Billboard Vs. Cash Box Year-End Top 10s Volume 3: The 1980s

Here’s the third and last installment comparing the Top 10 hits each year of a decade between Billboard and Cash Box:

As before, the year-end top 10 for each publication is given, with the position of where the song finished in the other publication given in parentheses. CB is short for Cash Box, while BB is short for Billboard.

If it’s the same position on both, then no notation follows.

---

1980

• 2. Pink Floyd “Another Brick in the Wall, Part Two” (#3 CB)
• 3. Olivia Newton-John “Magic” (#12 CB)
• 4. Michael Jackson “Rock with You” (#8 CB)
• 5. The Captain and Tennille “Do That to Me One More Time” (#19 CB)
• 6. Queen “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (#5 CB)
• 7. Paul McCartney “Coming Up (Live at Glasgow)” (#13 CB)
• 8. Lipps Inc. “Funkytown” (#10 CB)
• 9. Billy Joel “It’s Still Rock ‘n’ Roll to Me” (#7 CB)
• 10. Bette Midler “The Rose” (#11 CB)

• 2. Blondie “Call Me” (#1 BB)
• 3. Pink Floyd “Another Brick in the Wall, Part Two” (#2 BB)
• 4. Diana Ross “Upside Down” (#18 BB)
• 5. Queen “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (#6 BB)
• 6. Kenny Rogers “Lady” (no BB)
• 7. Billy Joel “It’s Still Rock ‘n’ Roll to Me” (#9 BB)
• 8. Michael Jackson “Rock with You” (#4 BB)
• 9. Barbra Streisand “Woman in Love” (no BB)
• 10. Lipps Inc. “Funkytown” (#8 BB)

The earlier cutoff dates for the yearly survey that Billboard followed meant that 3 of the Cash Box top 10 appeared in the former publication’s compilation for 1981.

• “Another One Bites the Dust” finished at #65
• “Woman in Love” at #35
• And “Lady” at #3.

Otherwise, the listings are mostly on the mark, but there’s some curiosities.

• While “Upside Down” barely made the top 20 in Billboard, that same publication ranked it #80 for its Hot 100 60th Anniversary list in 2018. That put it way ahead of all in the Billboard 1980 list except for “Call Me.” Weird.

---

1981

• 2. Diana Ross and Lionel Richie “Endless Love” (#1 CB)
• 3. Kenny Rogers “Lady” (no CB)
• 4. John Lennon “(Just Like) Starting Over” (no CB)
• 5. Rick Springfield “Jessie’s Girl” (#3 CB)
• 6. Kool and the Gang “Celebration” (#10 CB)
• 7. Hall and Oates “Kiss on My List” (#25 CB)
• 8. Eddie Rabbitt “I Love a Rainy Night” (#38 CB)
• 9. Dolly Parton “9 to 5” (#12 CB)
• 10. REO Speedwagon “Keep on Lovin’ You” (#4 BB)

• 2. Kim Carnes “Bette Davis Eyes” (#1 BB)
• 3. Rick Springfield “Jessie’s Girl” (#5 BB)
• 4. REO Speedwagon “Keep on Lovin’ You” (#10 BB)
• 5. The Pointer Sisters “Slow Hand” (#19 BB)
• 6. Olivia Newton-John “Physical” (no BB)
• 7. Juice Newton “Queen of Hearts” (#14 BB)
• 8. Joey Scarbury “Theme from the Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not)” (#11 BB)
• 9. Hall and Oates “Private Eyes” (no BB)
• 10. Kool and the Gang “Celebration” (#6 BB)

Another case of different survey periods resulting in different results.

• “(Just Like) Starting Over” finished at #57 for Cash Box in 1980.
• On the other side, “Physical” topped Billboard in 1982, while “Private Eyes” finished #44 that same year. Even so, there’s a lot of overlap between the lists.

• That said, “I Love a Rainy Night” becoming the lowest Cash Box ranking to make the Billboard list since “Some Kind of Wonderful” in 1975 is perplexing. Maybe Billboard wanted to reflect the strong showing country music had in 1981 and included 3 in the year-end top 10? Who knows?

---

1982

• 2. Survivor “Eye of the Tiger” (#1 CB)
• 3. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” (#5 CB)
• 4. Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder “Ebony and Ivory”
• 5. The J. Geils Band “Centerfold” (#3 BB)
• 6. The Human League “Don’t You Want Me”
• 7. John Cougar Mellencamp “Jack and Diane” (#8 CB)
• 8. John Cougar Mellencamp “Hurts So Good” (#14 CB)
• 9. Steve Miller “Abracadabra” (#2 CB)
• 10. Chicago “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” (#11 CB)

• 2. Steve Miller “Abracadabra” (#9 BB)
• 3. The J. Geils Band “Centerfold” (#5 BB)
• 4. Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder “Ebony and Ivory”
• 5. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” (#3 BB)
• 6. The Human League “Don’t You Want Me”
• 7. Lionel Richie “Truly” (NO BB)
• 8. John Cougar Mellencamp “Jack and Diane” (#7 BB)
• 9. Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes “Up Where We Belong” (NO BB)
• 10. Vangelis “Chariots of Fire” (#12 BB)

The cutoff dates again factor into play.

