Shortly after I derived the Lost Factor — a calculation that measured how big a hit song was at its peak vs. the airplay it received now — I got the first suggestion on methodology from a reader. I measured 50 years of Billboard Top 100 Songs of the Year one week at a time against a week of airplay — not even the same week for each year as it happened, and with the potential to be skewed by an American Top 40 replay or an artist death. He thought I should be looking at a year’s data.
Other readers noted how many songs with high Lost Factors weren’t lost to them at all, because of AT40 reruns, other Sirius XM ’70s at 7 programming, or just their personal consumption of music overall. But BDSradio, whose data I was using, did not measure the Sirius XM decades channels — ’60s on 6 [now ’60s Gold], ’80s on 8, etc. Lost Factor was mostly a reflection of the decisions made by large- and medium-market stations with some sort of mission to “play the hits.”
I started the Lost Factor in April 2020 at the height of lockdown with 1982. I finished 2000-09 last fall and ran the final top 150 of 1960-2009 earlier this year. Lost Factor was based on data from BDSradio, which ended operations in late October, ending any opportunity to add on 1958-59 or the 2010s. It seemed like a good place to end. But not without some final thoughts.
I’ve cheerfully admitted to Lost Factor’s lack of academic rigor throughout, and it hasn’t stopped most readers from enjoying the series. The results, even when surprising, were directionally consistent. Readers accepted them as accurate enough, and intended primarily as entertainment. Even ROR readers who weren’t depending on research-driven, large-market Classic Rock and Classic Hits radio for their ’70s or ’80s music understood that many people did, and that their own experiences were (as mine) atypical.
Revisiting the Lost Factor from a more academic perspective would probably take an academic partner — for one thing, I’d be looking to do a much wider-reaching data pull. If I were to re-create the project under ideal circumstances:
- I would cover a one-year period. I think I managed to avoid having the data skewed by AT40 reruns and other special programming, but there were likely inconsistencies in doing 50 years one week at a time. For one, by the time I got to the ’90s and ’00s, those songs were getting even more airplay (while the ’60s and ’70s were yet more distant and phased out by some stations);
- I would extend the window from 1958 (the beginning of the Hot 100) to at least 2014;
- I would not combine current U.S. and Canadian airplay — legally mandated “Cancon” airplay probably significantly changed the fortune of only a handful of titles, but a few of those, like Jann Arden’s “Insensitive,” would have been top-15 songs for their year without Canadian spins. Also, you get a different read on Terry Jacks’ “Seasons in the Sun,” the most emblematic song of the “lost” ’70s.
- I might look for some way to consistently include those songs from 1992-98 that were most affected by not being commercial singles, as significant an issue in Billboard chart history as the lack of an R&B chart in 1964. For the most part, those omissions are more likely to affect the lowest LF ratings, not those songs that might have had the highest LF of a given year.
The SiriusXM’s decade channels aren’t currently monitored by Mediabase. I’m not sure if I would include them now, even if available. Twenty years in the music-research business showed me that broadcast radio airplay was a pretty good proxy for a song’s current importance to listeners overall.
Despite this, some radio stations designed special programming around the Lost Factor articles. I made monthly guest appearances with Triple-A WXPN Philadelphia p.m. driver Dan Reed to spotlight each year of the ’70s. WRME (Me-TV FM) Chicago has done at least two special weekends. Adult Hits WKLX (Sam FM) Bowling Green, Ky., PD Chris Allen has used the columns to spike songs into his morning show on a regular basis.
Readers know that I’m a believer in the judicious use of “hits plus variety” when it comes to gold-based radio formats. For me, there’s not a correlation between a song’s Lost Factor rating and its “secret weapon” value to programmers. For me, many of my favorite such songs receive just enough airplay to keep their LF rating low, but still present as “oh wow” to listeners. (“Shambala” by Three Dog Night is only LF 2, for instance.) Conversely, there are plenty of high LF songs that I don’t need to hear ever again. But Allen must be using those songs judiciously, since Sam FM has risen to No. 2 in the market since the Lost Factor series began.
Even if you wanted to, you can’t program only the “good” songs from Lost Factor. One of the things I’ve learned most decisively from writing these columns is that no two people agree on what those are. In my Saturday #AT40 chat group on Twitter, there is a defender for almost every ’70s hit. I’d rather hear Murray Head’s “Superstar” (LF 75) than Wayne Newton’s “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast” (LF 91 — the highest of the ’70s). I’d rather hear “Shambala” than either of them. But I know some reader is muttering at me already.
Some of that is just a function of what songs people still know. “Superstar” might have gotten a boost when Jesus Christ Superstar was performed live on TV. “Daddy” was the bigger hit. They’re both more than 50 years old now. As time passes, the decision made on what songs endure is often made by a radio-research target that wasn’t here when those songs were currents. A 35-year-old listener doesn’t remember “Summer of ’69” as a current, much less “Seasons in the Sun.” TikTok or movie/TV syncs can put songs back in front of people, but not in their original context.
There are a lot of factors that affect how those listeners view a song now, particularly whether they know those songs at all. What the 36-year-old of 2013 wanted to hear will impact radio research down the road. The 36-year-old of 2023 won’t even be asked about most songs that struck out years ago. If they somehow do know those songs, they’re probably factoring in a number of things, including artist relevance (listeners generally don’t want another generation’s teen pop) and how the lyric plays now without decades of context.
Talking about how songs line up with contemporary mores has the potential to inflame every raw nerve in America. But those decisions have been made by the audience over the years without rancor and with relative consensus. Joan Baez’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” was getting nine spins a week in spring 2020, before it became a newly controversial part of the social-justice dialogue. At the end of October 2022, it was getting six spins. For various reasons, contemporary listeners already didn’t know or care for Baez’s hit, nor did a significant audience rally behind it afterwards. Like most songs, it wasn’t cancelled — instead, its contract expired over the years without being renewed.
Even without a MacArthur grant or a tenured chair in pop-chart studies, you might not have heard the last of Lost Factor altogether. A few readers have asked for a computation of Lost Factor by record label. Another has done their own calculation of LF ratings vs. streaming, something already touched on here but not fully explored. I’ve also been asked for a top 100 list of the era now most covered by Classic Hits radio (roughly 1975-1992). There may be more fun ways to look at the existing data.
As of today, Lost Factor is still a good way to look at whether songs still endure in pop culture. The super-collider of syncs and TikTok propels songs back in front of people at weekly intervals. But those that become “Running Up That Hill” are still the exception (and that song wasn’t big enough in 1985 to qualify for Lost Factor to begin with). Many more songs return only briefly — “Pass the Dutchie” or “Twist of Fate.” I’m still appalled by the lack of appreciation for Olivia Newton-John; I hope the audience will do better by Christine McVie and the current EV ad-driven return of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere.”
All evidence so far is that radio’s place in setting even a new song’s agenda has been diminished but not demolished by streaming, and that remains even more the case when it comes to older songs. A more fulsome calculation of Lost Factor would still be worthwhile in the not-too-distant future. If that formula doesn’t mean as much in 2033, that will be at least in part because the shared experience of pop music that made Lost Factor so interesting to both of us is diminished as well.