Listening to the Billboard Top 100 Charts (1946 - Present)

RawkGWJ wrote:

Jrralls,

Did it not make it to top 100 due to how they were counting at the time?

In my recollection, that was one of those songs that was absolutely ubiquitous. Besides being played relentlessly on every rock radio station and MTV, I remember hearing it in stores and shopping centers.

The way they count over time changes, but usually to include new methods that people use to listen to music (adding CD sales in the 80's, digital downloads in the 00's etc).

But I think your recollection is a prime example of how our memory of what is popular is often flawed at best.

Pearl Jam is one of those bands that is disproportionately famous in comparison to its year end top 100 hits. They only have three, 1996's "I Got It" and "Long Road" as well as 1999's "Last Kiss."

Coming in at #2 for 1997 we have.... a song I HAVE ZERO MEMORY OF!!! That's incredibly rare for a top 10 song in the 80's or 90's let alone for a song in number 2.

1997 gave us the first appearance on the year end list of The Spice Girls (#10) and The Backstreet Boys (#11). Some of the first bands who I can easily recall memories of them bursting upon the music world. What bands do you first remember bursting onto the popular zeitgeist?

New Kids on the Block is the earliest one I can think of like that, where like within a week they were everywhere. And Kris Kross.

jrralls wrote:

Coming in at #2 for 1997 we have.... a song I HAVE ZERO MEMORY OF!!! That's incredibly rare for a top 10 song in the 80's or 90's let alone for a song in number 2.

I was all about Jewel's first album back then. I saw the premiere of Who Will Save Your Soul (I think it was the last video played one night on MTV's 120 Minutes) and the next day asked my local record shop to order the album but they couldn't find it in their system. I eventually got it and loved the album, but today when I hear it I can only think "Karen! Karen! Karen!"

Tscott wrote:

I saw the premiere of Who Will Save Your Soul (I think it was the last video played one night on MTV's 120 Minutes)

I think you're right.

jrralls wrote:

What bands do you first remember bursting onto the popular zeitgeist?

When I was 10y.o. I heard Whip It by Devo and totally loved it. (1979? 1980?) Then it got so much radio play that I started to hate it. MTV too.

Years and years later, I consider Devo to be one of my most favorite bands.

edit:

A few years later, I heard Brass Monkey by the Beastie Boys. (1985?) I mostly heard the 808 from the song blasting out from boom cars as my friends and I were skateboarding.

Similar reaction to Whip It. Loved it. Then hated it because I literally could not unhear it. Years later, Beastie Boys are one of my all time favorite bands.

Hanson is a pretty interesting band. They were all pretty serious children musicians and then had a huge hit at a very young age and then more or less decided they wanted to try and really grow as artists ... and were promptly punished by the market for their attempt! BUT! They then kept touring and touring and are still touring to this day. I can recall seeing them playing at some pretty small Portland bar in the 2000's and being shocked at what a small venue they were at but they seem to be happy with it so good on them.

"For the life of me, I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise, and we'd never compromise"
Another song that is very different listening to it at 40 then listening to it at 18. What are the odds?

I think I watched Notorious (the 2009 film about Biggie Smalls) before I had ever truly listened to a B.I.G. song.

Journey had five songs in the year end top 100 from 1981 to 1983, (Who's Crying Now, Open Arms, Don't Stop Believin', Separate Ways, and Faithfully), and then.... not a single song of theirs made the list until this one 1997. It's... not that great honestly and I'm not sure what made it stick out. Pheme, she is a fickle Goddess.

It was the lead single from the first Journey album in 10 years was probably enough to get it into the top 100.

The band Hanson is named after their last name, Hanson. Beck’s last name is also Hanson. Mike D. of the Beastie Boys married Beck’s sister, who directed the video for Mmm Bop. Nepotism. You gotta love it.

There is an electronic artist named Tobacco who’s first album was produced by Beck. It’s rumored that he’s Beck's nephew. It’s also been rumored that Tobacco is really Beck, but I think that’s been confirmed to be untrue.

Song I've heard a hundred times but never listened to the lyrics of until this experiment #348!

"If it makes you happy
It can't be that bad
If it makes you happy
Then why the hell are you so sad?"

Damn. That's kind of powerful, honestly. I'm not sure anyone hasn't done something (ranging on the far extreme of heroin on one end to the low extreme of too much video games on the other end) that makes them "happy" in the moment but makes them sad later on, and yet... I'm not sure any other year end top 100 hit tackled that damn-near universal part of the human condition until this song.

