Quote:
Originally Posted by Macfan4life
Here is another thing this list does not take into account. The top 10 lists compare all songs released around the same time in that year.
All Data from Billboard's Hot 100
While this list ranks SDMHA as #1, it finished 1981 as the #59 biggest hit of 1981. It does not even crack the top 40.
Dreams was Billboards #39 song of 1977.
Hold Me was Billboard's #31 song in 1982
Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmm
The songs are competing against the other hits that year. Its impossible to say or rank how they would compete against each other which this list tries to do. You have to compare the songs against their competition on the charts.....not songs decades apart. For example, would you want to have the biggest hit of 1985 or the biggest hit of your band and its members competing against each other. I think most would want the biggest hit period, end of story. Hold Me is not the highest charting single for Fleetwood Mac. However its the band's biggest hit competing against all other songs in 1982 and finishes that year a bigger hit than any other Mac song finished their year. Make sense?
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This is a very good point. One thing that I forgot to include in the original post is that this list is not meant to be interpreted as a definitive list to determine the most successful song. This is simply one metric that is being used that does not take into account the changing musical landscapes from year to year. From the 1990s onward, songs have had far longer lifespans on the
Billboard Hot 100. Some of this can be attributed to the introduction of Nelson Soundscan, which Billboard started using in 1991 to determine sales data (prior to this, only select record shops submitted data to Billboard, which was extrapolated to create a rough estimate of the national sales data. I agree that the placements of certain songs are questionable, particularly with "Talk to Me" and "Little Lies". I checked my Billboard Top 40 book, and both songs spent 13 weeks in the top 40. After consulting with Billboard's website, I also found that both songs also debuted at #66.