                 Off the Record: News ArchiveFabulous 40!03-Feb-2010 "Your research is done. Now what? Are you going to get a real job?" Those were common comments I heard after I first published my research of Billboard magazine's pop singles chart as a book titled Record Research, back in 1970. The majority of the research project had consumed the better part of five years of nights and weekends, while I worked as a salesman for Campbell's soup during the day. In order to focus my attention on finishing and selling the book, I quit my 9-5 -- pretty risky for a man with a family and a mortgage. It's a move I advise with great caution and one that's certain to draw the well-meaning comments of others. Absolutely thrilled when I was able to draw a very modest income, 40 years of continuing this labor of love would have been too great a dream. In those early years, I was fortunate to have the meticulous research assistance of my retired parents, from whom I got my passion for detail and documentation. It was not until my third year of full-time research when it looked as if this business of Record Researching turned a corner. I was able to hire a part-time employee, then a full-time hire, and so on. Over the decades, I've been very proud of the individuals who have chosen to be part of the Record Research staff. They are and have been my extended family. My staff of today have been around for decades: Paul Haney and Jeanne Olynick for over two, Brent Olynick (brother-in-law to Jeanne, not husband) for more than three, and my daughter, Kim, since she was able to sort records and zip codes. And, for the duration, my wife, Fran, who has been my biggest and most loyal support. Of course, turning 40 would not have been possible without the enduring support of music history lovers, like you. Getting to hear from those who also share 'a heart for the charts' has been one of the greatest encouragements of this business. Thank You! Today, I'm very excited about the four new products that we're releasing this year: Top Pop Albums 1955-2009 book, The Tracks Of The Top Pop Albums 1955-2009 DVD-ROM, The Billboard Hot 100 Charts - The 2000s limited edition book, and The Billboard Hot 100 Charts - The 2000s DVD-ROM. So, when am I going to get a real job? Not likely, any time soon! Time to get back to the research.... Joel Whitburn
Back to 'Out Of The Vault'The 12th Top Pop & The 1st Cream Of The Pop24-Oct-2009 Always a great highlight of my year is the release of an updated Top Pop Singles book. Though it is my labor of love, this business of music researching carries all of the challenges of what it takes to make a living in our increasingly harsh economy. So, the recent release of the 12th edition of my Top Pop Singles book has been especially significant. It's always been my favorite project. I love the "Hot 100" chart. Since its inception in 1958, I have faithfully followed it each and every week, getting every new entry. My early research of the chart became this book's first edition, titled Record Research, and was the beginning of my business. Having published 11 editions prior, I put everything I could into the current edition: all the Bubbling Under hits, rock 'n' roll on the EP charts, and more classic titles. The end result: I believe that this is the most useful and best book that I've ever published. And, I so appreciate the comments that many of you dear readers have shared with me about the book. It's great to know that there are others who recognize the effort involved in such a project and also love the end result. I am grateful to Billboard for allowing me to be their longest-running licensee. This is our 40th year in business! Recently, they picked my new Top Pop Singles as a prize for their online sweepstakes! In conjunction, the book went on sale for 40% off. I had been planning a 40%-off sale for Record Research's 40th anniversary. The Billboard.com sweepstakes prompted a much earlier start for the sale. So, in time for holiday gift-giving comes our biggest sale ever: 40% off of 10 books and three DVD-Roms! There's no time to rest on our laurels in this business. The industries in which we are a part of -- book publishing, information seeking and music -- have been transforming rapidly. How people read their books, find data, and listen to and purchase music are changing like no other time before; just ask the owners of book stores and record shops, and the publishers of printed encyclopedias. Spanning all of these worlds, we need to adjust as well, in order to make a living 'record researching.' As many of you know, an update to my Top Pop Albums book (aka The Billboard Albums) is in the works. The sheer size of an updated version containing all of the cuts renders it too big to fit in one book. Printing and shipping the book in two volumes would enormously increase expenses, thus resulting in low book sales that would not meet costs. Printing a separate book devoted only to cuts also proved to be too expensive. The results of the survey to our email subscribers told me that you still wanted all of the cuts but you didn't want to pay too much. So, to give you all of the information that you want at a reasonable price, we decided to print the Albums book, spanning 1955-2009, and include