• “Truly” made #47 and “Up Where We Belong” made #27 respectively in 1983 for Billboard.
• Two exact matches and only three misses on each list make the correlations strong this time, or at least better than in 1981.

John Cougar Mellencamp having back-to-back entries on Billboard is something we haven’t seen since the Beatles finished first and second in 1964.

• Also, despite many top 10 entries on both Billboard and Cash Box during the 1970s, Chicago had to wait until now to make a year-end list with “Hard to Say I’m Sorry.” They’ll return on a listing later this decade.

---

1983

• 2. Michael Jackson “Billie Jean” (#3 CB)
• 3. Irene Cara “Flashdance … What a Feeling” (#1 BB)
• 4. Men at Work “Down Under” (#8 CB)
• 5. Michael Jackson “Beat It” (#7 CB)
• 6. Bonnie Tyler “Total Eclipse of the Heart” (#5 CB)
• 7. Hall and Oates “Maneater” (no CB)
• 8. Patti Austin and James Ingram “Baby. Come to Me” (#24 CB)
• 9. Michael Sembello “Maniac” (#18 CB)
• 10. The Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” (#14 CB)

• 2. The Police “Every Breath You Take” (#1 BB)
• 3. Michael Jackson “Billie Jean” (#2 BB)
• 4. David Bowie “Let’s Dance” (#18 BB)
• 5. Bonnie Tyler “Total Eclipse of the Heart” (#6 BB)
• 6. Lionel Richie “All Night Long (All Night)” (no BB)
• 7. Michael Jackson “Beat It” (#5 BB)
• 8. Men at Work “Down Under” (#4 BB)
• 9. Eddy Grant “Electric Avenue” (#22 BB)
• 10. Culture Club “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” (#11 BB)

Fascinating fact: for the first time in covering these 2 charts, both contain all songs that hit #1 in their respective publications.

• And Michael Jackson joins the Beatles and the Bee Gees as having at least two entries on both the Billboard and Cash Box surveys for the same year.

• “Maneater” was #22 in 1982 in Cash Box, while “All Night Long (All Night)” got to #12 in 1984 in Billboard. If you can handle the top 3 being scrambled, there’s no really big outliers here as these things go.

---

1984

• 2. Tina Turner “What’s Love Got to Do with It”
• 3. Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson “Say Say Say” (no CB)
• 4. Kenny Loggins “Footloose” (#11 CB)
• 5. Phil Collins “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me)” (#7 CB)
• 6. Van Halen “Jump” (#5 CB)
• 7. Lionel Richie “Hello” (#12 CB)
• 8. Yes “Owner of a Lonely Heart”
• 9. Ray Parker Jr. “Ghostbusters” (#4 CB)
• 10. Culture Club “Karma Chameleon” (#14 CB)

Cash Box

• 1. Prince “When Doves Cry”
• 2. Tina Turner “What’s Love Got to Do with It”
• 3. Bruce Springsteen “Dancing in the Dark” (#14 BB)
• 4. Ray Parker Jr. “Ghostbusters” (#9 BB)
• 5. Van Halen “Jump” (#6 BB)
• 6. John Waite “Missing You” (#11 BB)
• 7. Phil Collins “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me)” (#5 BB)
• 8. Yes “Owner of a Lonely Heart”
• 9. Stevie Wonder “I Just Called to Say I Love You” (#25 BB)
• 10. Duran Duran “The Reflex” (#16 BB)

• “Say Say Say” was #16 in Cash Box in 1983, hence its absence here. Otherwise, with three exact matches and 3 others shared in both top 10s, there’s a lot of agreement here.

• Given their musical impact, it seems an oversight that Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner and Duran Duran are represented only this time.
• This also marks the last year-end appearance for Stevie Wonder in Cash Box for the fourth time and in Billboard for the third time.

