Love...
 INTRIGUE /Dance With Me
COOLIO/Fantastic Voyage-
COOLIO/Gangsta's Paradise
SA- DEUCE/Don't Waste My Time
LINA SANTIAGO/Feels So Good_.
MONTELL JORDAN/This Is How We Do It
TLC/Diggin On You
CRYSTAL WATERS/100% Pure Love
GROOVE THEORY/Tell Me
DENINE W /COLLAGE/AII Creed Out
ALL- 4- ONE/(She's Got) Shillz
SOUL FOR REAL/ Every Little Thing.
ADINA HOWARD/Freak Like Me
BLESSID UNION OF.. /0h Virginia
 REAL MCCOY /Another Night
2PAC F/DR. DRE/Califomia Love
 HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH/Time -
MARIAH CAREY /Always Be My Baby
JOE/All The Things...

Now compare that with the official Radio & Records chart that week (It's on Page 24, WNVZ's playlist is on page 28). Note that there's no Alanis on Z104, no Natalie Merchant and pretty much minimal Hootie, but Simply Red?!! I can't say "weird flex but okay" because that's more of a WTF than a flex. So, let's just say my memories of listening to the radio weren't very memorable, especially in Norfolk, Virginia.

But thank goodness for Spotify's existence; I can make up for lost time...


CT