Billboard Hot 100
Encyclopedia
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles
popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard
magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday to Tuesday. A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Thursday. Each chart is dated with the "week-ending" date of the Saturday two weeks after. Example:
The first number one song of the Hot 100 was "Poor Little Fool
" by Ricky Nelson
on August 4, 1958. As of the issue for the week ending December 10, 2011, the Hot 100 has had 1,009 different number-one hits. Its current number-one is "We Found Love
" by Rihanna
featuring Calvin Harris
.
During the 1940s and 1950s, popular singles were ranked in three significant charts:
Although officially all three charts had equal "weight" in terms of their importance, many chart historians refer to the Best Sellers In Stores chart when referencing a song’s performance prior to the creation of the Hot 100. Billboard eventually created a fourth singles popularity chart that combined all aspects of a single’s performance (sales, airplay and jukebox activity), based on a point system that typically gave sales (purchases) more weight than radio airplay. On the week ending November 12, 1955, Billboard published The Top 100 for the first time. The Best Sellers In Stores, Most Played By Jockeys and Most Played In Jukeboxes charts continued to be published concurrently with the new Top 100 chart.
On June 17, 1957, Billboard discontinued the Most Played In Jukeboxes chart, as the popularity of jukeboxes waned and radio stations incorporated more and more rock-oriented music into their playlists. The week ending July 28, 1958 was the final publication of the Most Played By Jockeys and Top 100 charts, both of which had Perez Prado
's instrumental version of "Patricia
" ascending to the top.
On August 4, 1958, Billboard premiered one main all-genre singles chart: the Hot 100. Although similar to the Top 100, the first Hot 100 chart reset all songs’ "weeks on chart" status to "1". The Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard and Billboard discontinued the Best Sellers In Stores chart on October 13, 1958.
The Billboard Hot 100 is still the standard by which a song’s popularity is measured in the United States. The Hot 100 is ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen BDS, sales data compiled by Nielsen Soundscan (both at retail and digitally) and streaming activity provided by online music sources.
There are several component charts that contribute to the overall calculation of the Hot 100. The most significant ones are shown below.
As the advent of a singles music chart spawned chart historians and chart-watchers and greatly affected pop culture and produced countless bits of trivia, the main purpose of the Hot 100 is to aid those within the music industry – to reflect the popularity of the "product" (the singles, the albums, etc.) and to track the trends of the buying public. Billboard has (many times) changed its methodology and policies to give the most precise and accurate reflection of what is popular. A very basic example of this would be the ratio given to sales and airplay. During the Hot 100’s early history, singles were the leading way by which people bought music. At times when singles sales were robust, more weight was given to a song’s retail points than to its radio airplay.
As the decades passed, the recording industry concentrated more on album sales than singles sales. Musicians eventually expressed their creative output in the form of full-length albums rather than singles, and by the 1990s many record companies stopped releasing singles altogether (see Album Cuts, below). Eventually a song’s airplay points were weighted more so than its sales. Billboard has adjusted the sales/airplay ratio many times to more accurately reflect the true popularity of songs.
’s "Don’t Be Cruel" / "Hound Dog." During the Presley single’s chart run, top billing was switched back and forth between the two sides several times. But on the concurrent "Most Played in Juke Boxes," "Most Played by Jockeys" and the "Top 100," the two songs were listed separately, as was true of all songs. With the initiation of the Hot 100 in 1958, A- and-B-sides charted separately, as they had on the former Top 100.
Starting with the Hot 100 chart for the week ending November 29, 1969, this rule was altered; if both sides received significant airplay, they were listed together. This started to become a moot point by 1972, as most major record labels solidified a trend they had started in the 1960s by putting the same song on both sides of the singles it serviced to radio.
More complex issues began to arise as the typical A-and-B-side format of singles gave way to 12 inch singles and maxi-singles, many of which contained more than one B-side. Further problems arose when, in several cases, a B-side would eventually overtake the A-side in popularity, thus prompting record labels to release a new single, featuring the former B-side as the A-side, along with a "new" B-side.
