CHART FLASHBACK: The Complete Top 40 Hits of 1983

How many songs reached the Top 40 in 1983?

Brandon Hixson aka YouTube user BillboardTopHits1980 recently posted his unique countdown of every song to reach the Top 40 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart in 1983. Rather than ranking them by peak position, he ranks them by total weeks spent within the Top 40 which leads to some surprising results. Brandon's Casey Kasem Top 40-style countdown offers trivia and pertinent chart info for each song as well as video clips for most. For HERC it plays like a wonderful, extended version of Casey's TV show, America's Top 10.

In the time it takes to listen to an 80 minute CD, Brandon has managed to fit 223 song clips across four separate videos which are presented countdown style, starting with the video at the top of this post and concluding with the video at the bottom of this post. HERC will be featuring Brandon's masterwork the Top 40's from 1982 - the single best year in music EVER - in a future Chart Flashback post.

This post is dedicated to several friends of HERC who swear that 1983 was one of the best years in music, including blog buddy Martin Maenza. He reviews a different album each day on his blog, Martin's View. Martin's emphasis in 2013 is on albums celebrating their 30th anniversary although he has reviewed many others, both older and newer. By HERC's count, Mr. Maenza has posted nearly 800 reviews and has been posting daily album reviews since the end of January 2011.

The video directly above represents the final stretch of the countdown including the surprise #1. HERC had no clue what that song would be as he watched all of his possible picks fall by the wayside but here a few clues if you haven't watched it yet:

• the #1 song is a duet between a man and a woman, the first duet either of them had recorded and it reached #1 on Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart in December 1982 for one week while holding down the #2 position on the Adult Contemporary chart for five weeks;
• it peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is ranked by Joel Whitburn as the 58th biggest chart hit of the year in his 2005 book, The Billboard Hot 100 Annual;
• Fred Bronson, using those same Billboard Hot 100 charts as Joel and Brandon, puts the song at #37 on his Top 100 of 1983 and #1953 in his Top 5000 Songs of the Rock Era in his 2007 book, Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits;
• Glee featured this song in a mash-up with an identically titled song

The Spotify playlist below features 88% of the songs from today's Chart Flashback. Let HERC know in the comments what you thought of this post and what you'd like to see here on The Hideaway - constructive criticism, helpful hints and grammar corrections are always welcome.