---

1985

• 2. Madonna “Like a Virgin” (#29 CB)
• 3. Wham Featuring George Michael “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” (no CB)
• 4. Foreigner “I Want to Know What Love Is” (#8 CB)
• 5. Chaka Khan “I Feel for You” (no CB)
• 6. Hall and Oates “Out of Touch” (no CB)
• 7. Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (#3 CB)
• 8. Dire Straits “Money for Nothing” (#2 CB)
• 9. Madonna “Crazy for You”
• 10. A-ha “Take on Me” (#15 CB)

• 2. Dire Straits “Money for Nothing” (#8 BB)
• 3. Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (#7 BB)
• 4. Huey Lewis and the News “The Power of Love” (#15 BB)
• 5. Wham Featuring George Michael “Careless Whisper” (#1 BB)
• 6. John Parr “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” (#18 BB)
• 7. Phil Collins and Philip Bailey “Easy Lover” (#12 BB)
• 8. Foreigner “I Want to Know What Love Is” (#4 BB)
• 9. Madonna “Crazy for You”
• 10. REO Speedwagon “Can’t Fight This Feeling” (#13 BB)

Lots of discrepancies here, starting with three on Billboard that had charted on the Cash Box list a year earlier.

• “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” came in at #19,
• “I Feel for You” finished at #15,
• And “Out of Touch” was out at #43. Apart from those, the gap in ranking for “We Are the World” is a discouraging sign to reconcile differences this year.

• In a first in the Billboard chart, two acts appear twice on it, Madonna and Wham Featuring George Michael (really just the latter for “Careless Whisper,” but why carp?).
• Meanwhile on Cash Box, Phil Collins followed Lionel Richie with having two consecutive years of appearances in the 1980s.

---

1986

• 2. Lionel Richie “Say You, Say Me” (#23 CB)
• 3. Klymaxx “I Miss You” (no CB)
• 4. LaBelle and Michael McDonald “On My Own” (#10 CB)
• 5. Mr. Mister “Broken Wings” (#72 CB)
• 6. Whitney Houston “How Will I Know” (#24 CB)
• 7. Eddie Murphy “Party All the Time” (#51 CB)
• 8. Survivor “Burning Heart” (#26 CB)
• 9. Mr. Mister “Kyrie” (#15 CB)
• 10. Robert Palmer “Addicted to Love” (#11 CB)

• 2. The Pet Shop Boys “West End Girls” (#15 BB)
• 3. Madonna “Live to Tell” (#35 BB)
• 4. Billy Ocean “There’ll Be Sad Songs (to Make You Cry)” (#16 BB)
• 5. Prince “Kiss” (#19 BB)
• 6. Huey Lewis and the News “Stuck with You” (#21 BB)
• 7. The Human League “Human” (#25 BB)
• 8. Heart “These Dreams” (#33 BB)
• 9. Van Halen “Why Can’t This Be Love” (#69 BB)
• 10. Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald “On My Own” (#4 BB)

Only one song on both lists?! This is a new low by far.

In fact, the results are all over the place. Let’s start with Billboard.

• “I Miss You” got a high ranking despite peaking at #5 probably because it spent 29 weeks on the Hot 100, a long run at that time. And some of it was in late 1985, which Billboard usually included in its year-end calculations while Cash Box didn’t.

• Additionally, while I recall Mr. Mister being popular in 1986, I don’t remember the band being “two hits in the year-end list like the Beatles, the Bee Gees and Michael Jackson” popular.
• It’s also odd that the #2 hits “Party All the Time” and “Burning Heart” scored better overall than the other #1 Hot 100 hits that year not on the list.

As for Cash Box, apart from Steve Winwood and the Pet Shop Boys, the other artists read like it’s 1984 and not 1986. And most of their 1984 hits sound better than what’s listed here. But all did hit #1 in Cash Box, so maybe this list is a more accurate reflection of the year than Billboard.

---

1987

• 2. Heart “Alone” (#9 CB)

• 3. Gregory Abbott “Shake You Down” (#34 CB)

• 4. Whitney Houston “I Wanna Dance with Somebody Who Loves Me” (#2 CB)

• 5. Starship “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” (#8 CB)

• 6. Robbie Nevil “C’est La Vie” (no CB)

• 7. Whitesnake “Here I Go Again” (#6 CB)

• 8. Bruce Hornsby and the Range “The Way It Is” (no CB)

• 9. Bob Seger “Shakedown” (#3 CB)

• 10. Bon Jovi “Livin’ on a Prayer” (#5 CB)

• 2. Whitney Houston “I Wanna Dance with Somebody Who Loves Me” (#4 BB)
• 3. Bob Seger “Shakedown” (#9 BB)
• 4. George Michael “I Want Your Sex” (#24 BB)
• 5. Bon Jovi “Livin’ on a Prayer” (#10 BB)
• 6. Whitesnake “Here I Go Again” (#7 BB)
• 7. Atlantic Starr “Always” (#14 BB)
• 8. Starship “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” (#5 BB)
• 9. Heart “Alone” (#2 BB)
• 10. Jody Watley “Lookin’ for a New Love” (#16 BB)

Yet another caveat as Cash Box had “The Way It Is” at #56 in 1986.

• The absence of “Walk Like an Egyptian” for that publication is a shocker.
• However, Cash Box went down from a top 100 list to a top 50 this year, as far as I can tell. Maybe it would be in the 50s had the list been longer. Who knows? Still, overall this year is less complicated in the differences than with the 1986 lists.