The inclusion of album cuts on the Hot 100 put the double-sided hit issues to rest permanently.
However, on December 5, 1998 the Hot 100 changed from being a "singles" chart to a "songs" chart. During the 1990s, a growing trend in the music industry was to promote songs to radio without ever releasing them as singles. It was claimed by major record labels that singles were cannibalizing album sales, so they were slowly phased out. During this period, accusations began to fly of chart manipulation as labels would hold off on releasing a single until airplay was at its absolute peak, thus prompting a top ten or, in some cases, a number one debut. In many cases, a label would delete a single from its catalog after only one week, thus allowing the song to enter the Hot 100, make a high debut and then slowly decline in position as the one-time production of the retail single sold out.
It was during this period that several popular mainstream hits never charted on the Hot 100, or charted well after their airplay had declined. During the period that they were not released as singles the songs were not eligible to chart. Many of these songs dominated the Hot 100 Airplay chart for extended periods of time:
As debate and conflicts occurred more and more often, Billboard finally answered the requests of music industry artists and insiders by including airplay-only singles (or "album cuts") in the Hot 100.
(EP) releases were listed by Billboard on the Hot 100 and in pre-Hot 100 charts (Top 100) until the mid-to-late 1960s. With the growing popularity of albums, it was decided to move EPs (which typically contain four to six tracks) from the Hot 100 to the Billboard 200
, where they are included to this day.
, Napster
, Musicmatch, and Rhapsody
. With paid digital downloads added to the airplay/sales formula of the Hot 100, many songs benefited on the charts from the change. Billboard initially started tracking downloads in 2003 with the Hot Digital Tracks
chart. However, these downloads did not count towards the Hot 100 and that chart (as opposed to Hot Digital Songs) counted each version of a song separately (the chart still exists today along with Hot Digital Songs). This is the first major overhaul of the Hot 100's chart formula since December 1998.
The change in formula has shaken up the chart considerably, with some songs debuting on the chart strictly with robust online sales and others making drastic leaps. In recent years, several songs have been able to achieve 80-to-90 position jumps in a single week as their digital components were made available at online music stores. Since 2006, the all-time record for the biggest single-week upward movement was broken nine times.
In the issue dated August 11, 2007, Billboard began incorporating weekly data from Streaming media
and On-demand services into the Hot 100. The first two major companies to provide their statistics to Nielsen BDS on a weekly basis are AOL Music
and Yahoo! Music
, with more to follow in the future.
es. A growing trend in the early first decade of the 21st century was to issue a song as a "remix" that was so drastically different in structure and lyrical content from its original version that it was essentially a whole new song. Under normal circumstances, airplay points from a song’s album version, "radio" mix and/or dance music
remix, etc. were all combined and factored into the song’s performance on the Hot 100, as the structure, lyrics and melody remained intact. Criticisms began when songs were being completely re-recorded to the point that they no longer resembled the original recording. The first such example of this scenario is Jennifer Lopez
’ "I'm Real". Originally entering the Hot 100 in its album version, a "remix" was issued in the midst of its chart run that featured rapper Ja Rule
. This new version proved to be far more popular than
the album version and the track was propelled to number one.
To address this issue, Billboard now separates airplay points from a song’s original version and its remix, if the remix is determined to be a "new song". Since administering this new chart rule, several songs have charted twice, normally credited as "Part 1" and "Part 2". The remix rule is still in place.
The most notable exception to the recurrent entry policy applies to holiday-themed releases, which are commonly reissued year after year in anticipation of Christmas purchasing. After its initial chart run, a holiday entry cannot re-enter the Hot 100 in subsequent years.
and release them in time for its final print issue on the last week of December. Prior to Nielsen SoundScan, year-end singles charts were calculated by an inverse-point system based solely on a song’s performance on the Hot 100 (for example, a song would be given one point for a week spent at position 100, two points for a week spent at position ninety-nine and so forth, up to 100 points for each week spent at number one). Other factors including the total weeks a song spent on the chart and at its peak position were calculated into its year-end total.
