If 1981, recently saluted in this column, was the year where Top 40’s first life-threatening doldrums finally started to turn around, its equivalent year in CHR’s current dominance has to be 2004. That came back to me recently when I came across a copy of the WHTZ (Z100) New York Top 100 Countdown for the year that had somehow not gotten filed away; not that I couldn’t have just found it on line.

It was around mid-2003 that Z100, after five years or so of following the fast on rhythm/slow on rock (except teen punk) template of many of its Clear Channel sister stations, started to carve a path back toward a more pop-flavored Mainstream Top 40. But it would take a few more years for the product to catch up, and the hits of 2004 are a particularly uneven bunch.

The No. 1 song of the year, Usher’s “Yeah,” is probably the song most responsible for today’s rhythmic pop—helping to foster the dominance of the “mom jam,” the slightly edgy R&B smashes that a 30-year-old woman shouldn’t have loved, but did. And there are other enduring records—Maroon 5’s “This Love” (No. 6 for the year) and “She Will Be Loved” (3); Britney Spears’ career rebound song, “Toxic” (22); Outkast’s “Hey Ya” (24) and “The Way You Move” (32); Hoobastank’s “The Reason” (8), probably more available on the radio this year than any since 2004 as modernizing AC stations look for more ’00s songs to play.

But 2004 was also the year before Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” kicked in. (It was released in mid-December and still made an appearance on the 2004 countdown at No. 80 based on its almost instant traction.) As such, it was the year that teen pop was still in its post-Avril Lavigne, “Complicated” phase: heavy on songs that would have fit on a Mainstream AC station but just happened to be sung by a youngster: Ashlee Simpson’s “Pieces Of Me” (10); JoJo’s “Leave (Get Out)” (15) and “Baby It’s You” (47); Hilary Duff’s relatively rousing “Come Clean” (46), Ryan Cabrera’s “On The Way Down” (12) and “True” (40), and Jessica Simpson’s “With You” (13). And Clarkson’s own biggest hit for 2004 was “Breakaway” (4). (“American Idol” wasn’t flexing all its hit music muscle yet, but the songs it did contribute included Kimberly Locke’s “Eighth World Wonder” (73).)

The second generation of teen-punk bands were on display in 2004, just as the industry was truly becoming aware of the genre’s emo-tional heft: Yellowcard’s “Ocean Avenue” (27), Bowling For Soup’s “1985” (33, and one of the first to transcend the genre’s usual age ceiling because of its subject matter); Good Charlotte’s “Hold On” (92) and “Predictable” (78). There was also Nickelback (“Someday” at No. 38), Linkin Park (“Numb” at 11 and “Breaking The Habit” at 29) as well as a lot of Mainstream Rock of the same ilk. Switchfoot had the No. 5 song (“Meant To Live”) and No. 17 (“Dare You To Move”), and it’s hard to decide whether the format is any poorer now for not having that sort of midtempo minor-chord rock, as much ballast as balance.

In 2004, major broadcast groups were still launching R&B/Hip-Hop stations, sometimes the second in a market, and sometimes in unlikely markets. In Philadelphia, WRDW (Wired 96.5) had just launched and still managed to shake things up for WIOQ (Q102), an already rhythmic-leaning CHR. Churban stations until that moment hadn’t been doing so well in markets that could support a well-programmed true Urban, but Wired wedged itself in between Q102 and Urban WUSL (Power 99) and, in doing so, created the template for the “even more rhythmic-leaning mainstream CHR” that has dominated the format’s launches in recent years.

So in 2004, there were still a number of Hip-Hop titles that were definitely not “mom jams”: Eminem & D12’s “My Band” (43), Terror Squad’s “Lean Back” (48), J-Kwon’s “Tipsy” (67), Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” (71), Ludacris’ “Stand Up” (76), Juvenile’s “Slow Motion” (83) and “Culo” by relative newcomer Pitbull (95). There was also plenty of the “Research Rap” that typified CHR in the early ’00s: Baby Bash’s “Suga Suga” (61), Lil’ Flip’s “Sunshine” (74), and Houston’s “I Like That” (93) among them. And in the year of the reggaeton boom, there was also N.O.R.E.’s “Oye Mi Canto” at 45.

And then there was Eamon’s “F*** It (I Don’t Want You Back),” the year’s No. 66 song. Like a certain 2011 hit with a similar title, Eamon’s novelty hit was one of those edgy lyrics/mellow grooves that made it hard to classify as extreme or not. But its title always rankled, not because of the profanity, but because the very novelty of the title seemed like an attention-getting way of circumventing years of A&R work. I doubt I’ll have the same feeling in 2018 about “F**king Perfect” or Cee-Lo’s “F*** You.” (Frankee’s answer record, “F.U.R.B.,” did not make the Z100 list.)

Among the many curios of that year, there was also the boomlet in teen celebrity confessionals: Ashlee Simpson’s “Shadow” and Lindsay Lohan’s “Rumors.” In the latter, Lohan announces, “I’m tired of rumors spreading” and asks the press, “Why can’t you let me do the things I wanna do?”. The answer on that one would eventually become self-evident.

It’s always too easy have fun with where songs placed in a year end countdown. There are always a few big hits that are seemingly set aside in the No. 70-100 range so that there can be some hits in the first few hours. But there are still a few at both the top and bottom of the list that make you ask “really?”— Black Eyed Peas’ “Hey Mama” at No. 9? Simple Plan’s “Welcome To My Life” at No. 35? Were those bigger, even at the time, than the Killers’ “Somebody Told Me” (No. 70)? Usher’s “Confessions, Part II” (No. 77) or Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot” (No. 91 that year and No. 74 the next)?

There are also those songs that only made the lower reaches of the countdown because there were 100 slots to fill—hard in 2004 when there were already few consensus hits, and likely to be an immense challenge at the end of 2011, the format’s tightest playlist year since the early ’70s. That’s why you got to listen once more to Vanessa Carlton’s career-derailing “White Houses” (which I only remember actually hearing twice on Z100, and once was when she came to the studio to premiere it) at No. 87 or Sugarcult’s “Memory” (75) or Christina Aguilera & Missy Elliott’s remake of “Car Wash” (96). Gwen Stefani’s “What You Waiting For?” is No. 98—a few months later, her third single from that project, “Hollaback Girl,” would be another key record in CHR’s revived fortunes.

You can’t begrudge 2004—the work that Top 40 put into making a song like Clarkson’s “Breakway” happen was the same work that made “Since U Been Gone” possible. Certainly, with most of today’s rhythmic pop being less daunting than, say, Terror Squad, there’s not the same effort going in to keeping a balanced format now. Nor, given Top 40’s current success is there the same perceived need.

Okay, what are your memories of CHR or radio overall in 2004? Please leave a comment.

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This article was part of the July 21, 2011 Ross On Radio newsletter. To see more of this week's ROR, follow the links below:

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