Just before disco fever peaked and a rock radio station’s “Disco Demolition” promotion gave rise to a disco backlash, there emerged a certain type of dance record: the bandwagon-jumping song from an artist dramatically outside the genre. Think of it as the era of “disco dilettantism.” Not all those acts were in search of the career reinvention that had made the Bee Gees stars again. Many were just following the music, soon to wander off as pop changed again. Gloria Gaynor and Sister Sledge saw lasting career downturns; Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, ELO, and Barbra Streisand kept making hits.
But more than 40 years later, there is a lot of pop disco among the top 15 songs of 1979 with the highest “lost factor” — our calculation of the distance between a song’s success at the time and its availability on broadcast radio now. We’ve been taking the top 100 hits of each year between 1978 and 1989 (so far), assigning them points based on their year-end chart placing (starting with 100 points for the No. 1 song of the year) and dividing them by the number of spins a song received in the previous week on U.S. and Canadian radio, according to Nielsen/BDS.
It won’t surprise those who read this series’ first article about the “Lost Factor” and 1982’s hit songs that an MOR ballad tops the list. But a lot of late ‘70s disco was an extension of ‘60s MOR and ‘70s soft pop, which is why many of them populate our top 15 as well. Teen idols have typically had high lost factors, and Leif Garrett’s one-song disco career (as well as TV star David Naughton’s sole foray to radio) are now scarce on the radio as well. Then-TV movie star Rex Smith’s MOR ballad also put him in double jeopardy and in our top 15.
When calculating the hits of 1978, I was generally surprised by the relative endurance (at least at some small level) of so many of them. The “lost factor” is higher for 1979. There are 51 songs that have a 1.0 or higher vs. 10 in 1978. In 1980, it would go higher still (58 songs). There are also 21 songs from 1979 that received fewer than 10 spins a week, compared to only 10 from the year before.
Throughout our “lost factor” series, reader response has generally been to declare that 80% of the songs on our list remain lost for a reason. That there is no consensus on the “good” 20% is why you don’t hear any of them on the radio much now. As with 1978, I find myself wanting to write a brief for Olivia Newton-John, again spurned with “A Little More Love,” or what I consider other perfectly good hit records. Ian Matthews’ “Shake It” and Roger Voudouris’ “Get Used to It” are songs I always enjoy on specialty programming. Some of the songs a little further down — John Stewart’s “Gold” and Suzi Quatro & Chris Norman’s “Stumblin’ In” — I could probably hear more regularly. But did I mention I graduated high school that spring?
If you’ve seen the Top 100 Lost Songs of the ‘80s, you know that I decided not to include Streisand & Donna Summer’s “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” on that chart. While every year has some chart-cutoff holdover from the previous, that song peaked in early December and just felt like a ‘70s relic. That’s why it’s among our top 15 for 1979. It’s also why I’m showing 16 songs, in case you’re a purist and wonder what song was displaced.
Here are the top “lost factor” hits of 1979, based on points for their standing for the year divided by the number of plays they receive now. In parenthesis is the “lost factor,” followed by the number of spins the songs received in the U.S. and Canada according to NielsenBDS in the week prior to my calculations.
- Melissa Manchester, “Don’t Cry Out Loud” (lost factor 38, spins last week 2)
- Roger Voudouris, “Get Used to It” (18, 0)
- Leif Garrett, “I Was Made for Dancin’” (16, 4)
- Barbra Streisand & Donna Summer, “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” (16, 4)
- Cher, “Take Me Home” (15, 3)
- David Naughton, “Makin’ It” (15, 6)
- Alice Cooper, “How You Gonna See Me Now” (14, 0)
- Barbra Streisand, “The Main Event/Fight” (13, 5)
- Olivia Newton-John, “A Little More Love” (11, 8)
- Donna Summer, “MacArthur Park” (10, 9)
- Ian Matthews, “Shake It” (9, 3)
- Neil Diamond & Barbra Streisand, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” (9, 9)
- Maxine Nightingale, “Lead Me On” (7, 11)
- Randy Vanwarmer, “Just When I Needed You Most” (6, 12)
- Village People, “In the Navy” (5, 10)
- Rex Smith, “You Take My Breath Away” (5, 3)
And here are the songs that now get the most monitored spins at broadcast radio, compared to their year-end placing for 1979. It’s worth noting that while these songs have almost always been pop/rock — songs that can play not just on Classic Hits and AC, but also Classic Rock and Adult Hits formats — two are disco-era R&B classics. If we had continued down the list, we would have found “I Will Survive” at No. 18, “Got to Be Real” at No. 20, and “We Are Family” at No. 21.
