Record World Annual Award - 1970

[jobeterob]

I was wondering why the discrepancy from the 1970 publication showing Diana as #1 Female vocalist for 1970 and the Billboard Singles book published in 2000 showing Aretha as #1.

Most likely their point system changed. Diana had 3 releases and a #1 hit in 1970, her 3 releases were on the charts for a total of 33 weeks. Freda had 2 releases and a #3 hit, her singles charting for a total of 31 weeks; Aretha had 4 releases but none in the Top 10, her singles charting for a total of 37 weeks.

So it seems the ranking in 1970 was based on the highest chart number achieved followed by number of weeks all records charted. The 2000 publication states that ranking was based solely on points for highest charted position. In the case of a tie then ranking was based on: most charted singles, followed by most Top 40 hits, followed by most Top 10 hits. So Diana and Aretha possibly tied and Aretha having 4 singles to Diana's 3 broke the tie. [I did not try to figure out the point values and just reached a conclusion based on the information. No deep dive here. The 2000 publication only provides the #1 artist so I'm guessing Diana was possibly #2.]

I’m not an expert and have not researched this again.

But they formerly used a reverse system where #100 got one point and #1 gets 100 points plus I believe #1 got a 100 point bonus

Also for the year end issue, there was a cut off date of about the end of November, and for the books, they could use the whole year

That may account for some of the differences

[johnjeb]

I’m not an expert and have not researched this again.

But they formerly used a reverse system where #100 got one point and #1 gets 100 points plus I believe #1 got a 100 point bonus

Also for the year end issue, there was a cut off date of about the end of November, and for the books, they could use the whole year

That may account for some of the differences

Yes, I remember that point system. I used to get annoyed when the year-end rankings were based on an early cut-off date. I understood they wanted to have a year-end issue, but I would have preferred they waited until the end of January to tally and rank. However, I suppose songs released in December would suffer the same fate of not having a true reporting of charting.

The point system for the Billboard Singles book that I have is not as straightforward as you mention. For instance a song at #1 gets 100 points and then an additional 10 points for each week at that position. Similar for songs at #2 and #3, with 9 and 8 points, respectively. If I have time later today I will try to list the point system used in that book and maybe compare it to the point sytems used in similar Billboard books from earlier years.

I imagine some liberties are taken for songs that are released near the end of the year and have favorable charting positions into the next year. One example I noticed is that my Billboard Pop Annual lists Come See About Me as #1 for 2 weeks in 1964 at #13, rather than 1 week, which probably would have had it ranked in the high teens or low twenties, and no mention of it at #1 for 1 week in 1965 [January 16th issue].