Gimbel's gambit

Adam Gimbel has an obsession. “I’ve been working on a countdown of all of the top 91X acts based on [the radio station’s] year-end countdowns.” This, he says, has been his pastime for going on 30 years.

“Twenty years ago, when I was still in college, 91X was coming up on their tenth anniversary. I pitched doing a countdown to [Mike] Halloran, and he loved it.” Gimbel says the station spent the weekend counting down the hits to number one. “For a 20-year-old, that was a super kick.”

Gimbel, who fronts a somewhat playful Weezer tribute called Geezer, admits that he first became interested in 91X and their annual countdowns in 1985. “I wondered who the most popular band was for the year,” he blogs in Yer Doin’ Great.

“Using basic math, I gave acts 91 points for a number 1 song, 90 points for a number 2 song, and so on down to 1 point for the number 91 song.”

But this time, Gimbel’s created a contest that runs February 18 to March 4. Anybody can enter, he says. “Thirty years of 91X countdowns will become the top 888 modern rock and roll acts of all time,” he advertises on the blog.

“Whoever guesses the top five, or is closest, I have a ton of prizes to give out. And in the case of a tie,” he says, “whoever gets their correct answer in first wins.”

According to Yer Doin’ Great, the rules are based on assigning points to songs based on past chart position. “Now, do that math on 2730 songs and figure out how many points each act has. Carry the one. Don’t use spreadsheets.”

Gimbel says contestants can message their answers to his Facebook page.