Here's the code for those who are interested or curious...it's written for BASH and uses Sound Exchange. Linux is the COOLEST! Essentially what's happening here is I find the loudest part of each song and cut 10 seconds after that moment, then stick em all together. Below, lines that start with # explain what the following line of code does.

#! /bin/bash
clear
# sets folder with mp3s as the variable $FILES
FILES=/Users/natroe/Desktop/Top_100_1986/*
# for every mp3 in that folder, do this process
for f in $FILES.mp3
do
# downsample to 8000 samples per second for time concerns
sox $f -r 8000 $f.mp3
# cut only the first 2 minutes of the song for processing time concerns
sox $f.mp3 $fcutup.mp3 trim 0 120
# save mp3 as list of time vs. amplitude
sox $fcutup.mp3 $f.dat
# set variable max as (take every amplitude, sort them in numerical order, take the first one)
max=$(awk '{print $2}' $fgood.dat|sort -n|tail -1)
# set the variable "maxtime" as (find time corresponding to max variable
maxtime=$(grep $max $fgood.dat |awk '{print $1}')
# cut from maxtime until 10 seconds after maxtime
sox $f $f.wav trim $maxtime 10
# deletes temp files
rm $f.dat
rm $f.mp3
rm $fgood.dat
done
# puts all the cutup files created into one big file sox /Users/natroe/Desktop/Top_100_1986/*.wav /Users/natroe/Desktop/Top_100_1986/chartsweep.mp3
rm /Users/natroe/Desktop/Top_100_1986/*.wav