Thursday, 16 March 2023

Quickest Falls from #1

This week's random retro countdown on SiriusXM was from December 1972, and Casey Kasem read a letter about fastest and slowest falls from #1.  At that point, The Rascals' "Groovin'" had the record for the quickest drop off the chart with "Groovin'" which fell 1 to 2 to 9 to 38 and then off.

In the next few years to follow, this dubious record was tied by Billy Preston's "Nothing from Nothing", which fell 1-15-39-72-off, Andy Kim's "Rock Me Gently", which fell 1-12-32-48-off, and Freddy Fender's "Before the Next Teardrop Falls", which fell 1-7-19-44-off.  Preston's record was the long-standing record holder for biggest drop from #1.

Casey made no qualifications about seasonal records, so I was surprised the answer wasn't "The Chipmunk Song" which spent 4 weeks at #1 over the 1958 Christmas season, but overall charted for 13 weeks, 6 of which were after it was #1.

The current record holder will be the all-time record holder, since no one can do more than tie... Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" in the 2019 Christmas season hit #1 (a record 25 years after its release), and when Christmas was over, it fell from #1 all the way off the charts.  Due to the timing of when Christmas Day falls in a given official chart week, in subsequent years she has actually stayed on the chart for an extra week .

Given the extraordinarily slow falls most records take, I doubt any non-seasonal records will even match the Rascal's achievement.  I looked up "Harlem Shake" and even that spent 9 weeks on the chart following the peak of the meme.

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