Top 40

Top 40 is both a record chart and a radio format based on frequent repetition of songs from a constantly-updated list of the forty best-selling singles. The term is also used to refer to the actual list of hit songs, and, by extension, to refer to pop music in general. The term has also been modified to describe Top 50; Top 30; Top 20; Top 10; Hot 100 (each with its number of songs) and Hot Hits radio formats, but carrying more or less the same meaning and having the same creative point of origin with Todd Storz as further refined by Gordon McLendon.

Related Topics:
Record chart - Radio format - Singles - Pop music - Todd Storz - Gordon McLendon

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The Top 40 format is now more commonly known as contemporary hit radio or CHR.

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Although predated by the music marketing concept of the hit parade, the Top 40 radio format was created in response to the drift of USA mass media audiences from radio to television. With the loss of audience came the loss of sponsors and big budget radio productions. Recorded music provided low-cost and fully produced entertainment requiring only segues between presentations. It was the arrangement of the most popular recorded presentations which have variously been known as Top 10; Top 20; Top 10 and which became known as Top 40 radio.

Related Topics:
Hit parade - Radio format - USA - Television

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Top 40 was a response to the rise of television. Scheduled block programming could not compete with the new visual medium, so putting something on radio that wasn't available on TV became vital. Although hit music shows such as American Bandstand occasionally appeared, television wouldn't attempt to directly compete with Top 40 radio until many years later with the rise of MTV, the early incarnation of which was a cable television version of Top 40.

Related Topics:
Television - American Bandstand - MTV

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The Top 40 format placed less value on genres and artists and concentrated entirely on repetitive play of hits based on research which reported that listeners wanted to "hear all the hits and nothin' but the hits!". Although rock and roll and Top 40 radio grew up together, out-of-genre Top-40 hits include gospel songs ("Oh, Happy Day!" by the Edwin Hawkins Singers), patriotic songs ("Ballad of the Green Berets" by S/Sgt. Barry Sadler), novelties ("The Thing" by Phil Harris), and even the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" as performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Top 40 also spawned the first generation of star disk jockeys, whose between-song patter and connection with the listeners became as important as the songs themselves.

Related Topics:
Rock and roll - Gospel - Ballad of the Green Berets - Barry Sadler - Phil Harris - Battle Hymn of the Republic - Mormon Tabernacle Choir - Disk jockey

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According to Eberley (1982, p.219) "The driving rhythms of rock fit snugly into the unity and consistency of Top 40. For if it was one thing that Top 40 compounded, it was unity - all components (commercials, public service announcements, the excitement) were compatible with the music. The Gestalt was greater than the sum of the parts."

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As a format, Top 40 radio waned in the mid-1970s with the expansion of FM radio with its superior sound and more varied programming. Much of the popular audience moved to more sophisticated and targeted formats such as Album Oriented Rock. Radio stations began to specialize in particular types of music rather than playing current hits regardless of genre. The all-hits format has never completely died, however, and has experienced sporadic resurgences on the FM band, though seldom under the Top 40 name. However, the

Related Topics:
1970s - FM radio - Album Oriented Rock

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concept of a closely controlled overall sound for a station that originated with Top 40 radio is now dominant in all genres, basically unchallenged except by a few on-air broadcasters like WFMU, WNUR, and a number of World Wide Web Internet radio broadcasters.

Related Topics:
WFMU - WNUR - World Wide Web - Internet radio

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