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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1534 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 24, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I don't think your Pink Floyd comparison works but we already do value Neil Diamond over the Rolling Stones except as a cultural icon.

Helen Reddy had 19 chart hits in the 1970s that spent a cumulative 245 weeks on the Hot 100. Barry Manilow had 15 hits that spent 233 weeks on the charts. Pink Floyd had 2 chart hits in the 70s. As far as total weeks are concerned, that's not in my source since they're not in the top 100 of 70s artists, so I consulted AI and got contradictory results. DeepSeek confidently tells me that:

Pink Floyd had several songs chart on the Billboard Hot 100 during the 1970s, but their cumulative weeks on the chart were relatively modest compared to some other artists of the era. Here are the songs that charted and their respective weeks on the Hot 100:

  1. "Money" (1973) - 13 weeks
  2. "Us and Them" (1973) - 1 week
  3. "Time" (1973) - 1 week
  4. "Have a Cigar" (1975) - 4 weeks
  5. "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)" (1979) - 23 weeks (though this song peaked in early 1980, it spent most of its chart run in 1979)

Adding these up:

  • "Money": 13 weeks
  • "Us and Them": 1 week
  • "Time": 1 week
  • "Have a Cigar": 4 weeks
  • "Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)": 23 weeks

Total cumulative weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in the 1970s: 42 weeks.

Note: The exact number may vary slightly depending on the specific chart data source, but this is a close approximation.

ChatGPT was more circumspect:

During the 1970s, Pink Floyd had limited presence on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Their song "Money," released in 1973 from the album The Dark Side of the Moon, reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, specific data regarding the total number of weeks "Money" remained on the Hot 100 during the 1970s is not readily available. It's worth noting that "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II" became a number-one hit, but it was released in late 1979 and achieved its peak chart position in 1980. Therefore, its chart duration primarily falls outside the 1970s. Overall, Pink Floyd's presence on the Billboard Hot 100 during the 1970s was minimal, with "Money" being their primary entry.

Gemini's response was similar to that of ChatGTP, except with the added caveat that "To get the precise number, you would need to consult detailed Billboard chart archives".

To be clear, DeepSeek was clearly the worst of these in that it confidently gave an incorrect answer. The other two gave technically correct responses that nonetheless don't qualify as answers. Pink Floyd only had one chart hit in the 1970s, "Money" which spent 15 weeks on the chart between 5/19/1973 and 7/28/1973, peaking at No. 13. While "Another Brick in the Wall was released in 1979, it wasn't released until November 30, and it did not debut on the charts until January 19, 1980. This was not difficult information for me to find on my own, considering that Billboard publishes it on their own website. "Not readily available" my ass. The Gemini response pisses me off more, though, because Google has detailed Billboard chart archives in the magazines scans that are available on Google Books for all to see. Apparently Gemini's training data doesn't even include their own archives. For the record, "Us and Them" was released as a single in 1974 but didn't chart, "Time" was the b-side of "Us and Them", and "Have a Cigar" was released as a single but also did not chart.

Anyway, getting back to my original point, while Pink Floyd sold a lot of albums, their music just isn't the kind of immediately arresting, memorable thing that @coffee_enjoyer is describing. They didn't get played on the kind of AM Top 40 stations that most college undergraduates were listening to. (Yes, Pink Floyd was, and to a large degree still is, popular among college students, and "College Rock" has largely become a synonym for the kind of independent music that gets played on college radio. But this is the minority. Most college kids listen to Top 40 or other contemporary radio and aren't particularly tuned into progressive music.) Their current iconic status is based on people who bought albums they spent 40 minutes listening to, not catchy radio hits. They aren't particularly memorable, their music is just intriguing enough that it demands multiple listens.

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