THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO: A Premature Countdown (If The Year Ended Now)

Loyal listeners of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl know that we close out each year with a countdown show, playing back what we played a lot over the course of the preceding twelve months. Our intrepid stats man Fritz Van Leaven keeps track of whatever the hell it is we're doing, tabulates that fine mess, and ranks the tracks by the airplay they've accumulated.  Fritz has a tie-breaking mechanism in place to eliminate logjams at individual positions. We wind up with an epic countdown show each year, all thanks to Fritz. You can see the playlist for 2021's year-end countdown show here, and a list of our 58 most-played artists for 2021 here. 

But, just for fun, I started to wonder: what if we did our 2022 countdown show right now? We've only done...what? Eight shows so far this year? Yeah, we haven't repeated enough tracks to do a countdown show yet. But what the hell; using tiebreakers, we do have a Top 4:

1. THE RAMONES: I Can't Give You Anything

2. POP CO-OP: The Only Thing I Really Want

3. LANNIE FLOWERS: Good

4. WENDI DUNLAP: Season Of Loss

Bubbling under our mighty Top 4 for 2022, we have tracks by the Monkees (twice), Irene Peña, Orbis Max, Laurie Biagini, the Grip Weeds, the Zombies, the Flashcubes, the Flashcubes featuring Shoes, Jeremy, the Blusterfields, Anny Celsi, Lulu, Mike Browning, Lolas, the Bangles, Cheap Star, and Verdelle Smith. 

While it's a statement of the obvious, it's worth pointing out that this early countdown stat is meaningless. No tracks have accrued anywhere near enough airplay yet to be a lock for the actual countdown show next January. It's likely that some--maybe most-- of these fine songs may not make the countdown; it's even possible (if perhaps implausible) that none of them will make the countdown. 

But for now, for fun? It's a snapshot of where TIRnRR thinks it is and what this place looks like today. We'll keep building the countdown stats throughout the year, but your next public update will be after the 2022 countdown show airs in January. Are you ready, Fritz? Let's GO!!

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Additional products and projects are listed here.This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl