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Today we enter into the world of March 20th, 1964, and because I want to give the sports fans who are being deprived in 2020 some support (and because I couldn't find anything better), here are the scores from the opening round of March Madness Final Four (though I doubt it was called that back then). Duke got 25 from Jay Buckley, as they spread out a lead early and knocked off Cazzie Russel and Michigan, 90-81; UCLA took down Kansas State 90-84. UCLA would do a little "early blitzing" of their own the next night as they won the title 98-83 over Duke. It would be the first championship in a streak that ran 9 in 10 seasons.
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| Gail Goodrich puts in 27 for the Bruins. |
I woulda went with hockey, but nobody played on Friday but this. So let's move quickly on to the music, with our POTM Skeeter Davis, the Wrath of the Beatles, another live 6D, and 2 debuts this week on the M10! It might not be the St Patty's Party like last week- but it just may be the Last Tango Before Quarantine...
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| "I really don't see what THIS has to do with the Coronavirus..." |
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Our first debut has been patiently awaiting a chance for a few weeks now, and the chance has come. It was recorded in 2017, though not on any lp. Here at #10 is veteran rocker Joe Jackson...
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Welcome, Skeeter, nice to have you here!
Nice to be here... I think...
I was just perusing your bio, and man, there isn't a lot of 'good times' to be found in your early life...
Well, there was some good times with Betty Jack, but yeah, I walked a rough road.
I should explain about Betty Jack, because it plays into the story of how Mary Francis Penick came to be known as Skeeter Davis...
Yup, and my Grandpa called me Skeeter when I was little, and that tells that story.
Unfortunately, part of that 'bad time' was being in an accident with a driver that fell asleep, injuring yourself and killing Betty Jack.
Boy, this is kind of a downer, Chris...
Yeah, and I'm sorry, but on the good side, I had to check the permissions on that pic of the 2 of you, and according to Wiki's details on it, you live until the year 2924!
WHAAAAT? Do you come from THAT far ahead?
No, the future gear in this machine, vis-a-vis my actual timeline, is a bit whacked. But, amusingly, so was Wiki's proofreader.
Good, because being 993 years old don't sound especially appealing, either!
Anyhow, the game here is, I let out a little info on our contestants, with your kind help, and then you give the finalists. Now, I got you from 1964, so you know about the Beatles...
Yes, sir, I do get to watch Ed Sullivan sometimes...
So it shouldn't be a surprise that our 16 contestant Panel list from 71 stations includes 8 Beatles songs. In addition to them, a few radio stations got a little 'funny'... KMEX had the Fab Four at their top 15 positions; WJET had a five way tie of Beatles tunes at their #1; KJR simply had "The Beatles" at their #1; WEEP went a little farther, listing their #1 as "Beatles Beatles Beatles Beatles Beatles"...
Wow! According to your list here, the Cashbox charts had Beatles songs at 1, 2, 3, 4, 37, 57, and 75, with 5 more to debut next week, and songs ABOUT the Beatles at #s 60, 102, 130, and 133!
A little later on we'll get into the Beatles record breaking week in April- and how rapper Drake "broke" that record. Maybe we should give some 'equal time' to everyone else, though...
That's hard to do, since all 8 of the songs that got votes and WEREN'T the Beatles combined would have only got 3rd place! Even figuring that there were 8 stations that didn't have the Beatles at #1, the average place the first non-Beatles song on the charts was listed was 3.66... The best showing was Terry Stafford's Suspicion with 3 votes.
Yep, so you know, it will be an all-Beatle final! We might just as well get it over with...
Okay, so choose from...
She Loves You, at #1...
Twist And Shout, at #4...
I Want To Hold Your Hand at #2...
And All My Loving... which doesn't even debut until next week!
And that breaks our two-week old record for lowest position for a Panel Finalist! So make your choices, while I cue up some non-Beatle entertainment...
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And now at #9, here's Anna Burch hogging two positions with her latest...