After Billboard began obtaining sales and airplay information from Nielsen SoundScan, the year-end charts are now calculated by a very straightforward cumulative total of yearlong sales and airplay points. This gives a more accurate picture of any given year’s most popular tracks, as a song that hypothetically spent nine weeks at number one in March could possibly have earned fewer cumulative points than a song that spent six weeks at number three in January. Songs at the peak of their popularity at the time of the November/December chart-year cutoff many times end up ranked on the following year's chart as well, as their cumulative points are split between the two chart-years, but often are ranked lower than they would have been had the peak occurred in a single year.
Few music historians believe that the Hot 100 has been a perfectly accurate gauge of the most popular songs for each week or year. For example, during the 1950s and 1960s, payola
and other problems skewed the numbers in largely undetectable ways.
Further, the history of popular music shows nearly as many remarkable failures to chart as it does impressive charting histories. Certain artists (such as Pink Floyd
and Led Zeppelin
) had tremendous album sales while being oblivious to the weekly singles charts. Business changes in the industry also affect artists' statistical "records." Single releases were more frequent and steady, and were expected to have much shorter shelf lives in earlier decades, making direct historical comparisons somewhat specious. Of the sixteen singles to top the Billboard chart for more than ten weeks since 1955, just one was released before 1992. During the first forty years of the rock era, no song had ever debuted at number one; since a 1995 change in methodology, nineteen songs have.
Strategizing also plays a role. Numerous artists have taken deliberate steps to maximize their chart positions by such tactics as timing a single's debut to face the weakest possible competition, or massively discounting the price of singles to the point where each individual sale represented a financial loss. Meanwhile, other artists would deliberately withhold even their most marketable songs in order to boost album sales. Particularly in the 1990s, many of the most heavily played MTV and radio hits were unavailable for separate purchase. Because of such countervailing strategies, it cannot be said that a Hot 100 chart necessarily lists the country's 100 most popular or successful songs. Strategies like these were the main reason behind the December 1998 change in the charts.
Some critics have argued that an overemphasis on a limited number of singles has distorted record industry development efforts, and there are nearly as many critics of the Hot 100 as there are supporters. Certain of these criticisms, however, are becoming less and less germane as digital downloads have revitalized the concept of “singles sales.”
The Billboard charts have endured as the only widely-circulated published report on songs that have been popular across the United States over the last half-century. Competing publications such as Cash Box
, Record World
, Radio & Records
and most recently Mediabase
have offered alternate charts, which sometimes differed widely.
. This relationship ended on November 30, 1991, as American Top 40 started using the airplay-only side of the Hot 100 (then called Top 40 Radio Monitor). The ongoing splintering of Top 40 radio
in the early 1990s led stations to lean into specific formats, meaning that practically no station would play the wide array of genres that typically composed each weekly Hot 100 chart.
, was created by Billboard in February 2005 to answer criticism that the Hot 100 was biased in favor of rhythmic songs, as throughout most of its existence, the Hot 100 was seen predominantly as a pop chart. It was discontinued in June 2009 due to the charts becoming increasingly similar.
The Canadian Hot 100
was launched June 16, 2007. Like the Hot 100 chart, it uses sales and airplay tracking compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and BDS
.
The Japan Hot 100
was launched in the issue dated May 31, 2008, using the same methodologies as the Hot 100 charts for the U.S. and Canada, utilizing sales and airplay data from SoundScan Japan and radio tracking service Plantech.
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday to Tuesday. A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Thursday. Each chart is dated with the "week-ending" date of the Saturday two weeks after. Example:
- Monday, January 1 – sales tracking-week begins
- Wednesday, January 3 – airplay tracking-week begins
- Sunday, January 7 – sales tracking-week ends
- Tuesday, January 9 – airplay tracking-week ends
- Thursday, January 11 – new chart released, with issue date of Saturday, January 20.