- Michael Jackson, “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”
- Van Halen, “Dance the Night Away” (the title was bandwagon jumping, even if the song wasn’t)
- Robert Palmer, “Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)”
- Electric Light Orchestra, “Don’t Bring Me Down” (the more overtly disco “Shine a Little Light” has a 3.0 “lost factor” — which would have put it at No. 26 on the above list
- Earth, Wind & Fire, “September”
We’ve now calculated the “Lost Factor” for every year between 1978 and 1989. Thus far, I’ve avoided going earlier. The ‘80s have clear winners and losers in the endurance test. For the ‘70s, and certainly for a ‘60s universe of music that has been reduced by Classic Hits radio to “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Respect,” and “Come Together” (if those), there’s less opportunity to look at the contrast between what lasted and didn’t. But I have come up with a way to identify the decades’ most extreme cases. Look for those and my first forays into CHR’s near-obliteration in the early ‘90s next.
I definitely wouldn’t expect these to, er, get “lost”:
Melissa Manchester, “Don’t Cry Out Loud” (lost factor 38, spins last week 2)
Barbra Streisand & Donna Summer, “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” (16, 4)
Cher, “Take Me Home” (15, 3)
Donna Summer, “MacArthur Park” (10, 9)
Neil Diamond & Barbra Streisand, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” (9, 9)
Village People, “In the Navy” (5, 10)
Almost half of it, in fact!
Another great analysis Sean.
ONJ makes it back into the top 10 but at least Ray Parker Jr. finally gets a break via You Can’t Change That. I wonder if my local here in Hilton Head Island, SC contributed to A Little More Love’s spin count as they pepper it in on occasion – always surprising me. I always figured its stop gap proximity between her Grease & Xanadu chart toppers that endure makes it easy for radio to skip this era which her fans seem to rate highly but today plays more like a safe cementing of her Neutron-Bomb/Sandy 2 image, Particularly since it was the only real power from the Totally Hot album – the follow up Deeper Than The Night exploded up the chart quickly but stalled just outside the top ten and collapsed fast.
The only things off the top of my head I’m surprised didn’t make the top fifteen were Barry Manilow’s Somewhere In The Night & Andy Gibb’s Our Love (Don’t Throw It All Away). I would figure those suffer from the same problems that some of the high ranking uber soft ballads on the ’81 list do.
What I’ve learned most from this series is how the new Soft AC/Breeze stations don’t play a lot of songs you’d consider Soft AC. I didn’t expect a ton of spins for “Don’t Cry Out Loud” but I thought it would receive more than “MacArthur Park” and “The Main Event.” Plus, if a station does lean softer, it’s not like Melissa Manchester is Barry Manilow or Neil Diamond where there are twenty songs to choose from and you just go with the biggest hit.
In the case of “Don’t Cry Out Loud”, we’re pretty much talking about her signature song and one which was still being sung by American Idol contestants until the very first incarnation’s last days. It’s not exactly a song lost in the midst of times.
When I first published this column a few days ago, I received two e-mails within minutes of each other from readers who noted that they heard the Roger Voudouris song (and others from spring ’79) on the episode of “American Top 40” heard on SiriusXM ’70s on 7 that previous weekend. It’s something I’ve noted in other articles on the “Lost Factor,” but SXM subscribers definitely have a different frame of reference, not just for what ’70s and ’80s songs endure but perhaps in terms of what the recent hits are, too.
Exactly – I listen to SiriusXM exclusively in my car, and I hear many of these lost hits often. 70’s on 7 plays “In the Navy”, “Just When I Needed You Most”, and “You Take My Breath Away” fairly often – and I don’t even drive that much. Through in Studio 54 Radio and the Yacht Rock station that shows up in the summer, and you cover even more of these songs.
In Boston, a huge local hit was “Don’t Ever Wanna Lose Ya” by New England. It got a LOT of airplay. I don’t think it was a national hit, but I will always remember it because I had been working out of state for ten years and when I finally was able to get a job back in Boston, this was one song I heard a lot.
It was a minor Top 40 hit, peaking precisely at the bottom. It might not have hit on a truly national level at CHR, but it did get tons of airplay on AOR stations.
Absolutely true. “Don’t Ever Wanna Lose You” was one of those songs that sounded great when you were listening in your car. I felt the same way about Sniff ‘n’ the Tears’ “Drivers Seat” from the previous year– another song that never was a huge hit, but got lots of airplay and sounded wonderful when listening in the car.
And in addition to “Don’t Ever Wanna Lose You” by New England, another song that got a LOT of airplay in Boston in 1979 was “Such a Woman” by Tycoon. Also not a big national hit, but I can’t think of 1979 without both of these songs.
I worked at a small station in Northwest PA in Spring, 1979 and I remember playing New England at that small station.
An addendum to New England, I think they not only had the 45 version but a ‘new edit’ to try and push the song (which chopped off 15 or 20 seconds of the intro (IIRC)
I swear Randy Vanwarmer’s “Just When I Needed You Most” got all 12 spins from “Soft Rock” WAKR 93.5/1590 in Akron. Everytime I turned on the damn station I’d hear that song within an hour or two.