Time Machine co-ordinates VICXVIII55683060

And we're back after the week off, and we arrive in 1960 on August 30th.  The only noteworthy thing I hit today was "Boston 2b Pete Runnels goes 6 for 7".

Pete's sixth hit in the first game of a doubleheader with Detroit was a double that brought in the winning run in the bottom of the 15th inning in a 5-4 win.  Pete also got singles in the 13th, 11th, 9th, 3rd, and one in the 2nd on which he scored the first run of the game.  On top of that, he added 3 more hits in game two, two of them doubles, and scored again in a 10-inning win, capping a 9-for-11 day.


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So we shut down last week, which means we have a DOUBLE trip this week:  TWO Panels, TWO M10s, TWO 6Ds, and all this crammed in with 3 debuts and the Top M10 Summer Songs of the Year!  We better get busy!

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The first of two debuts on the M10 last week, it came in at #10- and moves up to 8 this week- Christian rockers Thousand Foot Krutch with a track from 2012:






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Welcome to the Browns on Time Machine!  You certainly have your work cut out for you this week...

Jim Ed:  Yes we do- two Panels!

Bonnie:  How do we want to do this?

Well, why don't we do last week's list first, and this week's in a bit?

Maxine:  So you did a list for EACH week?  So there will be TWO winners?

Potentially.  Four songs DO make both lists- so we also could have the same song win both!

M: I don't know why you would make this so confusing.  I mean, why wouldn't you just do the one week?

Aw, what's the fun in that?  Now here you go with list #1- 9 contestants from 33 stations.

JE:  Okay, so we have one vote each here for these songs:  Tonight's The Night by the Shirelles, which don't even debut for 2 weeks;  Storm Clouds by Buddy Knox, which was actually the flip side of Long Lonely Nights, which never even charted; Larry Verne's cut-up Mr. Custer, which debuts next week at #124- say, are ANY of these songs actually on the charts?

Yeah, Jim Ed, we had a bad "missed the memo week" last week....

JE:  Uh-huh.  Anyway, we also got a vote each for Pineapple Princess by Annette Funicello, which debuts at #90, and finally a hit, Bobby Rydell's Volare at #8.  Maxine?

M:  Boy, I get the bum's rush here!  The only song with more than one vote but not a finalist is the #2 song this week...

JE:  But hey, it's a mouthful!

M: Sure is- Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini by Brian Hyland.

B:  But the finalists for week one are:

Walk Don't Run by the Ventures at #3;
It's Now Or Never by Elvis at #1;
and Chubby Checker's The Twist at #5!

Great!  So while you figure out who to vote for on week #1, here is the second of last week's debuts: #8 the first week, up to #7 this week- the second time on the M10 for an act that was on the very FIRST M10 back in August of 2015!  Brand new stuff from Status Quo...






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Ready for week two?

JE:  Sure!  6 songs and 25 stations...

M:  Say, if you had four songs that overlapped, right...

Yes...

M: and there are six songs TOTAL on the second list- that means there's only two OTHER songs on this list...

Your point?

M: Why are we doing this?

Because it's never been done before!

M: Neither has flying to the Moon, but...

Actually, it has by now...

JE:  Maxine, just read the list...

M:  Fine.  The one-vote songs are Storm Clouds, which still hasn't debuted, Jimmy Charles with A Million To One at #66, and Johnny Bond with Hot Rod Lincoln at #51.

B: I don't know why you get so upset, Maxine!  The finalists for week two are... well, they are the same three songs:

The Twist was at #2;
Walk Don't Run at #3;
And Elvis at #1.  Hmmm....

"Makes things look pretty good for me..."

Yes, it does, but looks could be deceiving.  Tune in at the end and see how it turns out!

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A slam through the Stat Pack shows us our big mover week one was Paul Anka's Hello Young Lovers, 27 spots from 63-36, and the #60 in '60 was Preston Epps with a tune called Bongo Bongo Bongo.  Epps was a bongo player (Ya think?) who had a tendency to put his favorite instrument into his song titles.  On 12 singles and their b-sides, the word bongo (or some form of it) is used 20 times!  The only fairly big hit of the lot was a 1959 #14 with Bongo Rock.

