Sounds Sights Smells Links Books Compilation CDs
|
Favorites home page Sounds Sights Smells Links Books Compilation CDs |
It might be only a slight exaggeration to say that "please request by number" was the most influential phrase of my entire childhood. I'd been collecting baseball cards, and I knew all the baseball stats and could quickly fire off all the team names in alphabetical order. Then I turned 10 in late 1978, when I gave all my baseball stuff to my brother and set my sights on top 40 music. I had my own stash of five AM radios all around the house, and quickly learned where the good stuff was on the dial (77 WABC and 66 WNBC). Over the course of 1979, I essentially became the radio, and absorbed more about New York City's pop music than any other 10-year-old on earth.
At the time, there was an unusually large number of general purpose discount stores in Rockland County, including Caldor, Two Guys, Korvettes, Bradlees, and a few others (that have all since given way to Target and Wal-Mart). Most of these stores sold 45s in their record section, and a few had them arranged by popularity - they'd print lists of the best-selling singles and you'd order the song you want by its ranking. Hence, "please request by number", which would be printed at the top of the lists.
I started buying 45s in late 1978 after I'd turned 10, and I remember consciously trying to keep up with the top of the charts. Every week, I'd buy the one or two highest-ranking songs that I didn't already have - a ritual I kept up until 45s fell out of favor in the early 1990s. Apparently, I started my buying frenzy around December 18, 1978, because the first two records I ever bought, Chic's "Le Freak" and the Village People's "Y.M.C.A.", were occupying the top 2 positions on Caldor's charts. The next week, I bought "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" and "My Life", which were #3 and #4.
Fortunately, I saved all of these local printed charts, from 1978 until I went off to college in 1986. Until I started transcribing the American Top 40 rankings in late 1979, these charts were my only printed reference material, and I spent many an hour analyzing the chart runs of my favorite songs. God only knows what the clerk at Caldor's record counter used to think...
The charts appeared every two weeks, and were printed on colored paper (pink, yellow, green, blue, etc, none of which is indicated in my black and white scans). In hindsight, the charts themselves are interesting to pop-o-philes in that they very clearly show the presence of local hits (like Lenore O'Malley's "First Be A Woman" or Festival's "Don't Cry For Me Argentina", both virtually unknown outside of New York City) and extremely rare novelty singles ("Bomb Iran" was popular enough to make these charts?!?).
Maybe even more interesting than the song listings themselves are the ads that would occasionally run on the back of the sheets. There's quite a bit of detail in some of them, and it's fascinating to see which albums were being pushed by the record companies. You'll see.
These meant the world to me when I was young, so much so that when the printer left out the date and some of the formatting on a chart in 1980, I sat down at my mom's manual Royal typewriter (with metal keys!) and typed it out "properly". Hope you like them.
 |
Every single thing on this website is © 2000-2005 Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber. All rights reserved. Problems, corrections, questions and comments should be directed to me. |