The first number one song of the Hot 100 was "Poor Little Fool
Poor Little Fool
"Poor Little Fool" is a pop/rock song written by Sharon Sheeley. It was based on her disappointment following a short-lived relationship with a member of a popular singing duo. The best-known version of the song was recorded by Ricky Nelson on April 17, 1958 and released on Imperial Records 5528...
" by Ricky Nelson
Ricky Nelson
Eric Hilliard Nelson , better known as Ricky Nelson or Rick Nelson, was an American singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, and actor...
on August 4, 1958. As of the issue for the week ending December 10, 2011, the Hot 100 has had 1,009 different number-one hits. Its current number-one is "We Found Love
We Found Love
"We Found Love" is a song by Barbadian recording artist Rihanna, from her sixth studio album Talk That Talk . The song features Scottish singer-songwriter Calvin Harris. "We Found Love" was released as the lead single from the album and premiered on September 22, 2011, in the United Kingdom on the...
" by Rihanna
Rihanna
Robyn Rihanna Fenty , better known as simply Rihanna, is a Barbadian recording artist. Born in Saint Michael, Barbados, Rihanna moved to the United States at the age of 16 to pursue a recording career under the guidance of record producer Evan Rogers...
featuring Calvin Harris
Calvin Harris
Calvin Harris is a Scottish singer-songwriter, record producer and DJ. His gold-selling debut album, I Created Disco, was released in 2007 and contained the top ten singles "Acceptable in the 80s" and "The Girls"...
.
History
What has always been known as the Hot 100 had existed for nearly fifteen years as numerous charts, tracking and ranking the most popular singles of the day in several areas.During the 1940s and 1950s, popular singles were ranked in three significant charts:
- Best Sellers In Stores—ranked the biggest selling singles in retail stores, as reported by merchants surveyed throughout the country (20 to 50 positions).
- Most Played By Jockeys—ranked the most played songs on United States radio stations, as reported by radio disc jockeys and radio stations (20 to 25 positions).
- Most Played In Jukeboxes—ranked the most played songs in jukeboxJukeboxA jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media...
es across the United States (20 positions). This was one of the main outlets of measuring song popularity with the younger generation of music listeners, as many radio stations resisted adding rock 'n roll music to their playlists for many years.
Although officially all three charts had equal "weight" in terms of their importance, many chart historians refer to the Best Sellers In Stores chart when referencing a song’s performance prior to the creation of the Hot 100. Billboard eventually created a fourth singles popularity chart that combined all aspects of a single’s performance (sales, airplay and jukebox activity), based on a point system that typically gave sales (purchases) more weight than radio airplay. On the week ending November 12, 1955, Billboard published The Top 100 for the first time. The Best Sellers In Stores, Most Played By Jockeys and Most Played In Jukeboxes charts continued to be published concurrently with the new Top 100 chart.
On June 17, 1957, Billboard discontinued the Most Played In Jukeboxes chart, as the popularity of jukeboxes waned and radio stations incorporated more and more rock-oriented music into their playlists. The week ending July 28, 1958 was the final publication of the Most Played By Jockeys and Top 100 charts, both of which had Perez Prado
Perez Prado
Dámaso Pérez Prado was a Cuban bandleader, musician , and composer. He is often referred to as the 'King of the Mambo'.His orchestra was the most popular in mambo...
's instrumental version of "Patricia
Patricia (Perez Prado song)
"Patricia" is a popular song with music by Perez Prado and lyrics by Bob Marcus, published in 1958. The song is best known in an instrumental version by Prado's orchestra that became the last record to ascend to #1 on the Billboard Jockeys and Top 100 charts, both of which gave way the next week...
" ascending to the top.
On August 4, 1958, Billboard premiered one main all-genre singles chart: the Hot 100. Although similar to the Top 100, the first Hot 100 chart reset all songs’ "weeks on chart" status to "1". The Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard and Billboard discontinued the Best Sellers In Stores chart on October 13, 1958.
