Hot 100 Debuts - April 1982

While thumbing through his well-worn copy of Billboard Hot 100 Charts - The Eighties, HERC's wandering attention began to focus on the weekly debuts of 1982, and as he looked at the new songs that appeared each week, he began rating each week as if it were a college sport recruiting class with its future performance already recorded.  If you know HERC, you know he loves deriving new numbers out of other numbers. (Top 40 Index? K-Tel Scale?)  Soon the abacus and the slide rule were out as a mathematical formula was hammered into shape that would actually assign a number to each song based on six variables involving chart positions and weeks charted.  Here's how April 1982's Hot 100 Debuts broke down:

Hot 100 debut	debut pos		title	artist
4/3/1982	65		Run For The Roses	Dan Fogelberg	172
4/3/1982	66	*	It's Gonna Take A Miracle	Deniece Williams	189
4/3/1982	67		Wake Up Little Susie	Simon & Garfunkel	151
4/3/1982	69	*	Man On Your Mind	Little River Band	182
4/3/1982	75		When He Shines	Sheena Easton	148
4/3/1982	80		Baby Step Back	Gordon Lightfoot	105
4/3/1982	82		You Got The Power	War	74
4/3/1982	83	*	If It Ain't One Thing... It's Another	Richard "Dimples" Fields	112
4/3/1982	85		Just To Satisfy You	Waylon & Willie	101
4/3/1982	86		Finally	T.G. Sheppard	89
4/3/1982	87	*	Right The First Time	Gamma	50
4/3/1982	89	*	Without You (Not Another Lonely Night)	Franke & the Knockouts	159
4/3/1982	90		Teach Me Tonight	Al Jarreau	66
					123
4/10/1982	29		Ebony & Ivory	Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder	214
4/10/1982	73		Work That Body	Diana Ross	117
4/10/1982	79	*	When It's Over	Loverboy	156
4/10/1982	82		A Night To Remember	Shalamar	117
4/10/1982	87	*	Secret Journey	The Police	113
4/10/1982	88		Loving You	Chris Rea	29
4/10/1982	89		I Don't Know Where To Start	Eddie Rabbitt	136
4/10/1982	90	*	Murphy's Law	Cheri	128
					126
4/17/1982	68	*	Heat Of The Moment	Asia	202
4/17/1982	81	*	Rosanna	Toto	210
4/17/1982	83		Cat People (Putting Out Fire)	David Bowie	75
4/17/1982	85		Turn on Your Radar	Prism	78
4/17/1982	86		Friends In Love	Dionne Warwick & Johnny Mathis	132
4/17/1982	90		Old Fashioned Love	Smokey Robinson	85
4/17/1982	92		Sing A Simple Song	West Street Mob	26
4/17/1982	95	*	The Visitors	ABBA	79
					111
4/24/1982	81	*	Baby Come To Me	Patti Austin	58
4/24/1982	82	*	Hurts So Good	John Cougar	211
4/24/1982	83		Beechwood 4-5789	Carpenters	56
4/24/1982	84	*	How Long	Rod Stewart	109
4/24/1982	85	*	Stone Cold	Rainbow	126
4/24/1982	88	*	Let It Whip	Dazz Band	203
4/24/1982	90	*	Only The Lonely	The Motels	195
					137

The asterisks next to the titles indicate the song will be appearing on HERC's Favorite Songs Of 1982 List.  One of those songs is HERC's underdog pick of the month: the low charting (and low scoring) "Right The First Time" by Gamma. The song debuted on the Top Tracks chart a full month prior and eventually spent 14 weeks, peaking at #10.  Crossing over to the Hot 100, "Right The First Time" peaked at #77 in a brief five week run.  HERC loved it back then and he still loves it today.

Now that we're a third of the way through the greatest year in music history, HERC (like some of you viewers who have emailed) was curious what the Top 3 Weeks and Top 10 Songs were so far.  Turns out the Top 3 Weeks all occurred within the first six weeks of the year: 

1. January 16    162
2. January  9     156
3. February 13  143

The Top 10 Songs are fairly well spaced out amongst the weeks and months yet only nine points separates the highest scoring song from the tenth highest scoring song.  And there are four different ties between songs in the Top 10 which necessitated the creation of a tie-breaker protocol.  HERC came up with four levels of tie-breaking but only needed the first level - lowest debut position - to break each of the four ties.  It is also interesting to note that all ten songs peaked in the Top 3 on Billboard's Hot 100.

	Hot 100 debut	debut pos		title	artist
1	2/6/1982	63	*	I Love Rock N Roll	Joan Jett & the Blackhearts	214
2	4/10/1982	29		Ebony & Ivory	Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder	214
3	3/6/1982	86	*	Don't You Want Me	Human League	211
4	4/24/1982	82	*	Hurts So Good	John Cougar	211
5	4/17/1982	81	*	Rosanna	Toto	210
6	1/16/1982	57	*	Open Arms	Journey	210
7	3/6/1982	57	*	Don't Talk to Strangers	Rick Springfield	208
8	1/30/1982	79	*	We Got The Beat	The Go-Go's	207
9	1/16/1982	72	*	That Girl	Stevie Wonder	207
10	3/6/1982	84		I've Never Been To Me	Charlene	205