It may be of interest to you to listen to "classic" retro editions of American Top 40

that are broadcasted on multiple "great radio stations" (Casey's exact words

to describe the network during the 70s and 80s shows) in the U.S. and Canada.

Perhaps the easiest way to find these classic show broadcast and then listen to them is to find a radio station that broadcasts the Top 40 show on the internet version of that radio station's broadcast. The broadcasts happen on local oldies stations mostly on Saturday or Sunday.

Use a Google search to find a station that either you can listen to on the radio

or that has a convenient time for a radio statio that simulcasts its radio broadcast

on the internet.

Or, maybe this list can help you.

http://tunein.com/radio/options/American-Top-40---The-70s-p117092/

http://tunein.com/radio/o...s-p154285/

***I KNOW WHAT YOU"RE PROBABLY THINKING********************

***"Self, WHY WOULD I WANT LISTEN TO A LIST OF "TOP 40" POP SONGS FROM THE 70's or 80's

as they were originally counted down during the weeks they were in the top 40?"

Answer. 1. Casey's sports commentator detailed style of introducing most of the songs or the people that perform them is almost a lost art in commercial radio. It is an informational yet entertaining way to get tidbits about the songs or the performers in an easy to listen to way between songs.

2. Casey's gimmicks for the show can be pretty funny, intentionally or not.

If you have not ever heard (or even if you have heard) a schmaltzy Long Distance Dedication

because the song requester "can't find the right words to express what I feel" and

you have keen sense of humor or sarcasm (or empathy when the dedication is clearly very serious)) it makes for an interesting and frequently authentically unique part of the show.

3. Do you like more diversity\variety of songs than the top 200 U.S. pop oldies such as

the Beatles, Elvis, Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Hall & Oates, John Cougar, etc.?

There are certain songs that you will probably not ever hear on NONSATELLITE/NONINTERNET Oldies radio or any other NONSATELLITE or NONINTERNET SPECIALTY RADIO except when they are listed in a Top 40 show.

As one example, I listened on WLS Chicago 94.7 FM

approximately 3 weeks ago when the top 40 list was from the week ending in July 27, 1974.

The list included both a variety of music categories and a variety of types of perfomers. (#1, Annie's Song - John Denver- a country pop song which you may only want to hear 1 more time in your life, but still).

An elegant, emotionally positive soft pop R&B (Roberta Flack, movin up this week to #16 with, "Feel Like Makin Love").

Innovative R&B ("Machine Gun" by the Commodores. When have you ever heard that on a POP Oldies station? (I'm NOT talkin about a classic R&B stations, which also probably rarely if ever play that song)).

A lesser known, low profile and almost forgotten minor hit by a well known pop artist. ("On and On" by Gladys Knight & the Pips, "Shinin' On" by Grand Funk Railroad, "Sure As I Sittin Here" by

Three Dog Night).

Country-influenced pop. (Anne Murray's "You Won't See Me.")

Adult contemporary ("You and Me Against the World" Helen Reddy).

Campy, tongue-in-cheek pop (Olivia Newton John's "If You Love Me (Let Me Know)",

"One Hell of a Woman" by Mac Davis).

Very low profile, obscure pop crossover song by an low profile performer ("Fish Ain't Bittin" - Lamont Dozier).

Straight ahead Pop Rock. ("Radar Love" by Golden Earring).

This type of broad variety, EXACTLY this type of variety, was present on the subsequent two

Sundays for Top 40 countdowns from August 1979 and August 1977. It is a pretty safe

bet that similar variety also exists in the American Top 40: The 80s retro shows as well.

This is like a K-Tel Melting Pot collection. "Where else can you hear all these different types of songs in an authentic, scientifically compiled yearbook format & popularity ranking for the low, low cost of 3 to 4 hours of your background music?"

R&B, Light R&B, country, country-pop, Swamp Pop Rock, Pop, Adult Contemporary Pop, Pop Rock, and campy humorous pop.

FYI, I listen mostly to jazz, smooth jazz, R&B-funk, & rap. In that order, that is 85% of the music that I choose to listen to when I have control of the decision. But I do listen to most every major genre, own music from every major genre, and enjoy and appreciate every major genre

(ok, I must admit, I do not listen to or own any broadway musical music).

In addition to the reasons that I provide above it is also good to get a break

from and set aside the music that I (or you) listen to most frequently because it refreshes that music. What if you ate your favorite entree for dinner every day?

Full Disclosure: DJK is not affiliated or compensated in any way, shape or form, legal or illegal,

with or by American Top 40 and all opinions expressed above are solely the opinions of

DJK and not of American Top 40 (unless by highly probable coincidence).

[Edited 8/19/12 0:12am]

We have a station here in Philly, 98.1 WOGL FM, they play nothing but songs from the 60's, 70's, and 80's ranging from Soul, Pop, Rock, and R&B.

On Wednesday nights at 9 they do a top 20 countdown for that date from any paticular year covering those decades, this past week they did August 15, 1980. It's always interesting listening to these countdowns, I was born in 79 so I like to see what was hot on the pop charts those weeks.

Abdul said:

We have a station here in Philly, 98.1 WOGL FM, they play nothing but songs from the 60's, 70's, and 80's ranging from Soul, Pop, Rock, and R&B.

On Wednesday nights at 9 they do a top 20 countdown for that date from any paticular year covering those decades, this past week they did August 15, 1980. It's always interesting listening to these countdowns, I was born in 79 so I like to see what was hot on the pop charts those weeks.

Thanks for the feedback.

Because you have the interest in the local chart show,

you may find it similarly interesting to listen to the American Top 40 shows.

One of the advantages of the America Top 40 show is that includes songs

that most oldies stations, such as WOGL in Philadelphia and WLS in Chicago,

do not play any time except when they rebroadcast an episode of American Top 40.

Practically every oldies or classic pop radio station has a list of songs, whatever the number is

such as maybe 200, 300, 500, whatever. They rarely ever, maybe never, play songs that are not on that list even though the additional songs may be very good and worthwhile pieces of music.

This is most particularly true for songs that made it into the top 40 part of the Billboard chart

but not into the top 20, which is propably where 99% of the songs that you hear on

oldies pop radio or classic pop radio reached, at a minumum. Songs such as "Tenderness" by General Public (peaked at #27), "Wanted Man" by Ratt (peaked at #38), "Lay It Down" by Ratt (peaked at #40), "The Borderlines" by Jeffrey Osborne (peaked at #38)

and "Your Imagination" by Hall & Oates (peaked at #33) DO get played on the classic American Top 40 broadcasts but most probably DO NOT get played any other

time on classic pop or oldies pop stations.

It is my opinion that is always interesting to listen to Casey Kasem, the guy who was the voice of the original "Shaggy" on the original "Scooby Doo" cartoon show, do the host and narrator duties for American Top 40.

I catch these broadcasts now and then too. Love them, doesn't matter which week/year, it's always interesting and there's always good music.
I like it for all the reasons you mentioned, Casey, the gimmicks, the variety. Don't know if a current top 40 would have as much variety. I noticed at some point (maybe a decade ago) there was mostly the same genre represented. Maybe that's not true anymore, I just haven't listened.
Thanks for bringing greater attention to these broadcasts.