The Billboard Hot 100 is still the standard by which a song’s popularity is measured in the United States. The Hot 100 is ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen BDS, sales data compiled by Nielsen Soundscan (both at retail and digitally) and streaming activity provided by online music sources.
There are several component charts that contribute to the overall calculation of the Hot 100. The most significant ones are shown below.
- Hot 100 AirplayHot 100 AirplayThe Hot 100 Airplay chart is a chart released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States. It measures radio airplay, and is one of the three component charts, along with the Hot Singles Sales and the Hot Digital Songs charts, that determine the chart positions of singles on the Billboard...
—(per Billboard) approximately 1,000 stations, "composed of adult contemporary, R&BRhythm and bluesRhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
, hip-hopHip hop musicHip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
, countryCountry musicCountry music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, rockRock musicRock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, gospelGospel musicGospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, Latin and ChristianChristian musicChristian music is music that has been written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life and faith. Common themes of Christian music include praise, worship, penitence, and lament, and its forms vary widely across the world....
formats, digitally monitored twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Charts are ranked by number of gross audience impressions, computed by cross-referencing exact times of radio airplay with ArbitronArbitronArbitron is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio audiences. It was founded as American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by merging with L.A. based Coffin, Cooper and Clay in the early 1950s...
listener data." - Hot 100 Singles SalesHot 100 Singles SalesThe Hot Singles Sales chart is a chart released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States. It measures sales of commercial singles and is one of three component charts, along with the Hot 100 Airplay and the Hot Digital Songs, that determine the chart positions of singles on the...
—(per Billboard) "the top selling singles compiled from a national sample of retail store, mass merchant and internet sales reports collected, compiled, and provided by Nielsen SoundScanNielsen SoundScanNielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada...
." - Hot Digital SongsHot Digital SongsThe Hot Digital Songs chart ranks the best-selling digital singles in the United States, according to Billboard.Beginning in February 2005, digital sales have been incorporated into many of Billboards music single charts. It was decided to do so mainly because of the dramatic rise in popularity of...
—Digital sales are tracked by Nielsen SoundScan and are included as part of a title's sales points.
Hot 100 policy changes
The methods and policies by which this data is obtained and compiled have changed many times throughout the chart’s history.As the advent of a singles music chart spawned chart historians and chart-watchers and greatly affected pop culture and produced countless bits of trivia, the main purpose of the Hot 100 is to aid those within the music industry – to reflect the popularity of the "product" (the singles, the albums, etc.) and to track the trends of the buying public. Billboard has (many times) changed its methodology and policies to give the most precise and accurate reflection of what is popular. A very basic example of this would be the ratio given to sales and airplay. During the Hot 100’s early history, singles were the leading way by which people bought music. At times when singles sales were robust, more weight was given to a song’s retail points than to its radio airplay.
As the decades passed, the recording industry concentrated more on album sales than singles sales. Musicians eventually expressed their creative output in the form of full-length albums rather than singles, and by the 1990s many record companies stopped releasing singles altogether (see Album Cuts, below). Eventually a song’s airplay points were weighted more so than its sales. Billboard has adjusted the sales/airplay ratio many times to more accurately reflect the true popularity of songs.
Double-sided singles
Billboard has also changed its Hot 100 policy regarding “two-sided singles” several times. The pre-Hot 100 chart "Best Sellers in Stores" listed popular A- and-B-sides together, with the side that was played most often (based on its other charts) listed first. One of the most notable of these, but far from the only one, was Elvis PresleyElvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
’s "Don’t Be Cruel" / "Hound Dog." During the Presley single’s chart run, top billing was switched back and forth between the two sides several times. But on the concurrent "Most Played in Juke Boxes," "Most Played by Jockeys" and the "Top 100," the two songs were listed separately, as was true of all songs. With the initiation of the Hot 100 in 1958, A- and-B-sides charted separately, as they had on the former Top 100.
