Top 40

For other uses, seeTop 40 (disambiguation).

In themusic industry,theTop 40is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcastpopular music.Record chartshave traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or "contemporary hit radio"is also aradio format.

History

According to producer Richard Fatherley,Todd Storzwas the inventor of the format, at his radio stationKOWHinOmaha, Nebraska.Storz invented the format in the early 1950s, using the number of times a record was played onjukeboxesto compose a weekly list for broadcast.The format was commercially successful, and Storz and his father Robert, under the name of the Storz Broadcasting Company, subsequently acquired other stations to use the new Top 40 format. In 1989, Todd Storz was inducted into the Nebraska Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame.

The term "Top 40", describing aradio format,appeared in 1960.The Top 40, whether surveyed by a radio station or a publication, was a list of songs that shared only the common characteristic of being newly released. Its introduction coincided with a transition from the oldten-inch 78 rpm record formatfor single "pop" recordings to the seven-inch vinyl 45 rpm format, introduced in 1949, which was outselling it by 1954 and soon replaced it completely in 1958. The Top 40 thereafter became a survey of the popularity of45 rpm singlesand their airplay on the radio. Some nationally syndicated radio shows, such asAmerican Top 40,featured a countdown of the 40 highest ranked songs on a particular music or entertainment publication. Although such publications often listed more than 40 charted hits, such as theBillboardHot 100,time constraints allowed for the airing of only 40 songs; hence, the term "top 40" gradually became part of the vernacular associated with popular music.

An article in the Spring 2012 issue ofNebraska Historymagazine offered this comment as to Todd Storz' legacy: "the radio revolution that Storz began with KOWH was already sweeping the nation. Thousands of radio station owners had realized the enormous potential for a new kind of radio. When television became popular, social monitors predicted that radio would die. However, because of the invention of Storz and others like him, radio would be reborn".

Storz is credited by some sources as helping to popularizerock and rollmusic. By the mid-1950s, his station, and the numerous others which eventually adopted the Top 40 format, were playing records by artists such as "Presley,Lewis,Haley,BerryandDomino".

From the 1980s onwards, different recording formats have competed with the 45 rpm vinyl record. This includescassette singles,CD singles,digital downloads andstreaming.Many music charts changed their eligibility rules to incorporate some, or all, of these.

Somedisc jockeyspresenting Top 40 and similar format programs have been implicated in variouspayolascandals.

See also

• Contemporary hit radio
• Mainstream Top 40

Further reading

• Pete Battistini, "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem The 1970s",Authorhouse,January 31, 2005.ISBN1-4184-1070-5
• Susan Douglas,Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination(New York: Times Books, 1999)
• Durkee, Rob (1999).American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century.New York: Schriner Books.ISBN0-02-864895-1.
• Fisher, Mark (2007).Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation.New York: Random House.ISBN978-0-375-50907-0.
• Ben Fong-Torres,The Hits Just Keep On Coming: The History of Top 40 Radio(San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 1998)
• Elwood F. 'Woody' Goulart,The Mystique and Mass Persuasion: Bill Drake & Gene Chenault’s Rock and Roll Radio Programming(2006)
• David MacFarland,The Development of the Top 40 Radio Format(New York: Arno Press, 1979)

External links

• Public Radio documentary featuring a history of Top 40