Hot 100 Debuts - October 1982

Forty songs made their debut on the Hot 100 during October 1982, another 5 week chart period.  Go ahead count the songs in the chart below.  What's that?  You counted forty-one songs? Well, count them again.  Still forty-one?  Huh.  HERC counted forty-one songs as well.  What gives?

Back on the April 24th chart, Patti Austin's duet with James Ingram "Baby, Come To Me" debuted at number 81 on the Hot 100 and over the course of a short four week run, peaked at number 73.  The song was in its fifth week and rising on the Hot Soul Singles chart at number 45 in the April 24th issue of Billboard.  By May 29th, "Baby, Come To Me" had lost all of its upward momentum, stalling at number 37 before taking a fifty-four position tumble down the Hot Soul Singles chart, crashing at number 91 before completely falling off the chart two weeks later.  Then a a funny thing happened. Jill Phelps, music director of ABC's red hot soap General Hospital, began using the song in the ongoing saga of characters Luke and Laura Holly in the Fall of 1982 and suddenly viewers wanted to hear the song on the radio. 

Qwest Records rush re-released "Baby, Come To Me", later buying the prominent lower fifth of the cover of the December 11th issue of Billboard to further promote the single as well as the parent album (above) and it debuted yet again on the October 16th Hot 100 at number 91 and on the October 30th Black Singles (the new name of the Hot Soul Singles chart) chart at number 84 though it did not ever debut on the Adult Contemporary chart, where it fit the format like a glove, until November 20th.  The song eventually topped both the AC and the Hot 100 charts in early 1983 while peaking at number 9 on the Black Singles chart the second time around.  So, although it is listed in the chart below, the song had already debuted, which by definition can only happen once.

Hot 100 debut	debut pos		title	artist
10/2/1982	61	*	Muscles	Diana Ross	193
10/2/1982	70		State Of Independence	Donna Summer	125
10/2/1982	72	*	Get Closer	Linda Ronstadt	150
10/2/1982	75		Tug Of War	Paul McCartney	101
10/2/1982	80		Right Here And Now	Bill Medley	91
10/2/1982	81	*	So Much In Love	Timothy B. Schmit	88
10/2/1982	84	*	Everybody Wants You	Billy Squier	144
10/2/1982	85	*	Destination Unknown	Missing Persons	124
10/2/1982	87		Electricland	Bad Company	56
10/2/1982	90	*	Rock The Casbah	The Clash	194
					127
10/9/1982	56	*	I.G.Y. (What A Beautiful World)	Donald Fagen	157
10/9/1982	60	*	Truly	Lionel Richie	211
10/9/1982	68		Heartbreaker	Dionne Warwick	190
10/9/1982	72		Missing You	Dan Fogelberg	164
10/9/1982	73		Be My Lady	Jefferson Starship	153
10/9/1982	74		The Only Way Out	Cliff Richard	79
10/9/1982	81	*	She’s Tight	Cheap Trick	77
10/9/1982	83	*	Shakin’	Eddie Money	80
10/9/1982	90	*	You And I	Eddie Rabbitt with Crystal Gayle	199
10/9/1982	92	*	777-9311	The Time	28
					134
10/16/1982	65	*	Maneater	Hall & Oates	214
10/16/1982	69	*	Shadows Of The Night	Pat Benatar	184
10/16/1982	78		Cool Magic	Steve Miller Band	93
10/16/1982	79		A Love Song	Kenny Rogers	114
10/16/1982	84	*	The Message	Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five...	82
10/16/1982	86		Attack Of The Name Game	Stacy Lattisaw	66
10/16/1982	90	*	Talk Talk	Talk Talk	56
10/16/1982	91		Baby, Come To Me	Patti Austin with James Ingram	210
					127
10/23/1982	76		Whatcha Gonna Do	Chilliwack	127
10/23/1982	80	*	Shock The Monkey	Peter Gabriel	148
10/23/1982	83		Tough World	Donnie Iris	90
					122
10/30/1982	31	*	It’s Raining Again	Supertramp	187
10/30/1982	73	*	Dirty Laundry	Don Henley	205
10/30/1982	75	*	Africa	Toto	207
10/30/1982	76		Used To Be	Charlene and Stevie Wonder	116
10/30/1982	78	*	Sexual Healing	Marvin Gaye	204
10/30/1982	79	*	Let’s Go Dancin’ (Ooh La, La, La)	Kool & The Gang	147
10/30/1982	81	*	1999	Prince	120
10/30/1982	84	*	Stand Or Fall	The Fixx	55
10/30/1982	86		I Wouldn’t Beg For Water	Sheena Easton	79
10/30/1982	90	*	Bad Boy/Having A Party	Luther Vandross	99
					142

The fifth week of the month, the week of October 30th, featured the debut of three eventual Top Three songs, including the Number One hit "Africa" earning it a weekly average of 142, high for the month.  Another song released that same week would have a fate similar to "Baby, Come To Me" but instead of one chart resurrection, it enjoyed two!

Prince's "1999" was released as the first single from his double album of the same name in September 1982.  It first charted on the Black Singles chart at number 36 on October 16th.  The seven-inch single also debuted on the Dance/Disco 80 chart on October 23rd at number 60.  A week later, the heavily edited down from the more than six minute album version single debuted on the Hot 100 at number 81.  "1999" spent nineteen weeks on the Black Singles chart, peaking at number 4 the week before Christmas 1982.  Over on the Dance/Disco chart, the song logged twenty-two weeks including two weeks at Number One beginning December 4th.  On December 11th, the song reached it's peak on the Hot 100 at number 44.  It had spent six weeks climbing to that position and then spent another six weeks falling off the chart.  Then two things happened: Prince's music video for "1999" was played regularly on MTV and his label released "Little Red Corvette" as his next single along with an accompanying video.  The "1999" video is credited with giving many viewers their first taste of Prince's talents and paving the way for Michael Jackson on MTV.

The new single debuted on the Hot 100 at number 66 the week of February 26, 1983 and on March 2, 1983 the music videos for "Little Red Corvette" and Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" were added to MTV's rotation while "1999" was bumped up from Light Rotation (1-2 plays per day) to Medium Rotation (2-3 plays per day).  The week of March 12th, "Little Red Corvette" premiered on Black Singles chart at number 70.  A month later, the song would scrape the Dance/Disco chart going no higher than number 61 and a month after that, in May 1983, "Little Red Corvette" made the rock radio Top Tracks chart, topping out at number 17 in a five week run. The crossover popularity of the single motivated label execs to re-release "1999" once again.  It re-entered the Hot 100 at number 70 the week of June 4th, 1983 and peaked at number 12 on July 23rd before leaving the chart a second time on September 10th with "Delirious", the third single from the 1999 album, climbing the chart in just it's second week. And the third Hot 100 re-entry of "1999" occurred after weeks of radio play and sales in late 1998 in anticipation of the new year.  So much so that the song jumped on the Hot R&B Singles chart at number 45 and the Hot 100 chart at number 40 in the issue dated January 16, 1999.  By the next weekly issue, the song had vanished from both charts.

As seen above, Billboard had established a re-entry protocol to its Hot 100 chart methodology sometime before 1999.