Starting with the Hot 100 chart for the week ending November 29, 1969, this rule was altered; if both sides received significant airplay, they were listed together. This started to become a moot point by 1972, as most major record labels solidified a trend they had started in the 1960s by putting the same song on both sides of the singles it serviced to radio.
More complex issues began to arise as the typical A-and-B-side format of singles gave way to 12 inch singles and maxi-singles, many of which contained more than one B-side. Further problems arose when, in several cases, a B-side would eventually overtake the A-side in popularity, thus prompting record labels to release a new single, featuring the former B-side as the A-side, along with a "new" B-side.
The inclusion of album cuts on the Hot 100 put the double-sided hit issues to rest permanently.
Album cuts
As many Hot 100 chart policies have been modified over the years, one rule always remained constant: songs were not eligible to enter the Hot 100 unless they were available to purchase as a single.However, on December 5, 1998 the Hot 100 changed from being a "singles" chart to a "songs" chart. During the 1990s, a growing trend in the music industry was to promote songs to radio without ever releasing them as singles. It was claimed by major record labels that singles were cannibalizing album sales, so they were slowly phased out. During this period, accusations began to fly of chart manipulation as labels would hold off on releasing a single until airplay was at its absolute peak, thus prompting a top ten or, in some cases, a number one debut. In many cases, a label would delete a single from its catalog after only one week, thus allowing the song to enter the Hot 100, make a high debut and then slowly decline in position as the one-time production of the retail single sold out.
It was during this period that several popular mainstream hits never charted on the Hot 100, or charted well after their airplay had declined. During the period that they were not released as singles the songs were not eligible to chart. Many of these songs dominated the Hot 100 Airplay chart for extended periods of time:
- 1995 The RembrandtsThe RembrandtsThe Rembrandts are an American pop-rock duo formed by Phil Solem and Danny Wilde in 1989. They had previously worked together as members of Great Buildings in 1981...
– "I’ll Be There For You" (number one for eight weeks) - 1996 No DoubtNo DoubtNo Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California that formed in 1986. The ska-pop sound of their first album No Doubt , failed to make an impact...
– "Don't SpeakDon't Speak"Don't Speak" is a song by the American rock band No Doubt. It was released in 1996 as the third single from the band's third studio album, Tragic Kingdom...
" (number one for 16 weeks) - 1997 Sugar RaySugar RaySugar Ray is a band from Orange County, California. The band, starting off more as an alternative metal band, first gained fame in 1997 with their release of the song "Fly". This song's success, coupled with its pop rock sound that was quite different from the rest of their material at the time,...
featuring Super CatSuper CatSuper Cat is a deejay most popular during the late 1980s and early 1990s dancehall movement. Super Cat was born in Jamaica and was nicknamed Wild Apache. His nickname, the "Wild Apache" was given to him by his mentor Early B...
– "FlyFly (Sugar Ray song)"Fly" is a song by rock band Sugar Ray. It appears on their 1997 album Floored twice: one version with reggae artist Super Cat and the other without ....
" (number one for six weeks) - 1997 Will SmithWill SmithWillard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...
– "Men in BlackMen in Black (song)"Men in Black" is a song by Will Smith from the movie Men in Black, in which he also starred. The song plays during the movie's closing credits...
" (number one for four weeks) - 1997 The CardigansThe CardigansThe Cardigans are a Swedish rock band formed in the town of Jönköping in October 1992.Their debut album Emmerdale gave them a solid base in their home country and enjoyed some success abroad, especially in Japan. It was not until their second album Life that an international reputation was secured...
– "LovefoolLovefool"Lovefool" is a pop rock song written by Peter Svensson and Nina Persson for The Cardigans' third studio album First Band on the Moon, released as a single on 14 September 1996, in the United Kingdom and internationally on 5 October 1996...
" (number two for eight weeks) - 1998 Natalie ImbrugliaNatalie ImbrugliaNatalie Jane Imbruglia is an Australian singer-songwriter, model and actress. In the early 1990s, Imbruglia was known to audiences as Beth Brennan in the popular Australian soap Neighbours. Three years after leaving the programme, Imbruglia launched a singing career with the international hit,...
