THE TOP 3333 MOST ESSENTIAL CLASSIC ROCK SONGS OF ALL TIME ... By The Numbers

3333 - Beginning on Monday, October 7th, we will be counting down THE TOP 3333 MOST ESSENTIAL CLASSIC ROCK TRACKS OF ALL TIME as determined by you, the voters, as a result of our five month poll to determine Classic Rock's TRUE favorites.  

(Why 3333?  Because we've all seen Top 100, Top 500 and Top 1000 Lists ... and we wanted to go BIG!!!  And since Classic Rock really began at the time that the album became the preferred method of purchasing and listening to music ... over the singles market that ruled the charts since rock and roll began ... and since a lot of us referred to these LPs as "33's" (because that's the way the speed was shown on our record players), we figured 3300 as our starting point.  And, since albums played at 33 1/3, we added another third to that 33-Hundred number and came up with THE TOP 3333!)

We gave readers 100 Days to nominate their favorites and most worthy selections ... the points began accumulating immediately due to duplicate nominations (as we knew they would) and we kept the "pre-polls" open for 100 days, building a list of eligible titles (putting a cap of 5000 to draw from) before whittling it down to the final TOP 3333.

At the end of the 100 day nominating period, 4752 titles were deemed eligible.  (This after a bit of finagling and eliminating a few duplicates and adding a few substitutes.)

In addition, during those 100 days, we also monitored the daily airplay logs of 30 Classic Rock Stations from coast to coast in order to determine what songs and artists were actually being played.  We then factored these logs into votes and added them to our tally. (In addition, we also tracked the number of iTunes downloads for all 4752 eligible titles and awarded a factor for these into the growing tabulation.)   

We then began listing those eligible titles alphabetically on the website over the course of a series of 46 ballots.  Readers were encouraged to vote for their favorites and most worthy candidates, with the focus always being on "What tracks should Classic Rock Radio be playing?"  Each ballot remained open for 3 days, at which point those votes were tabulated and then added to those calculated during the 100 day nomination process.

When all was said and done, 989,312 total votes/points were cast by 4708 different voters who visited the site. (That's close enough to a million for me!!! I mean, what's 10,688 votes between friends???)

And yes, I did this MANUALLY ... which required 23 new print cartridges to keep up with the constant flow of votes coming in ... and nearly 8000 sheets of paper to print out and tabulate the results.  (Fortunately, I printed out spread sheets ahead of time so that I could manually add to the tally each day without having to print out all of the results ... and then just add those daily totals to the master spread sheet at the end of the night when that day's poll ended.  I can't even imagine having to print out ALL of the results.  I couldn't have done it ... much less afforded to do so!)

947 different artists were represented on the final list ... we narrowed down the actual number of artists by taking into account variations on the same name (John Cougar / John Cougar Mellencamp / John Mellencamp, for example), duets, special one offs, and things like Derek and the Dominoes (votes credited to Eric Clapton), The Blue Ridge Rangers (votes credited to John Fogerty), etc. 

When all was said and done, 139 titles earned 1000 votes or more ... and 1 title (obviously, the winner) earned over 2000 votes. 

After all of the votes were tabulated, we compiled the final list of The Top 3333.  The minimum number of votes required to make the final countdown was (ironically enough) 33!!!  206 titles earned 33 votes each and, through a process of elimination and tie-breakers (plus the number of available of spots left within the final countdown), 89 of those made the final cut.

Who earned the most votes?  As expected, The Beatles had 162 different titles nominated (140 of which made the final list.)  Add to that tally, 29 for John Lennon, 75 for Paul McCartney, 19 for George Harrison and 8 for Ringo Starr and the Fab Four tallied an incredible 293 titles between themselves!  (229 of those 293 titles made THE TOP 3333.)

Second place goes to The Rolling Stones, who had 74 songs nominated (56 of which made the list.)  There was a tie for third place between Elton John and Led Zeppelin, each of whom had 57 titles nominated.  44 of Elton's made the final cut, while only 34 of Led Zeppelin's did. 

Intrigued?  Then bookmark this site NOW if you haven't already done so.  Even if you can't come back to visit every day, please know that we will continue to count down every day until we reach the top ... so you can catch up at any time.

And please, help to spread the word.  This is, without question, the most DEFINITIVE Countdown ever presented ... using actual research as collected by fans, airplay and downloads.  While we don't expect you to agree with all of it, we know that you WILL enjoy watching the list unfold.  Thanks again to everyone who voted ... and made this thing an over the top success. (I think I'm going to take a nap now!)  kk