Chart Archaeology · Feature

Two days of my daily Top 10, revived, and a forgotten song I wrote down as “Fascinated by Someone Else.”

By Tony Winter · Published Nov 9, 2026

Part of being a music chart nerd is you have a lot of lists, and charts, and projects. In various states of array. Or disarray, mostly. Typically unfinished, half baked, often one quarter baked. From 1986 to 1988 I’d write down my daily top 10 songs. Then I turned 16, got a job and a car, and the time for daily charting became hard to find. But I’d start back up again every so often. January 1993 was one such occasion.

I didn’t write down the artists, on this chart anyway. Apparently 20-year-old me figured he’d always remember. Annoyingly, he was right. By 1993 I was positive this whole music tracking thing was a phase I’d soon outgrow. So here it is, typed up properly in late 2026. So, yeah, the phase thing, uhmmm, still waiting to outgrow that.

All over the dial

Eleven songs in two days, and they’re all over the map. Several are country, because I’d spent 1990–91 working at a country station, and it stuck. Two are hip-hop. Two are college rock. Whitney is there. So are three artists I’d been charting since the notebook years: Fleetwood Mac, Prince, and a Beatle.

Three of them are covers, and each one moves a song into a different genre: The Lemonheads doing Simon & Garfunkel, Dwight Yoakam doing Elvis, Whitney doing Dolly Parton.

What’s missing is grunge, in January 1993 of all times. By then grunge was already a juggernaut, and as we now know, it still had a ton of steam left in the tank. R.E.M. had hit their stride in ’91 with Out of Time and somehow surpassed it in ’92 and ’93 with Automatic for the People. Leaving them off wasn’t because I wasn’t listening. Take our Mainstream chart for Jan 4, 1993, less than two weeks before my list. Temple of the Dog was #5. R.E.M. had two songs in the top 10. Pearl Jam had “Jeremy” at #13 and “Black” debuting at #19. Nirvana’s “In Bloom” was #14, and Screaming Trees’ “Nearly Lost You” debuted at #20. Down at #24, in its last week, was “Paper Doll,” hanging in with all of them. The rock radio charts covered that. The notebook was for everything else that got stuck in my head. Some 16 months after Nirvana hit with the force of a thousand freight trains with “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” I was convinced “In Bloom” was the finest of the Nevermind singles, and that opinion still hasn’t changed. Notice I said singles. “Drain You” gives it a run for its money. Ok, I’m getting off track, this happens.

Written down by the hook

Look closely, and squint a little, and you’ll see two songs aren’t written down by their titles. I wrote down their hooks instead. Wreckx-n-Effect’s “Rump Shaker” is written as “Zoom a Zoom Zoom.” Likewise, Fleetwood Mac’s “Paper Doll” I had written down as “Fascinated by Someone Else.”

There were a LOT of good radio songs in the ’90s. Too many to take in at the time. Thanks to the internet coming along, it got somewhat easier to rediscover these classic gems. Several times a year I’ll see a song title or hear it again, and think “oh yeah! that was one of those songs I meant to circle back around to.” Sometimes it’s the hook I remember, not the title. Blues Traveler even wrote a whole song about this, and called it “Hook.” Of course they did. John Popper sings about how “the hook brings you back,” and he’s right.

Paper Doll

Of everything on that list, this is the one that turned up again this year. I was looking back at the notebook for something else, and got fascinated by something else instead. I’d forgotten all about that gorgeous song I’d written down in early ’93 as “Fascinated by Someone Else.” That’s the hook in the chorus, not the title. The song is called “Paper Doll.” In any event, it’s catchy. And it brings you back.

“Paper Doll” was a Stevie Nicks song that got shelved in 1988. It came out in late 1992 as one of four new songs on the box set 25 Years – The Chain. It debuted on our Mainstream chart the week of Dec 14, 1992 at #25, one spot under Alice in Chains’ “Them Bones.” Two weeks later, Nirvana’s “In Bloom” debuted at #21, and “Paper Doll” sat right below it at #22. That was its peak. It lasted four weeks and was off our chart by the time I wrote it down. It never really crossed over to pop radio. Three days after that list, the Rumours lineup got back together on stage at Bill Clinton’s inaugural gala.

The song took the long way around. Stevie wrote the melody and the lyrics. It was cut for the band’s 1988 greatest hits album and then left off. Four years later it turned up on the box set. Lindsey Buckingham had left the band by then, but he still added guitar and production help, uncredited. So a song that grew out of a lineup change ended up with nearly the whole family on it.

Rock radio was all over it. The Hard Report, a weekly trade magazine for rock radio programmers, flagged it as a Top Priority in November 1992. A week later it was the second-most-added song in the country, and it debuted on their Hard Hundred at #37. “In Bloom” debuted that same week at #62. Neighbors from day one. By mid-December, 107 stations were playing it. My favorite line from those issues comes from a Syracuse programmer: “Stevie Nicks and Paul Simon had a baby and they called it 'Paper Doll.'” Funny thing is, a Paul Simon song, “Mrs. Robinson,” was sitting at #1 on my handwritten January 1993 list.

At the time, Fleetwood Mac was a very well established act, perhaps a lifetime removed in pop years from their Rumours-level peak in ’77. But damn, are they one hell of a band. Three supreme singer-songwriters. So damn good, in fact, that in January of ’93 they were right there competing for airplay with grunge and college rock. “Paper Doll” may have been a victim of timing. It isn’t hard to imagine it on the 1982 album, Mirage, as a follow-up single to “Hold Me.” The rhythm section matches that one nicely. But January of ’93 was crowded. Oozing in quality.

It’s just an incredibly well done composition, and I’m glad that 20-year-old me thought so as well. It holds its weight next to “In Bloom.” It’s a forgotten treasure. Fleetwood Mac has a ton of treasures. Some forgotten, many never left. If this Rock Chart Monster endeavor covered farther back in time, we’d have a ton more Fleetwood Mac. It’s kind of a testament to their talent that a band that took over the planet in 1977 had so much fuel that the fire was still burning, quite brightly, in January of ’93. Fleetwood Mac is one of the finest pop rock bands, ever. People often think of them as a ’70s band. Less so an ’80s band, though they were still quite hot most of that decade. One thing you don’t hear often, in fact I’ve never heard it, is “Fleetwood Mac is a kick-ass ’90s band.” But, well, they did put out at least one unheralded masterpiece in the ’90s, and it kicks a lot of ass.

Watch the video closely. It’s mostly stitched together from the band’s older videos, and I’m certain part of it is from the 1979 “Tusk” video. Seven-year-old me was a massive fan of “Tusk.” Fourteen years later, there it was again, tucked inside a song I’d write down by its hook, and write a blog post about another 33 years after that. I feel old. And young. Music does that.

Give “Paper Doll” a listen and decide for yourself.

Tony Winter started charting music airplay on radio and TV in 1986, on notebook paper. It’s been evolving ever since. Slowly. Mostly. He lives in the Kansas City area, where he does data stuff for a living.

Is “Paper Doll” truly a gem, or does it just resonate with a few of us? Tell us on Bluesky →