Jamon's Coast to Coast

One of the coolest things about living in the 21^st century is that you can pretty much hear any song you want at any time you want no matter where you are.  On the other hand, one of the most annoying things about living in the 21^st century is that you can pretty much ONLY hear any song you want at any time you want no matter where you are.  Not to sound like a crazy, old man, but I kinda miss the days when you could tune in to a radio station that played Top 40 music and hear the Top 40 songs in the nation peppered with a few older songs & some brand new stuff that hadn’t yet entered the charts.  Okay, I’ll admit that you can still technically do that.  The problem is that the Top 40 ain’t what it used to be.  If you like the music that was on the Top 40 during the eighties and you want to hear the modern-day equivalent of that kind of music today, you won’t find it on the current Top 40.  For the most part, the current music of eighties artists and current artists who sound similar to eighties artists is strewn across the Alternative Rock, Mainstream Rock and Adult Contemporary charts with a few songs crossing over to the Top 40.  That means there isn’t really one radio station or similar outlet that you can tune in to and experience anything remotely like listening to a Top 40 station in the eighties.

Of course, many would say that having complete control over what you hear at any given moment of the day is the preferable option.  To me, it’s exhausting.  I prefer the old-fashioned method of sitting back and letting the music come to me.  I know that sounds lazy, and maybe it is – it’s more than that, though.  I really miss the wonder & anticipation I felt when I didn’t know what was coming up next and might not even know who it was when it did but knowing that I would hear it again sooner or later and that Casey Kasem would tell me all about it once it eventually made it onto American Top 40.

Luckily, you have ME…and even luckilier (lol), I have a great deal of free time.  That’s why I was able to create a modern-day facsimile of the eighties Top 40 radio experience.  The following is a list of 40 songs that currently occupy one or more of the aforementioned music charts in this week’s Billboard magazine.  I have taken into account chart positions and activity of the individual songs to compile Jamon’s Top 40.

1. The Weeknd – In the Night

2. Cold War Kids – First

3. Empire of the Sun – Walking on a Dream

4. Meghan Trainor – Like I’m Gonna Lose You

5. Walk the Moon – Shut Up and Dance

6. Rachel Platten – Stand By You

7. Foals – Mountain at My Gates

8. Nothing but Thieves – Trip Switch

9. Adele - Hello

10. Daya – Hide Away

11. Ed Sheeran - Photograph

12. Shinedown – State of My Head

13. Seether – Save Today

14. Elle King – Ex’s & Oh’s

15. DNCE – Cake by the Ocean

16. Adele – When We Were Young

17. Coldplay – Adventure of a Lifetime

18. Ellie Goulding – On My Mind

19. Imagine Dragons - Roots

20. Maroon 5 - Sugar

21. X Ambassadors – Renegades

22. Ellie Goulding – Something in the Way You Move

23. Silversun Pickups – Nightlight

24. Panic at the Disco – Emperor’s New Clothes

25. Weezer – Thank God for Girls

26. Panic at the Disco - Victorious

27. Disturbed – The Sound of Silence

28. Rachel Platten – Fight Song

29. Born – Electric Love

30. X Ambassadors - Unsteady

31. Cage the Elephant – Mess Around

32. Demi Lovato - Confident

33. James Bay – Let It Go

34. Fall Out Boy - Irresistible

35. Disclosure - Magnets

36. Foo Fighters – Saint Cecilia

37. Mumford & Sons - Ditmus

38. Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness – High Dive

39. 3 Doors Down – In the Dark

40. Disturbed – The Light

In addition to the 40 most popular songs in the land, I’ve also added a handful of brand new releases:

Madonna – Unapologetic Bitch

Colin Hay – Next Year People

Elton John – Blue Wonderful

Nevermen – Mr. Mistake

The I Don’t Cares – King of America

St. Lucia – Love Somebody

Chairlift – Romeo

Savages – Adore

Tortoise – Yonder Blue

Suede – Like Kids

Finally, I’ve added a few “recurrents”, which are older songs that have already fallen off the Top 40.

Michael Jackson – Black or White     

Echosmith – Cool Kids

Bruce Springsteen – Radio Nowhere

Billy Idol – Save Me Now

Bruno Mars – Uptown Funk

Duran Duran – Ordinary World

David Bowie – Little Wonder

David Bowie – Space Odditiy

John Mayer – No Such Thing

Rooney – When Did Your Heart Go Missing?

Foo Fighters – Everlong

Culture Club – More than Silence

Madonna – This Used to be My Playground

The Killers – Somebody Told Me

John Mellencamp – Walk Tall

Glenn Frey – I’ve Got Mine

Eagles – Take it Easy

La Roux – Bulletproof

Def Leppard – Nine Lives

Weezer – Island in the Sun

Coldplay – Viva la Vida

Maroon 5 – This Love

Keane – Somewhere Only We Know

Tears for Fears – Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus

Guns ‘n’ Roses – Better

The Shins – Simple Song

Green Day – Brain Stew

Foster the People – Coming of Age

Steely Dan – Cousin Dupree

Of course, to truly enjoy the radio station experience, you can’t simply add these songs to a Spotify playlist – you have to simulate heavy-to-light rotation.  To do this, you’ll need a regular mp3 player.  I’ve color-coded the song titles to make it easy to determine how many copies of each song to place in the file folder:

            Green = 5 times

            White = 4 times

            Red = 3 times

            Blue = 2 times

            Gold = 1 time

Once you’ve done this, set the player to “shuffle”.  You’ll have approximately 20 hours of music, which is the equivalent of about three hours of “radio” per day for a week.  We’ll need to do this again every week from now until the end of time.

Damn, I miss Casey Kasem.