Thread: Any Top 40 fans out there?

Don't get me wrong, I love classical! But I have a guilty pleasure. I love top 40 radio. A lot. It's a problem.

Who else likes top 40? (No haters please )

Nope. Despise it. Hate popular music these days.

I didn't know that top 40 still exists. When I was a teenager in the 1970s I wanted to be a disc jockey and I listened to all kinds of music including top 40 radio. I even collected the newest singles that made it to the top 40 every week. In order to do that I had to take a bus ride from the east side of Madison, Wisconsin to the downtown area every week and go to Woolworth's five and dime store. I amassed a pretty large collection of 45s after a couple of years. Anyway, I had a couple of turntables and microphones and broadcasted my own radio show to my brother. I was practicing for the day I would be a real disc jockey. Well, that day never came. I'm not sorry I never became a top 40 disc jockey but I am sorry I never went into radio. I'd love to work for a college or public jazz or classical station where the jockey still gets to choose what he will play.

Kevin

I grew up on top 40 radio. I bought singles mostly and a few albums. I have a copy of The Billboard Book of Top 40 hits from 1986. I don't think I've listened to top 40 music in 20-25 years, but I certainly loved it when I was young.

In the seventies I listened to top 40 music most of the time. Still love to listen to those songs. I have not kept up with the charts for a few decades now.

oh yeah, I LOVE it

I WOULD like the (UK) chart a little more if at least 80% of it wasn't made up of turgid push-button dance pop/'r 'n' b' (especially those cop-outs featuring 'copy and paste' sampling in a feeble attempt to give their 'songs' a bit more structure), lame covers, banal offerings by manipulated talent show contestants and vacuous, similarly-sounding 'indie-pop'. Most of today's Top 30 (formerly known as the singles chart when it actually had any use/significance) could easily be re-designated as a children's chart as I can't believe for one minute that anyone over the age of 15 would want to buy this garbage.

Originally Posted by Art Rock

In the seventies I listened to top 40 music most of the time. Still love to listen to those songs. I have not kept up with the charts for a few decades now.

Yes AR, I think we are similar here. I don't listen to anything 'Top 40' now and haven't done so for decades either, but you always have a soft spot for popular tunes from an era when you were young... I think we must be about the same age..

Incidentally on a personal note, I see you are Dutch and call yourself 'Art Rock'.. are you familiar with a band called Kayak? I used to own and enjoy several of their albums in the past...

I have - literally - all their albums on CD. One of my top 10 bands of all time.

The charts used to be more exciting than now if you're into that sort of thing. A tune would slowly rise to the top and if it got into the top ten it really meant something (at least in terms of popularity). Now the highest chart position of a tune by an established act happens in the first week after it's release and it's all downhill from there. And it's the same for the album charts.

Btw, what do they base the current charts on anyway? Kids don't buy records anymore, so what decides the ranking order of the top 40?

Originally Posted by Romantic Geek

Don't get me wrong, I love classical! But I have a guilty pleasure. I love top 40 radio. A lot. It's a problem.

Who else likes top 40? (No haters please )

I hate your thread.






































....

I like lots of non-classical music.

I've never seemed to care for anything that's really "popular" though (except maybe the Beatles back in the day). It goes against my outsider shtick.

I listen to a little top 40 music from 40 years ago and earlier but NONE of today. I can't stand it.

There's very little top 40 I would like these days but I like a lot of the new country and there's always a song or two that gets me going...I like so much different music that these days I talk more classical than I listen to it; except for fine suggestions from some of ya'll who have such good taste.

I listen to some non-classical on radio, and some of it does become 'big' in terms of mass appeal. Like the Aussie artist Gotye just got into the Billboard magazine's 'top 100' which is rare for someone from Down Under (well, technically he's half Belgian, but anyway). But on the whole its alternative, though I don't mind some Aussie and overseas acts that are comparatively well known. Silverchair is another one, also James Blunt, but they've been going for quite a while now.