Hot 100 Debuts - May 1982

We're six weeks into 2015 and five months into 1982 and HERC has almost finished working up the last seven months of 1982, ranking each song as it debuts on the Hot 100 as well as each week's group of debuts to determine the top ranked songs as well as the strongest weeks single-wise based on six chart factors.  (See previous Hot 100 Debuts posts for more details.)  HERC is actually consulting two Record Research books to gather all of the data needed for his computations:

May 1982 saw the publication of five Hot 100 charts, more than any previous month in 1982.  As a result, there was also a record number of debuts during the month: 47.  HERC will be including 29 of those singles - all marked by asterisk on the chart below - on his Most Favorite Songs Of 1982 list which will be published shortly after he runs down and reviews the Hot 100 Debuts of December 1982 on April 1st, 2015.  Here are those 47 singles:

Hot 100 debut	debut pos		title	artist
5/1/1982	63	*	Crimson And Clover	Joan Jett & The Blackhearts	196
5/1/1982	78	*	Body Language	Queen	187
5/1/1982	79	*	Personally	Karla Bonoff	168
5/1/1982	81	*	Any Day Now	Ronnie Milsap	180
5/1/1982	82	*	Caught Up In You	38 Special	190
5/1/1982	83		Fool For Your Love	Jimmy Hall	50
5/1/1982	86	*	Just Another Day In Paradise	Bertie Higgins	114
5/1/1982	87		Put Away Your Love	Alessi	61
5/1/1982	90	*	Forget Me Nots	Patrice Rushen	163
					145
5/8/1982	70	*	Love’s Been A Little Bit Hard On Me	Juice Newton	196
5/8/1982	78	*	Play The Game Tonight	Kansas	175
5/8/1982	82		Standing On The Top Part 1	The Temptations feat. Rick James	74
5/8/1982	84	*	I Know What Boys Like	The Waitresses	81
5/8/1982	98		Hooked On Big Bands	Frank Barber Orchestra	86
					122
5/15/1982	70	*	Break It Up	Foreigner	157
5/15/1982	71		This Man Is Mine	Heart	142
5/15/1982	73		After The Glitter Fades	Stevie Nicks	142
5/15/1982	79	*	Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do	Huey Lewis and the News	135
5/15/1982	83		Piece Of My Heart	Sammy Hagar	58
5/15/1982	85		Dreamin’	John Schneider	116
5/15/1982	86	*	I Predict	Sparks	85
5/15/1982	87	*	Back To School Again	Four Tops	64
5/15/1982	88		Fly Away	Stevie Woods	35
5/15/1982	89	*	Love Plus One	Haircut One Hundred	133
					107
5/22/1982	69	*	Take Me Down	Alabama	173
5/22/1982	72	*	Still They Ride	Journey	170
5/22/1982	73		Be Mine Tonight	Neil Diamond	137
5/22/1982	74	*	Dancing In The Street	Van Halen	131
5/22/1982	76	*	You Should Hear How She Talks About You	Melissa Manchester	200
5/22/1982	81		I’ll Find My Way Home	Jon and Vangelis	104
5/22/1982	83	*	Early In The Morning	The Gap Band	159
5/22/1982	86		Happy Man	Greg Kihn Band	81
5/22/1982	87	*	Angel In Blue	J. Geils Band	127
5/22/1982	88	*	Kids In America	Kim Wilde	158
5/22/1982	89	*	Nice Girls	Eye To Eye	132
5/22/1982	90		If The Love Fits Wear It	Leslie Pearl	150
					144
5/29/1982	52	*	Do I Do	Stevie Wonder	184
5/29/1982	66		Island Of Lost Souls	Blondie	133
5/29/1982	75	*	Abracadabra	Steve Miller Band	211
5/29/1982	80	*	What Do All The People Know	The Monroes	87
5/29/1982	82	*	Right Kind Of Love	Quarterflash	93
5/29/1982	83		Dance Wit’ Me (Part 1)	Rick James	80
5/29/1982	84		The Very Best In You	Change	39
5/29/1982	85	*	I Want Candy	Bow Wow Wow	80
5/29/1982	86		Route 66	Manhattan Transfer	49
5/29/1982	87		The Last Safe Place On Earth	Le Roux	51
5/29/1982	88	*	Cutie Pie	One Way	84
					99

The song from the month with the most points is also the only song that eventually peaked at #1 from May 1982's Freshmen Class: Steve Miller Band's "Abracadabra".  The highest rated week was Week One by one point over Week Four.  Next week, HERC will feature the Hot 100 Debuts from June 1982 and update the leader board through the first half of 1982.

May 1982 is when CBS began testing its 99 cents one-sided 45 concept with four songs in four retailers in four cities: New York City, Washington D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Three of those singles saw their conventional two sided 45 counterparts debut in May 1982:

• "Personally" - Karla Bonoff
• "Fool For Your Love" - Jimmy Hall
• "Still They Ride" - Journey

The test went wider in September 1982 and again in early 1983 with more cities, more retailers, different prices and more titles before CBS packed their little experiment in, creating instant collectibles.  One notable difference: the original four titles tested had the standard, larger 45-sized hole in the center while the following waves of titles have the smaller album-sized center hole (below).  On a recent trip to his recently re-opened local record emporium, HERC found two of the special sleeves (also below) with regular two-sided records in them.  He bought one out of curiosity anyway.

And that fourth single from the original batch?  Billboard editors pegged it as Chartbound in the May 1, 1982 issue and ninety-nine out of a hundred times, those singles tagged as Chartbound show up on the Hot 100 the following week.  Instead, this Philadelphia International Records release by an established, chart-topping act debuted at #104 on the Bubbling Under chart for May 8.  The next week it climbed up to #101 before falling to #102 the following week and back to where it started at #104 in just its fourth and final week on the chart.  Though it failed to crack the Hot 100, the single became the group's thirtieth Top 40 hit on the R&B charts. The single was "I Just Want To Satisfy" by the O'Jays.