Top Adult Contemporary 1961-2001: Hardcover [Hardcover]

Joel Whitburn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2002

Call it "Adult Contemporary." Call it "Middle of the Road." Call it "Easy Listening." The hard truth is, this is the definitive work on the softer side of pop music. Joel Whitburn's new Top Adult Contemporary 1961-2001 is an artist-by-artist listing of the nearly 8,000 singles and over 1,900 artists that appeared on Billboard's "Easy Listening" and "Hot Adult Contemporary" singles charts from July 17, 1961 through December 29, 2001. Includes each song's essential chart data: peak chart position * chart debut date * total weeks charted * original label & number * total weeks at #1 or #2 * and biographical information for nearly every artist. This is a massive update of the previous edition, with dozens of new artists continuing a genre of music that never goes out of style. Bigger, better and more fact-packed than ever!

Product Details

• Hardcover: 354 pages
• Publisher: Record Research Inc.; 3rd edition (May 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0898201497
• ISBN-13: 978-0898201499
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,180,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, November 15, 2004

By 

cdmusicline "cdmusicline" (Fullerton, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Top Adult Contemporary 1961-2001: Hardcover (Hardcover)

An excellent book with tons of information and insight. It's great to see the many different types of artists who have landed on the Adult Contemporary charts and also great to see my favorite AC group the Carpenters ranked as one of the most successful of alltime.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, September 3, 2003

By 

Jason (Glen Carbon, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Top Adult Contemporary 1961-2001: Hardcover (Hardcover)

What a great book. Almost as great as other RR books. It's always cool to see rock stars of the past like Clapton, Stewart and Billy Joel make great strides on the Adult Contemporary chart. In this book you will see how well all the pop acts have done with soft rock radio in the last 40 years. From Perry Como to Jim Brickman, from Rita Coolidge to Enya. The book even has a great section of the AC hits from 1955-early 1961.

My only complaint is that with the growing success of adult-rock music, I kind of wish Record Research would have put a special bonus Adult Top 40 section (based on research from Billboard's Adult T40 chart). It would have fit in well with this book. It may be another ten years for another revision of this book but enjoy this one while it is totally up-to-date to 2002.

3.0 out of 5 stars Only complaint is 1993-1996 omits some songs, May 8, 2011

By 

JJ the music collector - See all my reviews

This review is from: Top Adult Contemporary 1961-2001: Hardcover (Hardcover)

Very good book for those that want to know old adult contemporary songs from the past. Just one problem in that from July 1993 - March 1996 Billboard magazine only issued an adult top 40 chart (which was called Hot Adult Contemporary). Because Whitburn only goes by Billboard as a source for this book many AC songs from this period of time aren't listed in the book. For example not listed in this book are the following songs/artists: Steep - Lauren Christy, Angel eyes & If you believe - Jim Brickman, This time - Curtis Stigers, Take It On Faith - Joshua Kadison which were all top ten songs on Dick Clark's Countdown America show which compiled its listings from Radio & Records Adult Contemporary chart. There's more songs that peaked from #11-#30 most notably: Only A Woman's Heart - Eleanor McEvoy #15, The Day I Stop Loving You - Oleta Adams #16, I Owe You One - Aaron Neville #16, If We Were Lovers - Gloria Estefan #17, Stop Loving Me, Stop Loving You - Daryl Hall #18 that aren't listed here. Plus there is many inconsistencies as such he has "Standing Right Next To Me" by Karla Bonoff and "In Your Eyes" by Dan Hill & Rique Franks listed as reaching #38 when it hit #10 on Dick Clark's show in 1994. I felt all these songs should've been acknowledged in the book better by adding Radio & Records Adult Contemporary chart info from July 1993 - Mar 1996 as many of these songs got quite a lot of airplay on AC radio stations back then. Hopefully one day Joel will take notice of this and add that R&R AC info from 1993-1996 in a possible future update of this book. Otherwise this book as it is now has inconsistencies and a gap in it for those years.