FSAlmanacs:Demented Song Almanac
Editor: David Tanny

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One such subject neither Billboard or Joel Whitburn has covered in depth is the subject of novelty song history. I see all these great Billboard/Whitburn books mentioning some of the Top 40 and Top 100 hits that are marked with an [N] for Novelty song. There has yet to be a book published that covers the complete history of novelty music sorted by date.

Although most of the novelty music has been taken underground, no longer appearring on the Billboard Top 40 charts on a regular basis, there is a rich history of novelty song music before and after that time that deserves to be researched and documented.

Back in the early days of music through the golden days of rock and roll (through 1973), novelty music was treated back then as a regular song with a goofy attitude, but many of them made the Top Ten charts, some hitting number one. Some notable musician/singers like Tom Lehrer made several hundred songs from the 1950's and 1960's, never made the Billboard charts, and thus, never got included in any of the Whitburn/Billboard books.

Spike Jones was probably the first musician ever that specialized solely in novelty music destroying the classics with his trademark zany musical arrangements in the 1940's and 1950's, and he and his band's songs made the old charts regularily. Many other big band, jazz, country, classical, and swing musicians also made novelty songs on occasion to take a break from making more serene music, which were their main fortes.

The golden age of the 1960's had a rise in comedy albums, mostly spoken such as Bob Newhart, George Carlin, and the late Lenny Bruce, and a few musical acts such as Napoleon XIV specialized in complete lunacy. Some others like the late Frank Zappa mixed in humor with serious rock jazz hybrids that were designed for the thinking person.

The 1970's introduced the Dr. Demento Show, which began playing goofy unreleased tapes from the Roto Rooter Goodtime Christmas Band, and that paved the way for any independent musician or comedian to get some of their music exposed nationwide on his radio show. Though over 99 percent of the music Dr. Demento has ever played never made the Billboard Top 100 charts, there are at least a thousand novelty songs that deserve to be called classics in the field of novelty music.

Since 1974, when Dr. Demento's radio show went into syndication, the Top 40 charts began loosing their sense of humor little by little, and were getting few and far between, though the 80's introduced some goofy new wave, synth, punk, ska, rock, and rap acts that were fun to listen to, to give the listeners a break from all the serious balladeers that were all over the pop charts then. Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers, Bob and Doug McKenzie, Steven Wright, and many more comedians continued to put out comedy albums while many unreleased tapes (CDs came in the mid 80s) continued to get some kind of airplay through Dr. Demento. Whethter their song got on the Billboard charts or not, people bought the songs and enjoyed them.

The 1990's brought a new way for novelty acts to get exposure: The Internet! While Top 40 went into serious mode, even when grunge and serious rap took over the charts and boring the listeners away (save for dance music), websites, Internet shows and stations, and a new way to transmit songs (MP3s) were born out of the necessity to get the independent musician's music exposed, even if corporate radio and Dr. Demento ignored them altogether. Suddenly, many people who made unreleased tapes but were never heard on the radio got a way at last for them to get their works exposed to the masses, thanks to the Internet.

The Internet age brought us even more comedy music than ever before, in fact, it is estimated that the novelty material that was created in the years 1997-2001 is about equal to the number of the material that was created before 1997, or so it seems as I began listening to Internet radio on a regular basis, downloading some MP3s from the comedy musician's websites, got music from the so-called illegal file-swap services, and lastly, bought the albums I would have never purchased if I had never heard the material in the first place, no thanks to corporate radio.

So as novelty music enters the 21st century, the need to categorize the rich history of novelty music as a whole is much more needed than ever before. Until Joel Whitburn ever gets around to publishing a book that covers the notable novelty song hits and misses made famous by Top 40 and Dr. Demento, this Song Almanac, covering at least most of the songs Dr. Demento made famous, will have to do.

The songs were culled and edited from the Dr. Demento Show playlists, plus other sources such as albums and other material that Dr. Demento never played on his show. The lists are compiled by QBASIC for DOS and the files are in standard text (no propietary formats can be used anyway). Some spelling errors do creep up every now and then, but that's what you get when you're dealing with a radio show that has played well over 40,000 occurrences of songs and sketchs (some songs singlehandedly have gotten over 100 occurrences) since 1974 when Dr. Demento's national show came into existance.

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