Today's my birthday. Poking around for "on this day in..." sites, I found ThisDayInMusic.com, which has a Number 1 on the day you were born feature. The chart-toppers are available for the years 1955-2001. It being a slow news day, I wondered what the history of Dec 3 chart-toppers has been. Since this web app is also a web service waiting to be asked to do something, I asked and it answered:
Number 1 US hits on Dec 3
1955: Sixteen Tons, Tennessee Ernie Ford
1956: Love Me Tender, Elvis Presley
1957: Jailhouse Rock / You Send Me, Elvis Presley / Sam Cooke
(shared No.1)
1958: To Know Him is to Love Him, The Teddy Bears
1959: Mr Blue, The Fleetwoods
1960: Are You Lonesome Tonight?, Elvis Presley
1961: Big Bad John, Jimmy Dean
1962: Big Girls Don't Cry, The 4 Seasons
1963: I'm Leaving It Up to You, Dale and Grace
1964: Leader of the Pack, The Shangri-Las
1965: I Hear a Symphony, The Supremes
1966: Winchester Cathedral, New Vaudeville Band
1967: Daydream Believer, The Monkees
1968: Love Child, Diana Ross and the Supremes
1969: Come Together, The Beatles
1970: I Think I Love You, The Partridge Family
1971: Theme from 'Shaft', Isaac Hayes
1972: Papa Was a Rolling Stone, The Temptations
1973: Top of the World, The Carpenters
1974: I Can Help, Billy Swan
1975: Fly, Robin, Fly, Silver Convention
1976: Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright), Rod
Stewart
1977: You Light Up My Life, Debby Boone
1978: You Don't Bring Me Flowers, Barbra Streisand and Neil
Diamond
1979: No More Tears (Enough is Enough), Barbra Streisand and
Donna Summer
1980: Lady, Kenny Rogers
1981: Physical, Olivia Newton-John
1982: Truly, Lionel Richie
1983: All Night Long (All Night), Lionel Richie
1984: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Wham!
1985: Separate Lives, Phil Collins
1986: You Give Love A Bad Name, Bon Jovi
1987: (I've Had) the Time of My Life, Jennifer Warnes and
Billy Medley
1988: Baby I Love Your Way / Freebird Medley, Will To
Power
1989: Blame It On the Rain, Milli Vanilli
1990: I'm Your Baby Tonight, Whitney Houston
1991: Set Adrift on Memory Bliss, P. M. Dawn
1992: I Will Always Love You, Whitney Houston
1993: I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That), Meat
Loaf
1994: On Bended Knee, Boyz II Men
1995: One Sweet Day, Mariah Carey with Boyz II Men
1996: No Diggity, Blackstreet featuring Dr Dre
1997: Candle in the Wind 1997, Elton John
1998: One Week, The Barenaked Ladies
1999: Smooth, Santana
2000: Independent Woman Part I, Destiny's Child
2001: Family Affair, Mary J. Blige
Not a very encouraging trend, on the whole. But what is encouraging -- and what never ceases to amaze me -- is the way in which this web app, like every web app, is available for use in ways the creator never intended. You might wonder (on a slow news day) how Dec 2 or Dec 4 differed from Dec 3. It's easy to find out:
Changes between Dec 2 and Dec 3:
Dec 2 1956: Sixteen Tons, Tennessee Ernie Ford
Dec 3 1956: Love Me Tender, Elvis Presley
Dec 2 1966: You Keep Me Hangin' On, The Supremes
Dec 3 1966: Winchester Cathedral, New Vaudeville
Dec 2 1988: Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi
Dec 3 1988: Baby I Love Your Way / Freebird Medl
Dec 2 1994: I'll Make Love to You, Boyz II Men
Dec 3 1994: On Bended Knee, Boyz II Men
Changes between Dec 3 and Dec 4:
Dec 3 1965: I Hear a Symphony, The Supremes
Dec 4 1965: Turn! Turn! Turn!, The Byrds
Dec 3 1971: Theme from 'Shaft', Isaac Hayes
Dec 4 1971: Family Affair, Sly and the Family Stone
Here's the script, by the way. You learn something new every day. Somehow, I've never had occasion to use an image map programmatically. In this app, you have to click on a flag to submit the form: US flag for US hits, Union Jack for UK hits. How does a Perl script say "US flag"? Since I'll have forgotten this fact the next time I need it, I'll write it down here where I'll be able to find it. The value sent to the script's handler is the name of the INPUT element (of type "image"), dot x or y, equals a coordinate. So: US_Number_1.x=1 and US_Number_1.y=1.
Oh, I almost forgot. On my original birthday, the number one US hit was: Love Me Tender, Elvis Presley.
Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2002/12/03.html#a528