Posted by Steve Green on September 08, 2008 at 15:09:45:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: This Week in 1968 - An All-Time Record! posted by Bob Radil on September 08, 2008 at 11:05:53:
The feeling here is that, contrived or otherwise slanted, the older charts held a quotable tradition that's more than comfortable enough to use as a reference.
Moreover, with fewer stations doing countdowns of any sort, the suspicion is that younger listeners don't care for it as much as we did. There are far more media distractions and awards and non-radio generational self-assertiveness for more modern listeners and consumers to embrace.
Additionally, younger listeners since, what, around the Orwellian year of 1984? have been subjected to far more niched approaches, and probably more permanent ones, than older listeners ever were. I'm certain there are exceptions, but as the rule, the mass-appeal numbers don't get their curiosity going, only the more insular reactions.
As an analagous sidebar, I recall once asking my buddy, during one of those zip-code-wide fits of mass amnesia, who won the World Series in 1981 or some such year. He dismissed it as being 'not far back enough to remember'.
Perhaps you'd have to understand his peculiar sense of humor to better understand exactly what he meant, but we all got the point. Goes something like 'tradition isn't what it used to be'.
Gimme those old Billboard numbers every time. I don't care how flawed they are. Industry-wide, even in a grumpy fashion, wouldn't those flaws have been a negating factor anyway?