TOP 20 TIMELINE
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On DFSX Radio, comedy music DJ, artist, and station owner David Tanny had a show called "I Still Get Demented", a showcase much like the Dr. Demento show, complete with a small Top 3 countdown at the end. However, when Tanny chose to cancel "ISGD" in August 2004, he felt the countdown should continue...
The DFSXRadio Top 9 - 2004
Tanny spun the countdown off into its own show on August 14, 2004, calling it "The DFSXRadio Top 9", counting down the top 9 songs as voted on by the visitors to the station's website.
However, voting was a little different in those days. Tanny kept a strict focus on the new and popular by using recurrent rules, and songs that had been on the ballot for long enough required more votes to be able to stay on the ballot and therefore on the broadcast chart, even if the number of votes placed it into the raw chart. Tanny also allowed voters to multiply their votes by purchasing his albums, with one extra ballot allowed per album purchased. There was also a 20-song-per-week vote cap, and ballots could not be amended. This voting system stayed in place for the entirity of Tanny's affiliation with the show.
Tanny also instituted a inverse-point system to calculate how songs stack up against each other for the half-year and full-year charts, much the same way Dr. Demento does (and as chart granddaddy "American Top 40" used to do in its early days).
The Dementia Top 20 - 2005-2007
On January 6, 2005, Tanny expanded the chart to 20 positions, and also added more features to the show, including "New Strokes" and "The Demented Resurrection Zone", featuring the newest songs and special requests, respectively. These features came after the main chart, and the entire programming block was called "The DT20 Zone". The show stayed in this format until paranoia forced DFSX off the air, seemingly for good.
Mad Music Dementia Top 20 - 2007
With Live365 worried about the possibility of rising royalty costs, they had forecasted a rate increase, and many stations affiliated with them simply ceased to exist. DFSX Radio was one of these on July 11, 2007, but Tanny decided to keep his countdown going on The Mad Music Archive (now MadMusic.com), adding "Mad Music" to the name of the show. The "New Strokes" and "Demented Resurrection Zone" features were integrated into the DT20 show itself, and many of the songs in the first half of the countdown were played only as excerpts.
In December 2007, Tanny announced he was cancelling the DT20 in favor of a new show, the "Mad Music Comedy Zone", which would be a general comedy music showcase highlighted by the two most requested songs of the week duking it out in "Dementiamania". This, coupled with the announcement that Dr. Demento was to no longer have a weekly Funny Five, meant a void was created...
Mad Music Dementia Top 20 - 2008-2011
When comedy music DJ and artist DJ Particle got wind of the news of DT20's cancellation, she innocently asked on Usenet if there was anyone else who could take the show over. Tanny's response was to basically volunteer DJ Particle herself for the position, which she accepted. After a hiatus of one week to set up a voting system on the Mad Music Archive site, the Mad Music Dementia Top 20 returned to the Mad Music Archive on January 12, 2008.
DJ Particle changed the format of the show a bit. Since Tanny moved "New Strokes" and "Demented Resurrection Zone" to his new show, DJ Particle set up a new feature called "Bleeding Edge Dementia", which basically served the same purpose as "New Strokes", but only playing one song per feature. Also, all 20 songs would air in their entirity, with DJ Particle herself announcing every song before and after play, making the format of the show similar to that of classic "American Top 40".
There is no longer a recurrent rule, as every song can stay on the chart for as long as it's popular, and any song listed in the MadMusic.com database is eligible for the ballot (though the main voting page concentrates on the newest and most voted songs, any song can be searched and voted for), and everyone gets one ballot per week to vote for as many songs as they like, and if you change your mind or want to vote for newly-added songs, the ballot can be amended.
There is also no more inverse-point system. Year-end totals are calculated now simply by how many votes the songs get, making this version of the DT20 the most accurate version yet, and the more people that participate in the voting process, the more accurate the chart gets!
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REVENGE TIMELINE
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The story of REVENGE!
In May 1995, Emi Briet, also known as "DJ Particle", started a little bi-weekly wee-hours radio show on WOMR, a small community radio station in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She wanted to play an eclectic mix of anything that was 15 years old or older, and the show "Particle's Pick" was born. After having a substitute DJ fill in for her on the show's premiere, she fell right into the show the week after. Her "double shot", "original & remake", and "disco half-hour" blocks became a signature for her show in the months to come. Her show also had occasional special themes, including the "Spirit of '76" show, near July 4th, which counted down Billboard's Top 100 of 1976, and "Particle's Christmas Pick", which was the last show before Christmas, featuring the sounds of the season.
On the night of March 30, 1996, in order to give the show more 'attitude", she renamed it to "Revenge of the Particle". Same music and specials, but faster-paced and longer; expanded from 3 hours to 6, though she had to reduce it back to 3 a couple months later to fit another show, but when that show moved slots in late 1996, the 6-hour Revenge returned!
The show continued on WOMR bi-weekly until August 1997, when longer hours at her paying job forced her to give up the show. Moving to Minneapolis a year later kept her out of the radio loop seemingly for good...
Then came October 15, 2005...after acquiring a microphone for her media PC, she mentioned to the keepers of Dementia Radio, DJ Blaksmith and DJ Blasted Bill, that she would like to resurrect her show...but there would need to be some changes...
The eclectic mix was still very much a part of the show, but the 15-year cap was gone, ANY song in the collection (within reason) was now eligible for air (though to stay true to Dementia Radio's format, the strange, the novelties, the filkish, and the rare would play more prominent)! The "double shot" and "original & remake" sections were still there (though called under the umbrella name "Multishot"), and to keep with the destruction of the 15-year rule, there was a techno/dance half-hour. That segment, later known as the "Quickrave", was dropped from the program in October 2010 in favor of a showcase of new songs that just barely missed the Mad Music Dementia Top 20!
See the 1997 website for the show!
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