• On Billboard “C’est La Vie” was the only song not to make #1 in 1987, and its 16 weeks on the chart hardly screams for it to be included in the year-end top 10.
• Also, Robbie Nevil stands out on the list as a relatively forgotten artist compared to what surrounds him (yes, even Gregory Abbott, as I think “Shake You Down” holds up better).

---

1988

• 2. INXS “Need You Tonight” (#16 CB)
• 3. George Harrison “Got My Mind Set on You” (no CB)
• 4. Rick Astley “Never Gonna Give You Up” (#2 CB)
• 5. Guns ‘n’ Roses “Sweet Child o’ Mine” (#1 CB)
• 6. Whitney Houston “So Emotional” (no CB)
• 7. Belinda Carlisle “Heaven is a Place on Earth” (no CB)
• 8. Tiffany “Could’ve Been” (#4 CB)
• 9. Breathe “Hands to Heaven” (#13 CB)
• 10. Stevie Winwood “Roll with It” (#5 CB)

• 2. Rick Astley “Never Gonna Give You Up” (#4 BB)
• 3. Terence Trent D’Arby “Wishing Well” (#12 BB)
• 4. Tiffany “Could’ve Been” (#8 BB)
• 5. Stevie Winwood “Roll with It” (#10 BB)
• 6. Billy Ocean “Get Out of My Dreams, Get into My Car” (#15 BB)
• 7. Michael Jackson “Man in the Mirror” (#21 BB)
• 8. George Michael “One More Try” (#11 BB)
• 9. Cheap Trick “The Flame” (#14 BB)
• 10. Def Leppard “Pour Some Sugar on Me” (#19 BB)

“Faith,” “Got My Mind Set on You” and “Heaven is a Place on Earth” were all #1 on Cash Box in late 1987 and early 1988.

So, I guess the different cutoff dates for the survey kept them from getting enough points to finish in the top 50 either year. The same probably applies to “So Emotional” as well.

• That leaves us with only four songs on both lists, although the remaining ones were in the top 20 of each publication, so it’s not too far off.
• Yet two of the four are among the three lowest in terms of Spotify downloads.
• “Could’ve Been” has less than 18 million, while “Roll with It” stands at less than 31 million.
• The other laggard is “Hands to Heaven” at less than 27 million.
• The rest of these have at least 70 million downloads, and some have much more than that.

Some final trivia:

• The appearance of “Got My Mind Set on You” means that three of the four Beatles had a solo hit to make the year-end list in Billboard. Sorry, Ringo Starr.

---

1989

• 2. Bobby Brown “My Prerogative” (no CB)
• 3. Poison “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” (no CB)
• 4. Paula Abdul “Straight Up” (#8 CB)
• 5. Janet Jackson “Miss You Much” (#17 CB)
• 6. Paula Abdul “Cold Hearted” (#15 CB)
• 7. Bette Midler “Wind Beneath My Wings” (#28 CB)
• 8. Milli Vanili “Girl You Know It’s True” (#4 CB)
• 9. Will to Power “Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley” (no CB)
• 10. Anita Baker “Giving You the Best That I Got” (no CB)

• 2. Bon Jovi “I’ll Be There for You” (#23 BB)
• 3. Fine Young Cannibals “Good Thing” (#40 BB)
• 4. Milli Vanili “Girl You Know It’s True” (#8 BB)
• 5. Gloria Estafan “Don’t Want to Lose You” (#14 BB)
• 6. Roxette “The Look” (#17 BB)
• 7. The Bangles “Eternal Flame” (#32 BB)
• 8. Paula Abdul “Straight Up” (#4 BB)
• 9. Mike + the Mechanics “The Living Years” (#31 BB)
• 10. Warrant “Heaven” (#15 BB)

Paula Abdul and Mili Vanilli being the only consensus between the lists does sound about right for 1989.

As for the five on Billboard that didn’t make the Cash Box top 50, all were hits that peaked around last 1988 going into early 1989. The different cutoff dates for the surveys really mattered this time around. It also makes the Billboard list skewed toward the previous year, which isn’t a good reflection of where pop music stood in 1989.

Indeed, going by Spotify downloads, the Billboard list really suffers in comparison to Cash Box.

• “Miss You Much” stands around 25 million, “Cold Hearted” around 33 million, “Look Away” less than 34 million and “Giving You the Best That I Got” around 35 million.
• Even Milli Vanilli is way ahead of the pack with around 95 million for “Girl You Know It’s True.”

Of course, Billboard eventually won the battle in the 1990s as Cash Box went out of business.

So, with that, I end our series of comparisons.

Hope that you’ve enjoyed it and that you take some time before this year’s end to appreciate the good things you’ve done and enjoyed.

---

---