I wonder if there are any other near-universal aspects of the human experience that have yet to have had a song written about them.

The high of getting a new job maybe? That's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head.

Can you think of any?

Casey absolutely loved, loved, loved this song. And wanted it played again and again and again. This is my shocked face upon discovering that;

IMAGE(https://emojipedia-us.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/thumbs/120/apple/129/expressionless-face_1f611.png)

Maybe you'll find this cover version slightly more palpable to your taste.

Or maybe not.

jrralls wrote:

I wonder if there are any other near-universal aspects of the human experience that have yet to have had a song written about them.

The high of getting a new job maybe? That's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head.

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It's off to work we go!

Tscott wrote:
jrralls wrote:

I wonder if there are any other near-universal aspects of the human experience that have yet to have had a song written about them.

The high of getting a new job maybe? That's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head.

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It's off to work we go!

I like the way you walk
I like the way you talk

This was my wedding song! And yet I had _no idea_ it was # 4 in 1998. I wasn't even sure it made the year end top 100 until it appeared on my playlist. Man, if I'm this bad at knowing how popular a song was when I was 20, how bad will I be at knowing how popular a song was when I was 35 or whatever?

#missedsongs

Coming it at #13 in 1998, but wow do I think it has a much much higher cultural impact than that (and on the personal level I've got two pretty vivid memories related to this song). It's ranked below "No, No, No" by Destiny's Child but eyeballing it looks like that song that has around 15 million combined youtube views while the combined views of "My Heart Will Go On" easily top 400 million.

I miss happy fun popular rap songs. Who do I talk to about bringing those back?

I know, right? Maybe if white cops stop shooting innocent people of color in the back we can get some more of those happy, upbeat rap anthems.

I used to be a UPS package delivery guy. I would often listen to music loudly while I did my deliveries. I had several “Friday” playlists that I’d put together. I would blast these playlists extra loudly to help me get through that last workday of the week.

One Friday I had a large delivery for a surgery center. On my way back to the truck I overheard a very grumpy octogenarian white man exclaim, “I don’t understand why people still want to get jiggy with it.”

This was the song that was playing:

I always wondered what the meaning of this was and here's the singer's exact quote, ""Well, I was dating a girl and she was going to Bryn Mawr College and it's where my dad teaches. And I was probably 17 or something like that and she was like 18. I always liked the older girls. (laughs) But we were in her dorm room, and her roommate came in and she saw us there, and she was like, 'Oh, it smells like sex and candy in here.' And I always remembered that. And that was back in the late '80s"... "I was like, hey, let's just throw in that phrase that's been sticking in my head for the last 5 years or whatever."

As shocking as this is; I'm not a club guy. Don't like them now, didn't like them then. But this song is one of the few songs that I have super vivid memories of dancing to.

"And that's life, you should learn how to treat her
I guarantee Peter, knows how to eat her"

Hmm... I wasn't keeping track and while there is probably an explicit female-on-male oral sex reference in the year end top 100 list before this, this may be the first explicit male-on-female oral sex reference in that sample group.

There are multiple tales of how the band chose the name, "Barenaked Ladies" but I prefer the (lie) that they choose it in an attempt to get people to show up for the shows under the mistaken notion that there would nude females at their gigs.

Know all these songs lately and most of the lyrics. Good times.

I personally remember a decent amount of 1980's nostalgia in the late 1990's (most exemplified by The Wedding Singer) and there is absolutely nothing comparable in the pop scene today. What 2004 song would be re-made today in 2018?

At #83 for 1998 we have "The Mummers' Dance" by Loreena McKennitt, which I thought would be a lot higher. But, unlike most times, I think I have a reason for my popularity mis-judgment - this is such a _different_ song from other top 100 songs that it stands out more when you hear it, as opposed to "Love is Nice" song #2432

Yeah, that's true. The first question that comes to mind is "how much from 2004 sounds as dated in 2018 as the soundtrack to The Wedding Singer?" It's not the number of years, it's what happened in between. There was no major divide in music--or our popular conception of it looking back, which is actually the important thing anyway--that can compare with Nirvana vs. hair metal or the effect of MTV or the rise of hippy 'folk' music.

How can you remake the music of 2004 nostalgically when 2004 was the year proto-hipsters started not-totally-ironically listening to, like, Ashlee Simpson's album?