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“American Top 40″ still exists?

by Joe Moody on Mar.31, 2009, under Columns by Joe Moody

Wow, that’s news. Every Gen X’er remembers Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 charting out the course of mainstream pop music in the 80s. After the digital revolution of the following 2 decades, I didn’t even know AT40 still existed.

With iTunes, internet and satellite radio offering countless choices of musical genres, there no longer is a playlist of mainstream music recognizable by the general masses as there was in the 1980s.

AT40 and MTV kept the nation humming the same songs (whether they liked it or not).

Everyone remembers when Madonna’s Material Girl came out, or Michael Jackson’s Beat It.

Turns out Ryan Seacrest is hosting the new AT40, of course he’s also the host of the closest thing there is to a pop mainstream in the 21st century: American Idol.

There’s one big difference between American Idol and AT40, and it sheds light on the nature of Gen X and Gen Y. Idol is like the internet: it’s interactive and it places everyone (contestants) on a level playing field. Of course it’s usually the 13-year-old-girl demographic who votes most frequently to determine the winners.

Wonder if Kasey ever surfs AT40.com…

1 Comment for this entry

Jett
April 3rd, 2009 on 2:44 am
Ah! I see your point. I was 10 years old and Kasey Kasem announced “Every Breath You Take” by The Police as the #1 song of 1983. I was crushed. I wanted “Beat It” to win but unfortunately, it was #2. Can you imagine if I had been able to vote on the #1 song of 1983? I had nothing else to do but obsess about pop music so of course, if it had been left up to me, a beautifully arranged and well written song would have probably slumped to the lowest depths of the Billboard Charts and a synthesized nightmare (by comparison) like “Beat It” would have gotten more credit than it deserved.

Arguably, I believe my outrage was justified because, after all, “Thriller” was the top selling album that year and it was probably because me and all my 4th grade cohorts had the album. The entire school had the album. At least MJ was a top notch entertainer and not an utter fail like the Britneys and wanna be Madonnas of today.

I’m not totally against interactive-ness. I used to long for it before there was the internet. I cant get into Ryan Seacrest, either or AT40. I no longer trust who’s behind the scenes and pulling the strings.