– "Torn" (number one for 11 weeks) - 1998 Goo Goo DollsGoo Goo DollsThe Goo Goo Dolls are a Grammy-nominated American rock band formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York, by vocalist and guitarist John Rzeznik and vocalist and bass guitarist Robby Takac. Since the end of 1994, Mike Malinin has been the band's drummer, a position previously held by George Tutuska...
– "Iris" (number one for 18 weeks)
As debate and conflicts occurred more and more often, Billboard finally answered the requests of music industry artists and insiders by including airplay-only singles (or "album cuts") in the Hot 100.
EPs
Extended playExtended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
(EP) releases were listed by Billboard on the Hot 100 and in pre-Hot 100 charts (Top 100) until the mid-to-late 1960s. With the growing popularity of albums, it was decided to move EPs (which typically contain four to six tracks) from the Hot 100 to the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
, where they are included to this day.
Paid digital downloads
Since February 12, 2005, the Billboard Hot 100 tracks paid digital downloads from such internet services as iTunesITunes Store
The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States...
, Napster
Napster (pay service)
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a file sharing service. For more information about its founding mission as a free file sharing service, see Napster.-History:...
, Musicmatch, and Rhapsody
Rhapsody (online music service)
Rhapsody is an online music store subscription service, launched in December 2001, and available in the United States only. On April 6, 2010, Rhapsody officially declared its independence from RealNetworks. Downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by Helix, Rhapsody's version...
. With paid digital downloads added to the airplay/sales formula of the Hot 100, many songs benefited on the charts from the change. Billboard initially started tracking downloads in 2003 with the Hot Digital Tracks
Hot Digital Tracks
The Hot Digital Tracks chart is a song popularity chart that ranks the best selling digital tracks in the United States according to Billboard magazine...
chart. However, these downloads did not count towards the Hot 100 and that chart (as opposed to Hot Digital Songs) counted each version of a song separately (the chart still exists today along with Hot Digital Songs). This is the first major overhaul of the Hot 100's chart formula since December 1998.
The change in formula has shaken up the chart considerably, with some songs debuting on the chart strictly with robust online sales and others making drastic leaps. In recent years, several songs have been able to achieve 80-to-90 position jumps in a single week as their digital components were made available at online music stores. Since 2006, the all-time record for the biggest single-week upward movement was broken nine times.
In the issue dated August 11, 2007, Billboard began incorporating weekly data from Streaming media
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
and On-demand services into the Hot 100. The first two major companies to provide their statistics to Nielsen BDS on a weekly basis are AOL Music
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
and Yahoo! Music
Yahoo! Music
Yahoo! Music, owned by Yahoo!, is the provider of a variety of music services, including Internet radio, music videos, news, artist information, and original programming...
, with more to follow in the future.
Remixes
Billboard has also answered the call of music industry insiders who raised an issue regarding song remixRemix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
es. A growing trend in the early first decade of the 21st century was to issue a song as a "remix" that was so drastically different in structure and lyrical content from its original version that it was essentially a whole new song. Under normal circumstances, airplay points from a song’s album version, "radio" mix and/or dance music
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...
remix, etc. were all combined and factored into the song’s performance on the Hot 100, as the structure, lyrics and melody remained intact. Criticisms began when songs were being completely re-recorded to the point that they no longer resembled the original recording. The first such example of this scenario is Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
’ "I'm Real". Originally entering the Hot 100 in its album version, a "remix" was issued in the midst of its chart run that featured rapper Ja Rule
Ja Rule
Jeffrey Atkins , better known by his stage name Ja Rule, is an American rapper, singer, and actor.Born in Hollis, Queens, he began his career in the group Cash Money Click and debuted in 1999 with Venni Vetti Vecci and its single "Holla Holla"...
. This new version proved to be far more popular than
the album version and the track was propelled to number one.
