Re: Billboard charts

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

Mike wrote--
>
>Today, "singles" are either in the form of cassettes, often called "cass-
>singles" or CD singles.  Most cassette singles are marketed toward kids and
>young adults, and tend to feature a lot of rap, pop, and country titles.
[snip]

Ah but even in the good old days, I can recall stations where I worked
getting special versions or mixes of songs that you couldn't buy in stores,
or certain album cuts (remember "Stairway to Heaven") that were never
singles were played so much that everybody thought they must be singles.
Billboard's Top-40 books (the ones by Joel Whitburn) do not count Stairway
to Heaven as the #1 song it probably was...  

And I can recall how record companies were constantly feuding with us radio
folks when we would play a song WE felt was the best track rather than the
song the company had picked as the single and wanted us to put in heavy
rotation... But it is true that teens still do most of the single buying,
and record companies no longer put all their eggs into the "get a hit
single" basket.    

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