the Bubbling Under albums (which did not increase print size much), but it would not include the cuts in the printed edition. Sealed within the book's cover will be a DVD-rom containing all of the album cuts, listed by artist. Though this would not be our first publishing choice, it is the only possible solution that is affordable for us and for you. Look for this new edition in 2010! Right now, I am working on a very fun project that I've called The Cream Of The Pop. The idea behind this project is that each book will cover one decade of every song and artist that made the Top 10 of the pop singles charts. It is a very visual project displaying original advertisements, sheet music and picture sleeves for certain hits. I'm having a great time paging through my archive of Billboard magazines looking for these great visuals. They really bring the past alive! The first book will cover the entire decade of the 1950s - no split between the beginning of the rock era in 1955! This will also be the first project that I will show the B-side and the songwriter together for each song. It is a simple A-Z artist-by-artist listing, showing just the hits, very clean -- no bios or trivia. I hope to keep the cost for this project below $10. I would love to show the colorful and exciting full-page ads I've found. So, I am considering releasing it as an e-book and on DVD-Rom. Electronic publishing also opens up the option to us for publishing our other books, including our out-of-print publications like Pop Memories. Please send me a comment with your thoughts as to e-books and Cream Of The Pop. Thanks for reading! Joel Back to 'Out Of The Vault'Looking ahead...21-May-2009 Summer's calling but there's little relaxing around here. We've been busier than ever adjusting to the rapidly changing worlds of music, information and publishing. We have several projects lined up and, as usual, we are re-evaluating the content and presentation of each. The DVD-Rom for the Hot 100 Charts - The Eighties is in! Already the work has begun on scanning the charts for the next DVD-Rom The Hot 100 Charts - The Nineties. Look for it in a couple of months! Right now, the project I'm tirelessly working on is the 12th edition of the Top Pop Singles 1955-2008 book. I love it with the inclusion of everything that hit the "Bubbling Under the Hot 100" chart. I've also added to the bottom of chart discographies the rock and roll EPs that made Billboard's EP's chart from 1957-60, a short-lived chart that captured the heyday of the vinyl Extended Play single. I believe that this will be my most thorough Top Pop Singles ever! The next big project after that will be the revision of The Billboard Albums book. In just adding four year's worth of recent albums and their cuts, we will far exceed our printer's page size specifications for a single volume. We are currently exploring various options. We sent out a survey to all readers who signed up for our email newsletter. If you did not yet take the survey, you can access it by a link on our home page. I am very interested in your vote; I read every comment and so very much appreciate your input. Thanks for your interest and enjoy your summer (or winter for our friends in the southern hemisphere)! Joel Whitburn Back to 'Out Of The Vault'The MusicVault Is Now Online!19-Jan-2009 At last! I am so pleased to announce that my music database is now online! I know from your comments to this site that many of you have waited patiently for this to be a reality. For more than 11 years, this interactive site has been in the works -- securing the rights, planning the site, programming, programming, more programming, and testing! Now you can have access to my lifetime's work - nearly 45 years of continual research. This is my blood, sweat and tears, as well as those of my dedicated employees over the past 39 years. MusicVault is a master compilation of all of my major books, so its been quite a project to present this mountain of data in an easily accessible, user-friendly way. You can instantly access all of the charted songs and albums of every charted artist on all the major charts or on a specific chart of your choosing! And then, sort them by debut date or peak date or peak position or peak weeks or total weeks charted or title (A-side or B-side) or recording label & number or RIAA certifications. The MusicVault provides the biographies from our books, as well as a charted hit's songwriter(s), where available. When you enter a year into the singles search bar, you'll get all the charted hits of that year. For example, if, today, you searched by "2009," you would see that 88 songs have hit the singles charts to date. Enter a record label in the search bar to see all of that label's charted titles! You can narrow your search by specific chart. Search for specific words, titles, artists, etc., thoughout all charted singles and all charted albums. MusicVault pre-dates the Billboard charts by 50 years, with the data from my now-out-of-print Pop Memories 1890-1954 book. You will have at your fingertips data on everything from the wax cylinder recordings of 1890 to today's downloads. The MusicVault covers the complete history of America’s popular music in songs and albums from Pop, Country, R&B, Rock and Adult Contemporary. And it is the up-to-date online version of my following books:
You can now customize the data in my books to your preferences! Unlock the exclusive weekly updated data of the MusicVault with the purchase of credits. Each credit equals one search or sort. Get 5 FREE credits to check out the MusicVault. Access up-to-date information instantly - no shipping fees or waiting for a package to arrive! And, there are no ads! MusicVault is solid information from one side of your screen to the other! This is our second attempt to bring our database online. The first attempt was a rudimentary site that was subscription-based. Unfortunately, we did not even break even to cover the energy, effort and expense of that site. The subscription model was sorely abused by those that shared their passwords and others that logged and got vast amounts of information for their own work and profit. We were providing at a minimal cost the raw materials for the intensive hobby and work of others. It was impossible to justify the site, as I have spent a fortune over the years (and I'm no millionaire) in paying Billboard royalties to compile data from their charts, purchasing the every issue of the magazine, buying records, paying employees, buying the raw materials, etc. The subscription method allowed many others to copy and upload the data. I was giving away the work for which I had heavily invested. I am hoping that if the MusicVault eventually pays for itself, we will be able to further our programming by adding the photos of our pop singles collection back to 1940, as well as sound snippets of the songs! There is so much more that I wish to add to the site. We will continue to make refinements and weekly update the site. Stay in tune with the additions and news of the MusicVault plus exclusive sales by joining our email subscriber list. I hope that this is just the beginning of the story. Back to 'Out Of The Vault'Top Pop Treasures25-Sep-2008 When was the last time that you heard Annette or Jack Scott on oldies radio? If you were listening to radio in 1960, you?d remember that their songs were frequently played. The term ?oldies? has become limited to a few hundred songs, when, in fact, there are tens of thousands of great tunes from years past. I was discussing this sad fact with a friend who shares my passion for all genres of music, across all generations. The result of that conversation was the recently released CD series Top Pop Treasures on Curb Records. (Did I mention that this particular friend is Mike Curb?) I LOVE this five-CD series! Top Pop Treasures contains radio?s long-forgotten musical gems. These are songs that you will instantly recognize but may not have heard for decades. None of the songs in this series were in the Top 10 of Billboard's "Hot 100" chart. And, each CD of 10 songs typically sells for less than $6! All are the original versions and sound amazingly crisp and clear, many in real stereo. I love how the castanets sound on ?Gypsy Woman? by The Impressions on the 1961 volume. Find the Top Pop Treasures CD series and you'll enjoy the unforgettable tracks listed below.
Top Pop Treasures 1958
Top Pop Treasures 1959
Top Pop Treasures 1960
Top Pop Treasures 1961
Top Pop Treasures 1962
Back to 'Out Of The Vault'Goodbye Summer, Goodbye Brett, Hello Fall25-Aug-2008 Where did summer go? I remember as a kid, my dad would take his four weeks of vacation from the electric company and our family would spend the whole month of July at beautiful Long Lake in Waushara County. Those glorious summer days seemed to linger forever. Now, July seems to fly by faster and faster every year. As the days grow shorter, I'm feeling the same melancholy as my six-year-old grandson about returning to school after a long vacation. Summer's end found this Packers' fan hoping for a a hello but actually saying goodbye to Brett Favre. I've heard that the New York Jets fans can be fickle, so I don't want to hear booing of our favorite #4, at any time - even in the case of a rare interception. Our loss will most certainly be your gain! There's yet another football team I'll be rooting for: the St. Louis Rams. My granddaughter has been working as an Athletic Training intern with the Rams' training camp. It's been an exciting time for her and for us! Go Packers! Go Jets! Go Rams! I'm counting on our Milwaukee Brewers to still be playing in October in the World Series. Cy Young Award winner C.C. Sabathia has been an outstanding addition to our team! Home games at Miller Park are setting attendance records. It's been a blast! Back at the office, we're hard at work on a brand new edition of Hot Country Songs. Many of you will be glad to know that the B-sides are returning with this edition along with many exciting new features. Look for the publication of this comprehensive volume in November. It will be our best Country book ever! I'm coming to the end of downloading all the "Bubbling Under The Hot 100" records. Just today, I ordered several new turntable stylus' that will help in finishing this enormous project. From a fellow music fan -- have a great Fall season, Joel P.S. Following are some end of summer songs: Back to 'Out Of The Vault'Back to 'Out Of The Vault'
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