Top 40 Hits keep on coming

[drscott]

The gym has switched from a rotation of tapes (really headbanging metal, then rap/R&B, then disco...) to a more steady diet of oldies from the 70s and 80s. Not too many metalheads or urban hiphoppers in Mountain View, but the oldies tapes are strange -- I haven't heard so much ELO in years. The Eagles -- I'd forgotten some of their lachrymose songs.

Anyway, I've dug up another bit of ephemera from the archives for you: a Top 40 radio survey from 1968. See, kiddies, long before iTunes and the iPod, there was this thing called radio. Far out in the hinterlands, radio stations were the only way you might hear new music, and their playlists generated sales of individual songs on 45-rpm records, known as "singles." Each week the record stores were surveyed for their sales numbers, which begat playlists confined to just the highest-selling songs -- thus "Top 40 radio." This led to payola, where the record company would pay DJs under the table to get their new music on the air long enough to get some sales.

[addendum: there's a web site on the historical role of station WHB in inventing the Top 40 format. They also pioneered call-in talk shows and other staples of AM radio. The station has changed to all sports now.]

Comments

[backawayslowly.livejournal.com]

I don't get that part about "radio." I think you're making it up. It's utter CRAZY TALK!

[allanh.livejournal.com]

What the gym chooses to play on the workout floor ... is why Apple invented the iPod. I find it much easier to work out when I can listen to my music instead of their music. I've loaded up my iPod Shuffle with only fast-paced rhythmic stuff. ELO would probably work, since a lot of my workout music is stuff from the 80's and 90's. Peter Gabriel, Thomas Dolby, a cut or two from the stage version of "The Lion King" which features those beautiful African choral rhythms, etcetera. I also have a set of cuts from Michael Callen's final record, "Legacy", including his absolutely wonderful "Glitter And Be Gay" ... which he sings in falsetto, but perfectly. And all those people in the gym wonder why I'm always so smiley when I work out ...

Randy, of course, listens to Classical while he works out. To me, it would be boring as hell ... but it seems to inspire him. [shrug]

[abearius.livejournal.com]

Had it not been for radio, I would not know all the lyrics to MacArthur Park (http://www.lyriczz.com/lyriczz.php?songid=8287) and Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida (http://www.ablyrics.com/en/lyrics_u_1199_Hooverphonic_Inna-gadda-da-vida.html). So I guess I'm lucky. Blessed, even.

Did you know that Kasey Kasem is Lebanese? His name was Kasim in Arabic!