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Okay, so show of hands- besides gender and profession, what do Madonna, the Pointer Sisters, and Whitney Houston have in common with Karen Carpenter? Well, they have all had major hits- Madonna's Crazy For You, Whitney's One Moment In Time, and the Pointers' Slow Hand- written by one John Bettis, who wrote a handful of the Carpenters' big hits, including Yesterday Once More on the lp Now And Then in 1973. This lp included a "Yesterday Once More playlist"- a medley which featured both of the last two POTM winners, The End On The World and Johnny Angel! And here's the kicker- the first of the covered songs after Yesterday was this week's 6D victim- The Beach Boys and Fun Fun Fun, at #6 without a Panel Vote!
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So I decided to see if anyone had approached the Beatles' records for 1964 in the years since. And in 2018, Drake's lp Scorpion lit up the chart with hits- despite releasing just seven official singles, the whole of the lp ended up on the charts. Where the Beatles had 14 hits on the Hot 100 on April 11th, Drake, according to Wiki, posted 27 on July 14th, 2018. Now I got on Billboard's chart archives (which apparently AREN'T behind their paywall), and I scoured the chart for 27- I only saw 26. (Note: I similarly scoured the Beatles' list- BB did indeed have 14 songs on their Hot 100 that week, though CB had but 9.) But how much of these hits of Drakes were hits by OUR definitions? Let's see.
Out of the 26 Drake songs on that week's BB chart, 22 of them peaked that week, never getting any higher. Four of the 14 Beatles songs were at their peak- 84.6% of Drake's, 28.6% of the Fab Fours'.
The next week, I counted that 18 of the still-charting 20 Drake songs fell- a total of 514 places between them! That's an average drop of 24 spots! The Beatles had an almost even split: 5 songs did not chart the next week, 4 went up, and 5 went down a total of 37 spots. The four that went up gained 34 spots, so while the remaining Drake songs netted a 500-position fall, the remaining Beatles tunes netted -3.
Most of the Drake songs were brand new that week- 26 songs netted 72 weeks on the chart at that point, 37 of those by just two songs. The Beatles, however, managed 76 weeks- 4 weeks more on 12 songs less! Finally, while Drake still retained 14 songs on the chart 2 weeks later (53.8%) The Beatles were still charting 10 after the second week- a 71.4% clip. So Drake, buddy, I have a question...
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| "When is a record, really NOT a record?" |
Swiftly hitting the Stat Pack, we have Twist And Shout as the big mover, 37 spots from 43 to 4! And in the UK, where the first wave of Beatlemania had already run its course, Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas topped the chart with Little Children. (The closest the UK had as far as a bunch at once was the week that She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand were 1-2 in December 1963... other than that, in England they were, er, more properly spaced...)
The M10 also had:
Fertile Crescent falls from 6 to 8 with Onion Garden.
Speaking In Squares continues to edge up, from 8 to 7 with A Song For The Opossum.
Same for Agnes Obel; Camera's Rolling from 7 to 6.
Tennis now joins the Iron Ceiling III crowd, moving from 10 to 5 with How To Forgive.
And the IC remains the same:
Best Coast, Everything Has Changed at 4;
Brooke Annibale, I Will, at 3;
Anna Burch, Party's Over at 2;
And three weeks at the top for...
Real Estate with Paper Cup at the top!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every time Chipper catches the guitar, that little boy and I still go, "YES!!!"
And that brings us to which song shall the Beatles win the POTM with this time?
Well, All My Loving got just 9.9%....
Twist And Shout got 14.8%...
I Want To Hold Your Hand got 18.3%...
And before I make that final announcement, the REALLY amazing thing is that, no matter which of these Finalists one, it would STILL be the 11th win for the Fab Four with 11 DIFFERENT songs!
But the winner, with 36.6%....
She Loves You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Elvis took his annual (1964-wise) 2 week vacay this week and next, so he could avoid joining me with John, Paul, George, and Ringo next week! 1965, People!
Hahaha! We know Elvis was not a Beatles' fan and was, in fact, jealous of their success. Not surprising to see The Beatles dominated in 1964. I don't get the popularity of Drake's music, but that would apply to many modern-day artists. Generation gap. I LOVE the Peter Gunn rework by Joe Jackson! Thanks for sharing that and have a good weekend.
ReplyDeleteA bloody great post, I like these posts
ReplyDeleteI missed Elvis. He had a style that most try to emulate. When Beatles came on the scene, I was in 7th grade. They shaped our era, but our rural area loved Elvis and Johnny Cash. Big influences from all changed my outlook.
ReplyDelete