Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Today's 'shockingly old' realization: that Green Day didn't have a Billboard hot 100 hit until 'Good Riddance'. I...don't know how that's possible. The singles off the two previous albums were ubiquitous and it looks like some of them sold ridiculous numbers. Was this just the result of some artificial depression of their sales figures because they were an 'alternative' act? Akin to nominating someone for a best supporting actress nom when they're clearly the star of the thing?

Might have something to do with whether physical copies of the singles were on sale? There was a lot of chart weirdness in the 90s due to rules like that.

no doubt

I guess. I don't know upon what basis, though, 'When I Come Around' both is a certified gold single (which I assume must've been based on sales figures of some physically-released single) and fails to make it onto the big boys list.

NB, not exactly a Green Day fan, but this is just weird to me.

from Wikipedia:

As many Hot 100 chart policies have been modified over the years, one rule always remained constant: songs were not eligible to enter the Hot 100 unless they were available to purchase as a single. However, on December 5, 1998, the Hot 100 changed from being a "singles" chart to a "songs" chart.[7] During the 1990s, a growing trend in the music industry was to promote songs to radio without ever releasing them as singles. It was claimed by major record labels that singles were cannibalizing album sales, so they were slowly phased out. During this period, accusations began to fly of chart manipulation as labels would hold off on releasing a single until airplay was at its absolute peak, thus prompting a top ten or, in some cases, a number one debut. In many cases, a label would delete a single from its catalog after only one week, thus allowing the song to enter the Hot 100, make a high debut and then slowly decline in position as the one-time production of the retail single sold out.

It was during this period that several popular mainstream hits never charted on the Hot 100, or charted well after their airplay had declined. During the period that they were not released as singles, the songs were not eligible to chart. Many of these songs dominated the Hot 100 Airplay chart for extended periods of time:

1995 The Rembrandts: "I'll Be There for You" (number one for eight weeks)
1996 No Doubt: "Don't Speak" (number one for 16 weeks)
1997 Sugar Ray featuring Super Cat: "Fly" (number one for six weeks)
1997 Will Smith: "Men in Black" (number one for four weeks)
1997 The Cardigans: "Lovefool" (number two for eight weeks)
1998 Natalie Imbruglia: "Torn" (number one for 11 weeks)
1998 Goo Goo Dolls: "Iris" (number one for 18 weeks)
As debate and conflicts occurred more and more often, Billboard finally answered the requests of music industry artists and insiders by including airplay-only singles (or "album cuts") in the Hot 100.

Just going by Discogs, "Basket Case" and "When I Come Around" did not have US domestic single releases in stores at the time (though "Longview" had a vinyl release). Is it conceivable that WICA went gold solely off of iTunes sales much later?

Yeah, I was gonna consult discogs, thanks for that. And thanks for the breakdown, breastcrawl. I considered starting a thread (except that it seems like kinda weak tea for a thread) but I'm working my way through charting singles from the mid-'90s and keep noticing what seem to be glaring omissions, which I guess this explains. Like 'Believe' is the only single from Are You Gonna Go My Way to chart in the hot 100. 'Say whaaaaat?' I said. But apparently so.

My memory might be unreliable on this, but I’m pretty sure our first major exposure to Green Day here in Canada was when (for some reason) their live Woodstock performance of “When I come Around” was added into regular video rotation.

btw, this subject comes up from time to time on ILM. couldn’t find an article, but this is a podcast with chart expert Chris Molanphy about it, should you have the stamina:
http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/hit_parade/2017/09/the_story_of_how_the_recording_industry_made_you_pay_a_premium_for_90s_hit.html

The oral history book on the San Francisco punk scene was really good and featured the genesis of Green Day among others. Very interesting.

I think they featured heavily in a documentary on the Bay Area scene I saw too.

Think that's
Gimme Something Better
and
Turn It Around
respectively

there's def a pretty good poll thread on this phenomenon... hmmm...

best song that reached #1 on airplay but was never allowed to chart on the billboard hot 100 1995-1998

classic Reverend thread

...based on the exact same Wikipedia text I quoted! (unless The Rev... wrote the entry? *plot, thickening*)

That is a classic Rev thread.

I knew somebody had to have done a thread, thank u

I've always thought Stanley Kubrick was British

no he just moved there and stayed a while

This is something I just learned today after being a fan of his films most of my life.

It's why Full metal jacket was filmed in the Isle of Dogs among some other UK locations.
& why Eyes Wide Shut was filmed in the Home Counties not New England, but the old one.

I knew he lived there, just didn't know he was originally from the US

33 + 45 = 78 (rpm)

!

Whoa. Numerology, bruh!

I just thought of two today that I somewhat recently learned:

-that ethnic Turks are from way east of Turkey
-that brontosauruses (brontosauri?) aren't a thing (as in the fossils of multiple other dinosaurs were being mistakenly assembled into the skeleton of an imaginary brontosauric chimera), although I researched that point today upon recalling it and apparently paleontologists may now believe they were wrong about discounting their existence?

also Tyrannosaurus Rex was a Tory

If you throw in the number 16 which was used for spoken word recordings at some time around the music speeds were being set up then you throw off the equation totally innit.

