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It's been said that "rock and roll is here to stay," but the Dark Side of the Moon phenomenon is a bit ridiculous. We were already familiar with the Billboard charts, so we typed "Billboard" into the Yahoo! search bar. We were directed to the Billboard web site where we were certain we would find the answer. Billboard, the self-proclaimed "world's most-trusted source of information about the music business," keeps tabs on a number of different types of music, from R&B/Hip-Hop to Country to Independent albums. The charts are
"compiled from a national sample of retail store, mass merchant, and Internet sales reports collected, compiled, and provided by SoundScan." They are most well-known for their Billboard 200 which tracks the top albums overall. For our purposes, however, we needed the Pop Catalog chart. What exactly is the Pop Catalog Chart? Well, catalog albums are "2-year-old titles that have fallen below No. 100 on The Billboard 200 or reissues of older albums." Basically, the chart shows the combined weeks an album has appeared on The Billboard 200 or Top Pop Catalog Albums. According to the December 1, 2001 issue of Billboard, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon has been on the charts for an astounding 1,285 weeks. That's just under 25 years! Its closest rival is James Taylor's Greatest Hits, checking in at 573 weeks on the chart. James can expect to reach Pink Floyd's record number in about 13 1/2 years. We found some great information on Pink Floyd at the Hollywood and Vine web site. The album spent 724 weeks on The Billboard 200, including 591 consecutive weeks from 1976 to 1988. Then in
1991, with the institution of the Pop Catalog chart, the album returned the chart where it has resided for the past 10 years almost entirely in the Top 10. After researching this question and finding the almost unbelievable answer, we have one question for the record-buying public: Is there anybody out there?
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