rhythmchyc

More recently, the handlers for Nickelback -- they of the why-isn't-dead-yet, multi-hit-spinning All the Right Reasons -- promoted several of that album's hits only to rock radio, and often only "Active/Mainstream" rock (the band's label doesn't need to bother with Modern Rock much anymore).

Often what's useful about a label breaking a more marginal record at a niche format first is they get to soften the ground for crossover to Top 40 later. JT's "Until the End..." sounded like an old-school buppie slow jam, but it did so well at R&B radio that Jive clearly surmised they could cross it over to Top 40 with the Beyonce vocal added.

As for radio going its own way with choosing album cuts, that's way more common in the last decade now that Billboard doesn't require a single release for Hot 100 purposes. It happened in "the old days" (Madonna scored big airplay in the '80s on several non-single cuts, esp. "Where's the Party" and "Spotlight"), but it's more visible now, because anything radio's playing or consumers are downloading is chart-eligible. In 2002, Nelly's followup to "Hot in Herre" wasn't even chosen yet when radio stations forced the label's hand by jumping early on the Kelly Rowland duet. It ended up being an even bigger hit than "Herre."

Chris Molanphy

If you will, please help with this conundrum: 2) how are several songs released at the same time to radio for different genres? i.e. Justin Timberlake's "Until the End of Time" on urban and "Summer Love" on Top40. 2) What is with official singles being dropped but when they don't get played, the station chooses to play another album cut like 2 weeks after the release? i.e. 50 Cent's/Robin Thicke's nonexistent but official "Follow my Lead" vs. 50's/Akon's "I Still Kill"?

xoxo

rhythmchyc

Also, if you had put me on the spot and made me guess for 2001, I probably would've said "I Hope You Dance", which seemed as ubiquitous as "Breathe" was a year earlier.

Rob Murphy

One exception I should've mentioned was Timbaland's long-lasting "The Way I Are," but even that reads on the radio as a virtual male-female duet.

Chris Molanphy

"Hey Ya!" should've been a big finisher on the 2004 list, as its timing was seemingly perfect from Billboard's perspective: reached No. 1 in Dec. '03, spent eight weeks at No. 1. But you and I remember what happened when we all OD'd on "Hey Ya!": lovable as it was, when it was done saturating the airwaves, we all -- radio, too -- ran away from it fast. (The critics who loved it, like me, voted for it on their 2003 singles ballots; we were pretty sick of it by spring '04, too.) So basically, it dropped too fast, and then the Usher/Lil Jon smash came along in February and laid waste to everything in its path: 12 weeks at No. 1, gobs of airplay, a slow drop.

(Sales weren't a factor on the Hot 100 in 2004; iTunes existed, but Billboard hadn't folded it into the chart yet. That's another thing that hurt "Hey Ya!" which held the record as all-time biggest digital-single seller for a couple of years. None of those sales counted.)

Chris Molanphy

Al Shipley

"...Baby One More Time", "Genie In A Bottle", "Bye Bye Bye" and their ilk were laser-targeted at a specific demographic and got little airplay on non-Top 40 radio*. Also, the record companies had all-but stopped releasing individual "singles", and digital stores such as the iTMS did not yet exist. So the only way to get these songs [legally] was to buy the entire CD.

That last fact also explains a phenomenon which further negatively affected the chart impact of these songs. I call it "the TRL effect". Videos could stick around on the TRL charts for [at that time] only 65 days. Do the math on that and you'll find that's essentially only 3 months of M-F programming. Do you remember how TRL-dominating artists like Britney, the Backstreet Boys, and 'Nsync always had their next video to go, like, the day after their videos were "retired" from TRL? The record companies needed to keep the CD's momentum going to keep sales going. Radio, of course, could continue playing the "old" song after the new video was released, but they would soon be inundated with requests to play the "new" song instead. So these songs didn't stick around on radio for too long either.

So, no individual single sales plus maybe 3-4 months of radio play -- limited in scope, tho ubiquitous within a certain realm -- means no year-end chart dominance.

*Only a few of these artists got any kind of love from more "mainstream" or "adult" radio stations. BSB and 98 Degrees come to mind as the most likely to be heard on, say, AC radio for some of their more "adult"-sounding ballads.

Rob Murphy

Chris Molanphy

I'm curious to know where "The Way You Move" and "Hey Ya!" ended up on the 2003 & 2004 charts [somewhat bad timing on their parts, eh?].

As for 2007, my heart is with "Umbrella", but I suspect you're right that "Irreplaceable" is the likely winner.

Rob Murphy

rhythmchyc