The Enduring Appeal of Casey Kasem’s American Top Forty — Thousands Still Listen

A couple of years ago, when I bought my first car (in my fifties), I signed up for Sirius XM radio, mainly so I could go back to hearing Howard Stern a couple of decades after he left terrestrial radio. Along the way, I discovered other fun channels such as those devoted to decades of music from the ’60s through the 2010s.

Even better, I discovered that on the weekends, Sirius XM’s “70s on 7” channel offered random countdowns of Casey Kasem’s old American Top Forty shows and another random show on Thursday nights.

It’s odd to me that, all these decades later — and in repeats, no less — the show still hits me like comfort food and has been every bit as pleasurable as it was when I sat in my room on Saturday mornings and wrote down all the songs from 40 to 1. Not only did I get to cheer on my favorite songs and artists as they made the climb up the charts — or mourn when they didn’t go far — but I heard behind-the-scenes stories of the songs and artists from Casey himself.

Sirius XM also has the “80s on 8” channel and they also play the Billboard top 40 countdowns randomly on the weekends. However, perhaps because the rights to Casey’s original show are too expensive, a few of the deejays at “80s on 8” do the actual countdown. They are fine, but can never substitute for Casey. Something about that reassuring voice made me feel, as a bullied child, that all was safe in the world as long as Casey kept my rapt attention on those Saturday mornings.

My father’s solution to every problem we had as kids was to go outdoors and, better yet, do some chores. He didn’t know what to make of me sitting in my room with the radio from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on all those Saturdays, but he eventually realized that it was the only time I was happy, so stopped pestering me to go outside.

Kasem co-created and hosted the show from July 4, 1970 to August 6, 1988. Shadoe Stevens then took over until January 1995. In 1998, Kasem returned with “Casey’s Top 40” but it was no longer based on the authoritative Billboard charts. He stayed until 2004, when he retired, and another version of American Top 40 has been hosted by Ryan Seacrest since then. Kasem himself came to a sad ending in the months before (and after) his death on June 14, 2014, which you can read about elsewhere.

Billboard updates its charting methodology every few years to keep up with music business trends and listeners’ habits. In the old days, it was based on radio airplay and sales of physical product. Today, those factors weigh much less than streaming, which is now part of the math to create the current chart. Although the Billboard chart is probably more accurate than it’s ever been, it’s no longer as fun when a new release by Taylor Swift or Drake or Morgan Wallen can suddenly give them 15 songs in the Hot 100 in the first week of their album’s release. It was rare to see a song stay in the Top 40 for more than 14 weeks back in the day, but today big hits are routinely on the chart for a year and beyond.

But what it is about charts, specifically pop music charts, that so enthrall us? I mean, Box Office Mojo releases a chart every week about the movie box office results and it’s fun to take a glance, but I don’t collect them and return to them again and again. Same deal with Nielsen rating charts that give us the weekly television ratings. Meh.

Somewhere in my parents’ attic are boxes full of my handwritten charts for about ten years. When they pass on and we have to clear out the house, I’m sure I’ll find the yellowed treasure trove. Until then, I can listen again and again! What has been really bad for my addiction is recently discovering that iHeart Radio has a free channel that plays Casey’s countdowns 24/7. This is not good for my productivity.

I’ve also joined a few Facebook groups devoted to Casey’s American Top 40. There are thousands of us posting interesting tidbits about a recent countdown we heard, or asking trivia questions like “What song stayed on the charts longest [in the Casey Era] without ever getting to the top ten?” (“Why Me?” by Kris Kristofferson, peaked at #16 in 1973 but stayed on the Hot 100 for 38 weeks.)

Many of us own thick reference books by Joel Whitburn (who died in 2022), the foremost authority on Billboard charts. Why does it bother me when I see that a favorite song or artist just missed the top ten or, even worse, fell just outside the Top Forty, depriving me of writing it in my notepad and hearing Casey talk about it? And yet there are thousands of us still nursing 50-year-old grudges or celebrating small victories that even the artists probably never cared about.

It’s a dumb hobby. It doesn’t improve my health and doesn’t help the world. It often helps me in trivia contests if pop music is the category.

Yet here I am, reliving the greatest joy of my solitary childhood, decades later. That has to be worth something, right?