[quote by=zipp link=Blah.pl?b=cc,m=1084741864,s=18 date=1085328529]Thanks Wolf.
So, if I understand correctly, you could have gone into a record shop and said 'Can I buy Strawberry Fields Forever?' only to have the sale counted towards Penny Lane because the latter was getting more airplay.
Funny way to run a chart![/quote]
Correct!
I don`t think that scenario happened too often, though. I think most people went to a store and just asked for "the new Beatles single". But you do have a point. In the UK, the New Musical Express sometimes charted popular B-sides on its own as well, however they did not rely on airplay info, but on requests in the stores, just like in your example. Sales personnel was asked to write down if a particular song was asked for. Strangely though, this never happened with a Beatles single, because people just asked for "the new Beatles single".
As for 'For You Blue' I'd like to know if it was or wasn't officially a double A side since I've seen it given as such on one website.
It definitely wasn`t a official double A-side. In the US, such things as "double A-sides" are generally not determined by record companies, but solely by the flip side achieving enough radio airplay or not. And before November 1969 (when Billboard changed its policy of how to treat popular flip sides), no double A-sides existed in the US charts, because the B-side always was listed separately.
Almost every Beatles singles charted both sides, a Beatles B-side was always important enough to be played by radio stations, so in a way one could argue that every Beatles single was a double A-side. Even though sometimes a B-side only scraped into the Hot 100 for one week peaking at #95. Example: "The Inner Light". Should we call Lady Madonna / The Inner Light a "double A-side" because of this? I wouldn`t. That`s the same scenario that we have with "The Long And Winding Road / For You Blue". The flip side wasn`t a massive airplay hit, but as a Beatles B-side, it still registered enough airplay action to scrape into the charts (if the old rule had been in place, it would have probably peaked at something like #70). Billboard`s policy with popular B-sides after the rule change in November 1969 - after having abandoned charting popular B-sides on their own - was list them as "tag along" B-sides behind the more popular song (usually the A-Side). So technically, that makes them doubled-sided hits, but they are not comparable to the "real" double-A-siders, like "Penny Lane" and SFF, or "We Can Work It Out" and "Day Tripper", or "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby".
And if 'Something' wasn't a double A side how come 'Come Together' gets on to ONE?
This is an anomaly. "Something" and "Come Together" charted before
and after Billboard changed its rules concerning popular flip sides. Before that rule change, both songs charted on their own, and both of them proved to be very popular with radio stations, with "Come Together" peaking at #2 and "Something" at #3 (two weeks before the rule change), the next week, "Come Together" fell down from its peak position of #2 to #7, while "Something" remained at #3. Under the old rule, both sides wouldn`t have made it to #1, because of their split airplay. But thankfully, the week ending 29 November 1969, Billboard began to list both sides of a single in the same position (combining sales points with all airplay points instead of splitting the airplay), and the "new" double-sided hit single "Something / Come Together" went straight to #1 (for 1 week). If Billboard had changed its rules 3 to 4 weeks earlier, this double-sided-hit could have spent 3 or 4 weeks at #1, because the airplay of both songs was so strong, both of them together would have been a very powerful #1 single. In fact, Record World (a competitor of Billboard) had combined both songs in one position already in October, with the result of "Something / Come Together" spending 5 weeks (!!) at the summit of the Record World Charts.