pg
Queen Mab
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Post by pg on Apr 10, 2024 12:46:34 GMT
Here in the UK, we just know it was a number 1 over there, and that was rare for Queen. But I just waded through a little Billboard archive and it was clearly some sort of phenomenon over there...
3 weeks at number 1 these days, we shrug our shoulders, but here's the chart run in sequence..
67-50-28-23-9-3-3-1-1-1-2-2-4-4-4-4-3-3-7-14-14-20-30-47-54-67-70-96-96-98-98
That's 31 weeks - by the last week it had been in the Top 100 for seven weeks longer than anything else in that chart - and the only other song that lasted anything like as long during that run was Upside Down by Diana Ross (it's predecessor as #1) at 29 weeks. 15 weeks in the top 10, 13 of those in the top 5. Another week and it would have overlapped Flash's entire chart run.
Add the 9 weeks Chic spent in the top 10, 17 overall, in summer '79 with Good Times, and the 12 weeks either side of Xmas '79 that Rapper's Delight was hovering around the middle of the chart, and the US public must have been thoroughly sick of that bassline by early 1981....!
as an aside, I have to say I'm not convinced that Billboard's system was entirely sales-based. Those last four weeks look suspicious, although what benefit fixing the low levels might have is not clear - maybe I'm too cynical!
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akirafish
Ostler
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Post by akirafish on Apr 10, 2024 12:49:33 GMT
Not No.1 in the UK I think. There were only 3 number 1 single in the UK chart during Fredddie's lifetime: Bohemian Rhapsody, Under Pressure, and Innuendo.
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pg
Queen Mab
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Post by pg on Apr 10, 2024 12:51:10 GMT
Um, correct, hence the "in the US" qualifier in the title...
Edit - I've adjusted the first sentence to hopefully be clearer.
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Post by peacelovingguy on May 10, 2024 13:06:40 GMT
I read a Billboard stats book once, probably in the early 90s. Another One Bites The Dust sold a huge number of copies. My memory is hazy but it was in some kind of top ten of all time list. I think it sold more than any Elvis single. It was in a list with the ‘64 Beatles songs and White Christmas by Bing Cosby.
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Post by mattzarella on May 11, 2024 1:33:15 GMT
Funny thing about the song is that during that Era it was adopted for use everywhere. Sports events (baseball strikeouts, boxing knockouts) TV show snarky angry man segments, WWF Wrestler THE JUNK YARD DOG had it as his ring entrance theme, plus clubs and so forth. I couldn't tell you all the other instances but I know of those.
It had some major staying power ... which probably led to that awful cocaine nightmare song.
P.s. it was also used in the Work print AND *intended for use* in ROCKY III, but Queen wouldn't authorize the rights for whatever they were offering.... Hence EYE OF THE TIGER was born
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