1980 had been interesting, but 1981 was a year of huge personal upheaval for me. I had been planning to attend broadcasting school after I graduated in June; radio was still where I wanted to spend my life at that time. But fate had other plans. After conferring with my aunt, my mother decided that after graduation we were going to be moving from the small town of Harrington Washington to just outside Newark Ohio, where my grandparents lived; Mom had been convinced that Grandma was on her last legs (she wasn’t, finally leaving this earth in 1996), and so off we went. I was resentful for a while because my school plans, which were two years in the making, had to be completely abandoned, but family came first, I guess. Music was all over the road that year, and I did my best to accommodate all styles on my chart. 1981 was the year of the medley, thanks to the Dutch studio band Stars on 45; the monster success of their (mostly) Beatles medley triggered a wave of other medleys for the next 18 months or so. There were also a lot of “two or three” hit wonders on the chart, like (Jim) Photoglo, Phil Seymour, Robbie Patton, Joey Scarbury, and others, and a few new artists broke through as well, like Billy Squier, Juice Newton, and Loverboy. TV stars recorded albums, some good (John Schneider) and some not so good (Scott Baio). Kristy McNichol also returned to my chart three years after her first MASSIVE TKR success (with brother Jimmy) in 1978 (hey, I had a THING for her throughout most of high school…she hadn’t come out as a lesbian at that time, so sue me…). Leif Garrett, Stacy Lattisaw, and Meco were still around, movie and TV themes were all over the hit charts again as well. But the move had also one major kick in the pants for me – Ohio was YEARS ahead of Washington in terms of Top 40 radio. When we left Washington, most of the hit radio stations were AM stations; in Ohio, much of the AM dial was now news, farm reports, big band standards, or country, and Top 40 was now on FM -much better sound, much richer in content, and much easier to pick up on the ol’ radio…
JANUARY 3 1981
JANUARY 10 1981
JANUARY 17 1981
JANUARY 24 1981
JANUARY 31 1981
FEBRUARY 7 1981
FEBRUARY 14 1981
FEBRUARY 21 1981
FEBRUARY 28 1981
MARCH 7 1981
MARCH 14 1981
MARCH 21 1981
MARCH 28 1981
APRIL 4 1981
APRIL 11 1981
APRIL 18 1981
APRIL 25 1981
MAY 2 1981
MAY 9 1981
MAY 16 1981
MAY 23 1981
MAY 30 1981
JUNE 6 1981
JUNE 13 1981
JUNE 20 1981
JUNE 27 1981
JULY 4 1981
JULY 11 1981
JULY 18 1981
JULY 25 1981
AUGUST 1 1981
AUGUST 8 1981
AUGUST 15 1981
AUGUST 22 1981
AUGUST 29 1981
SEPTEMBER 5 1981
SEPTEMBER 12 1981
SEPTEMBER 19 1981
SEPTEMBER 26 1981
OCTOBER 3 1981
OCTOBER 10 1981
OCTOBER 17 1981
OCTOBER 24 1981
OCTOBER 31 1981
NOVEMBER 7 1981
NOVEMBER 14 1981
NOVEMBER 21 1981
NOVEMBER 28 1981
DECEMBER 5 1981
DECEMBER 12 1981
DECEMBER 19 1981
DECEMBER 26 1981
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