1D (Unofficial) Ultimate Top 40 Countdown, Episode 1: Intro and #40
Welcome to the first installment of the 1D Ultimate Top 40 Countdown!
First, a big Thank You to the 31 Directioners (well, 30 Directioners + me) who took the time to agonizingly whittle down their list of 1D faves into their Top 25. I know that just going through that process got a lot of us all angst-y.
As a child of the 80s (yeah, I’m old lol), a highlight of my weekend was listening to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 countdown. I don’t know why I was so obsessed with it, but I just remember the mounting excitement as the countdown steadily ticked on “from #40 all the way to #1.”
I was so into the idea that I would actually make my own Top 40 list by listening to the radio all week long (there were 4 pop radio stations in my area to which I could listen) and tracking every song they played. Yes, I’m a geek.
After finding this community on Reddit a few months ago, and seeing the recent “bracket” contests, I was inspired to take a swipe at integrating two of my favorite things in the world – One Direction and a Top 40 countdown.
Before we get to the reveal of #40, I wanted to share a few stats about the overall contest.
# unique participants: 31
# unique songs receiving at least one vote: 89
# unique songs voted #1 by at least one Directioner: 19
# songs charting in the 1D Ultimate Top 40 Countdown, by album:
- Up All Night: 1 (😭)
- Take Me Home: 6
- Midnight Memories: 11
- Four: 9
- Made In The A.M.: 13 (!!!)
Those who are familiar with Casey Kasem’s countdown might remember that he would sometimes do “bonus” songs during the countdown, with a “Long Distance Request & Dedication” (LDR&D) – listeners would write in to the show relating a personal story, and explaining about how a specific song represented a message that the person who wrote in would like to dedicate to another person.
They would often take the form of "Dear Casey, back when I was in college, I met a guy...", and they'd end with, "So, Casey, could you please play 'Somewhere Out There' to let [that guy] know I'm still thinking about him all these years later? It would mean so much! Thanks, [the letter writer's name]"
Given that Up All Night got only 1 song in the overall Top 40 (ONE!!!), and that Take Me Home only got 6 songs, I thought it could be fun to do the occasional LDR&D for a track that didn’t make the Top 40, but for which one (or more) Directioners rated either #1 (or at least in their top 5).
What I’ll plan to do is first choose a song to include for this LDR&D feature – I’ll then DM the Directioner who rated this song highly, and ask if you’d like to be part of the LDR&D. I’ll do the first LDR&D for myself (and I’ll post it in-between my posts for #36 and #35), so you all can see how it could work. While not every LDR&D will come from Up All Night or Take Me Home, I think this will be a great way to give those early-years tracks some much-deserved love and appreciation.
I may come up with additional ways to feature tracks that didn’t make the Top 40 – but, for now, I like how including LDR&Ds from time-to-time will be a nice addition to the countdown.
OK – enough of that! Let’s get to it!
Kicking off our countdown at #40 is…
Moments
Album: Up All Night)
Writer(s): Ed Sheeran, Si Hulbert
Moments is the only song from Up All Night that features in the 1D Ultimate Top 40 Countdown, and received the following votes:
#1: 0
Top 5: 1
Top 10: 3
Total Votes: 11
Vote Points: 103
So, let's chat about it!
For those who participated, did you include this song in your Top 25? If so, what # did you rate this song?
For those who didn't participate (but perhaps would've liked to), would you have included it in your Top 25?
What do you love about this song? How does it compare to others that are in your Top 25? Anything special about this song that you want to share with the 1D community?
See you in the comments!