Presume there must be some reason that that equation can be done and its not just really fitting coincidence. Oscillations and fun things like that.

that ethnic Turks are from way east of Turkey

Everyone's from somewhere else surely?

33 + 45 = 78 (rpm)

also 33-45 = years of the Third Reich

those Anatolian farmers did get about a bit

Black Irish share most historical dna or whatever markers with anatolians iirc

Not the Spanish Armada after all?

Nah

Donegal girls tho, ay caramba

Can you expand on this a little?

― Alba, Wednesday, March 10, 2021 4:07 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, just that I had assumed the people who'd occupied the landmass in antiquity were at least roughly the same people who occupy the landmass today but then that whole Ottoman Empire thing etc.

The extent to which I am current patching the gaping holes in my historical knowledge cannot be understated. And I figure this is the thread to non-understate.

Everyone's from somewhere else surely?

― Wrote For Lunch (Tom D.), Wednesday, March 10, 2021 4:09 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's one of the things I'm currently wrapping my head around. Not the notion itself, which, y'know...doy, but rather the precise ways that that has historically shaken out.

Constantinople or Byzantium was the capitol of teh Eastern Roman Empire so would presumably have been somewhat cosmopolitan prior to the rise of Islam. Yeah, think it was constantinople and Byzantium was a previous Empire capitol that had been cospatial with it.

Yeah, I was vaguely aware but have only recently firmed up these minor details in my own mind. As a product of American public schooling, I feel I have to express just how profoundly, profoundly ignorant I am on a wide variety of subjects that I didn't properly learn about in college or pursue on my own.

My HS history teacher was also a gym teacher. That sort of thing.

Just found out what birdlime is and what it does.

Also that expression "doing bird" for being in prison is Cockney rhyming slang...
Bird lime = time.

OK, didn't know that was rhyming slang, good one!

I knew the word "birdlime" existed but for some reason had never read about it in context, until today when I was reading about someone smearing it on trees to catch birds! I think I assumed it was a polite word for bird shit!

That's one of the things I'm currently wrapping my head around. Not the notion itself, which, y'know...doy, but rather the precise ways that that has historically shaken out.

― Stefan Twerkelle (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 10 March 2021 13:11 (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Its the most interesting topic there is imo

Anyone should track down the three part sebag montefiore programme on byzantium

Hes a fucking dose but its a good runthrough of the histories

As a product of American public schooling, I feel I have to express just how profoundly, profoundly ignorant I am on a wide variety of subjects that I didn't properly learn about in college or pursue on my own.

I think you're being a bit hard on yourself, Old Lunch. I'm just a bit confused because I think of the phrase 'ethnically x' as meaning people with roots in x who aren't necessarily nationals of that place, eg 'ethnic Albanians in Kosovo', though that phrase did puzzle me when it was first all over the news and I'm not 100% what it means.

I wasn't aware myself, if that's what you mean by it, that most ethnic Turks have their roots in the outer reaches of the former Ottoman empire, rather than the current borders of Turkey. Are you referring to people who currently live in places that used to be in the empire?

Recently I learned that Case Western Reserve University got its name because that part of Ohio used to be part of Connecticut (!).

that whole Ottoman Empire thing

Hey, they just wanted to provide the world with comfortable furniture.

Constantinople or Byzantium was the capitol of teh Eastern Roman Empire so would presumably have been somewhat cosmopolitan prior to the rise of Islam.

My father, who is a classicist, was on a tour there one time and he got epically cranky with American dudes who were wearing, like, safari vests and adventure-travel gear to walk through a market. "'Istanbul' literally means 'to the city,' you ignorant fools! It's derived from Istam Polis!"

I wasn't aware myself, if that's what you mean by it, that most ethnic Turks have their roots in the outer reaches of the former Ottoman empire, rather than the current borders of Turkey. Are you referring to people who currently live in places that used to be in the empire?

― Alba, Wednesday, March 10, 2021 8:06 AM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Rather than make a dog's breakfast of a topic of which I'm still barely cognizant, I will just post this wiki link that appears to be about the phenomenon in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkification

My father, who is a classicist, was on a tour there one time and he got epically cranky with American dudes who were wearing, like, safari vests and adventure-travel gear to walk through a market. "'Istanbul' literally means 'to the city,' you ignorant fools! It's derived from Istam Polis!"

Your dad is awesome.

I heard Terry Jones going into the name derivation somewhere presumably i his series on the crusades, so was semi aware of that to teh city thing. Could remember teh way it derived from a portmanteau word construction but couldn't remember exactly what it broke down to but I was thinking it was something along those lines.

I feel like I could actually go a ways in state politics if I just railed about how we don't have brontosauruses or nine planets anymore. "If Science indeed has the last say on everything, then why all the changes?"