Ok, the Method:
Using 15 websites including , but not limited to, Billboard, acclaimed music, pop culture madness, cash box pop charts, individual radio stations year end countdowns and super70s.com we recorded every song from every site from every year into an excel sheet, noting year, and placement in each chart it was in.
Some songs were in just 1 chart, some (or a few) were in ALL charts.
These songs totalled 1756.
Then, the songs were then placed into groups, 1-100, 100-250, 250-500, 500-1000, 1000-1750.
Songs that may have been in only 1 chart, at number 87, went in the 1000-1750 group.
Songs that were in more than 7 charts, and were generally in the top 10 of their year, went in the 1-100 category.
After these were done, we looked at them in smaller groups.
and ranked them basically in order in how they fared on the countdowns.
Don McLean was in all 10 year end charts, and all 5 decade charts.
year end he placed 2,3,9,4,1,2,3,2,4,2
decade charts: 13,8,25,20,47
better than any other song.
some songs were moved up or down a bit cause of personal preference: Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" may have no business in the top 20. and chartwise, "Close To You" by the carpenters, probably should be way higher than 125.
Either way, this really isnt much opinion involved , give or take 20 places and less the closer to 1 we got.
Also, we had to take some songs into consideration, like "Ziggy Stardust" , only made 1 chart, at number 4, but realistically, we couldnt put it at number 1264!!! Since some songs stood the test of time better and some songs even were reborn later in time for whatever reason.
I hope thats not too confusing, i do have a job and have to get something done today.
I dont think there is a lot of stuff thats been left out as far as anything played on the radio. Surely Kosmo and some other 70's dwellers could find tons of shit i didnt put in.
I'll do better with that stuff when i tackle the 1980s.