Week one had two major debuts- Bobby Vee's Devil Or Angel in a tie for #100, and Sam Cooke's Chain Gang at #95- and a 51 notch climb the next week to #44 made it week 2's big mover!  The #101 song week one was Connie Francis's My Heart Has A Mind Of It's Own, which debuted the next week all the way up at 40- it would have been the big mover had it been one notch higher.

Week two's 60/60 was yet another iteration of the Beach Boys' later hit, The Wreck Of The John B by Jimmie Rodgers.  Week one Panelist, Tonight's The Night was at #101 in week two, and the UK top songs for the two weeks were part of the Cliff Richard empire- his Please Don't Tease in week one, and the Shadows doing Apache in week two.


Oh, and my favorite?  Roy Orbison with Only The Lonely.  It was #6 week 2.


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And how about the usual Martin irony?  The lone debut this week is ALSO by an act who was on that very first M10 chart!  With a little help from Godsmack's Sully Erna, here's Saint Asonia at #10...






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Hey, here we go with the top ten (actually 11) songs of Summer 2019!

T10- Imagination, Foster The People

T10- Simpatico, Silversun Pickups

9- He's 31, Geowulf

8- Keep In Line, Maybird

7- Now's The Time, Moon Taxi

6- Last Days In August, the Orwells

5- Drugs, M.A.G.S.

4- Running Scared, King Leg

3- Seeing You Tonight, King Leg

2- Mama, ELO

And the top song of this summer-

Agnes Obel with Riverside!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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And now, believe it or not, Bellbottom tells me I am "contractually obligated" for TWO 6 Degrees this week!  So week one goes like this:  Our good friend Elvis had 2 posthumous top 40 hits...

E:  POSTHUMOUS?  You mean I stole 'em from someone?

No, you idiot, it means... well, never mind what it means.  One of them was the Sinatra cover My Way, the other was Guitar Man.  It was originally done in 1967, but didn't get very far.  Elvis wasn't happy with the sound, and he told the producer to "get that redneck guitar picker" who did it first to play on his single.  That "redneck guitar picker" was Jerry Reed, who also played the electrified version that cracked the top 40 in 1981 and hit #1 on the country charts.  And Jerry wrote another song (one of many) called That's All You Gotta Do, at first the a-side of the first hit by a 15-year-old girl whose b-side the record company thought was 'too mature of material' for her.  However, that b-side became the hit, and it is week one's 6D song at #4- Brenda Lee and I'm Sorry.

The week two 6D goes this way:  Well, actually, it becomes yet another of my famous lists.  The song- again at #4, was Itsy Bitsy blah blah blah Bikini, written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss, about Vance's own daughter on vacation.  I noticed that this duo had quite a few other big hits, and so, here are their top ten biggest hits:

10- The Playmates, What Is Love, #15 in '59
9- Julia Lee and her Boyfriends, King Size Papa, #15, '48
8- What Will Mary Say, Johnny Mathis, #9, '63
7- The Cufflinks, Tracy, #9, '69
6- Gina, Johnny Mathis, #6, '62
5- David Geddes, Run Joey Run, #4, '75
4- Playground In My Mind, Clint Holmes, #2, '74
3- Calcutta, Lawrence Welk, #1, '60
2- Catch A Falling Star, Perry Como, #1, '58

And of course, the Bikini was the biggest.

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Geez, I'm whupped!  Maxine was right- I'm never doing this again!  Anyway, let me sort out the M10 chaos:

Prom Queen by Beach Bunny held at 9 last week and fell off this one.
Springtime Carnivore's Name On A Matchbook held at 7 last week, nudged up to 6 this week.
Running Scared, in addition to its #4 spot on the Summer Songs, fell last time from 3 to 6, and 6 to 9 this week.
Joy Downer's Stranger Places went up 3 to #5 last time, and one more to 4 this week.
MAGS dropped two spots to 4 with Drugs last week, and another spot to 5 this time.
And the top three did NOT change across the two weeks:

Mikaela Davis pulled into the 3 spot with Other Lover;

The Orwells stepped back to #2 with Last Days In August;

And taking #1 last week, and keeping it this week...

....Geowulf and He's 31!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And the Panel DID pick the same song each week, and overwhelmingly so- with 51.5% the first week, and 52% this week!  The winner...

....of course, Elvis with It's Now Or Never!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Next week, 1961- and a much easier post (mainly because the POTM is already on staff!)  See you then!