Re: Thursday Night Countdown Chart)

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Mark Watson wrote:
<snip>
>   I know that WCBS-FM in New York also does a similar weekly countdown,I
>believe on Saturday afternoon leading in to Cousin Brucie's Request Party.I
>wonder if they rewrite music history with their countdowns? I did hear one
>a few years back while driving through the NYC Metro area.It was for
>whatever week it was in 1968."Delilah" by Tom Jones and "Summertime Blues"
>by Blue Cheer were both in this countdown.Both never heard on Oldies
>103.3.Probably never will,either.

        A few months ago, I heard the WCBS-FM weekly countdown show one day
and it sounded like it really used the list from the year it was doing,
which was around 1957-58-59. The reason I think it was some real list or
another from then is that the songs were mostly so bad and so obscure.
Actually, it was so bad it was tough to leave it on. As one bad song after
another came on, it was sort of like watching a car crash -- I was
appalled, but I couldn't look away. It's a memory I may never get over ):.
         I recall that they played 4, 5, 6 in a row that I had never heard
of, and, with me, that takes some doing. One of those was by some group I
had vaguely heard of doing another song that I couldn't quite recall
specifically, but most of it I didn't even know the group or singer.
        The overall impression I got was that while there was a Chuck Berry
or some real rock 'n' roll artist like him mixed in there somewhere, the
big majority of the songs was stuff you would never hear now on an oldies
station that plays the '50s, would never hear on WCBS-FM at any other time.
A few were really poor examples of doo-wop, but mostly it was MOR-type
songs (as we used to say) that were *like* what you would hear now on a
MYOL type station, except you wouldn't hear these particular songs because
they're so bad and so obscure. It was the anniversary of a bad week for pop
music. Remember, this was someone's list of the top hits.

        On the WODS list: Heck, instead of starting with the Billboard
list, they should use the old WRKO weekly list, and for the earlier years
the WMEX and/or WBZ list, as their starting point. Back then, there were
still regional hits and definitely regional tendencies in terms of some
songs being more or less popular in particular regions than the national
ranking. For example, WODS has "Can't Find the Time" by Orpheus in its
rotation (and gosh bless 'em for it, too!), but that'd probably be skipped
if the weekly countdown were based just on the national chart.