To address this issue, Billboard now separates airplay points from a song’s original version and its remix, if the remix is determined to be a "new song". Since administering this new chart rule, several songs have charted twice, normally credited as "Part 1" and "Part 2". The remix rule is still in place.
Recurrents
Billboard, in an effort to allow the chart to remain as current as possible and to give proper representation to new and developing artists and tracks, has (since 1991) removed titles that have reached certain criteria regarding its current rank and number of weeks on the chart. Recurrent criteria have been modified several times and currently (as of 2010), a song is permanently moved to "recurrent status" if it has spent 20 weeks on the Hot 100 and fallen below position number 50. Exceptions are made to re-releases and sudden resurgence in popularity of tracks that have taken a very long time to gain mainstream success. These rare cases are handled on a case-by-case basis and ultimately determined by Billboard’s chart managers and staff.The most notable exception to the recurrent entry policy applies to holiday-themed releases, which are commonly reissued year after year in anticipation of Christmas purchasing. After its initial chart run, a holiday entry cannot re-enter the Hot 100 in subsequent years.
Year-end charts
Billboards "chart year" runs from the first week of December to the final week in November. This altered calendar allows for Billboard to calculate year-end chartsBillboard Year-End
Billboard Year-End charts are a cumulative measure of a single or album's performance in the United States, based upon the Billboard magazine charts during any given chart year. Billboard's "chart year" runs from the first week of December to the final week in November...
and release them in time for its final print issue on the last week of December. Prior to Nielsen SoundScan, year-end singles charts were calculated by an inverse-point system based solely on a song’s performance on the Hot 100 (for example, a song would be given one point for a week spent at position 100, two points for a week spent at position ninety-nine and so forth, up to 100 points for each week spent at number one). Other factors including the total weeks a song spent on the chart and at its peak position were calculated into its year-end total.
After Billboard began obtaining sales and airplay information from Nielsen SoundScan, the year-end charts are now calculated by a very straightforward cumulative total of yearlong sales and airplay points. This gives a more accurate picture of any given year’s most popular tracks, as a song that hypothetically spent nine weeks at number one in March could possibly have earned fewer cumulative points than a song that spent six weeks at number three in January. Songs at the peak of their popularity at the time of the November/December chart-year cutoff many times end up ranked on the following year's chart as well, as their cumulative points are split between the two chart-years, but often are ranked lower than they would have been had the peak occurred in a single year.
Limitations
The limitations of the Hot 100 have become more pronounced over time. Since the Hot 100 was based on singles sales, as singles have themselves become a less common form of song release, the Hot 100's data represented a narrowing segment of sales until the December 1998 change in the ranking formula.Few music historians believe that the Hot 100 has been a perfectly accurate gauge of the most popular songs for each week or year. For example, during the 1950s and 1960s, payola
Payola
Payola, in the American music industry, is the illegal practice of payment or other inducement by record companies for the broadcast of recordings on music radio, in which the song is presented as being part of the normal day's broadcast. Under U.S...
and other problems skewed the numbers in largely undetectable ways.
Further, the history of popular music shows nearly as many remarkable failures to chart as it does impressive charting histories. Certain artists (such as Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
and Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
) had tremendous album sales while being oblivious to the weekly singles charts. Business changes in the industry also affect artists' statistical "records." Single releases were more frequent and steady, and were expected to have much shorter shelf lives in earlier decades, making direct historical comparisons somewhat specious. Of the sixteen singles to top the Billboard chart for more than ten weeks since 1955, just one was released before 1992. During the first forty years of the rock era, no song had ever debuted at number one; since a 1995 change in methodology, nineteen songs have.
Strategizing also plays a role. Numerous artists have taken deliberate steps to maximize their chart positions by such tactics as timing a single's debut to face the weakest possible competition, or massively discounting the price of singles to the point where each individual sale represented a financial loss. Meanwhile, other artists would deliberately withhold even their most marketable songs in order to boost album sales. Particularly in the 1990s, many of the most heavily played MTV and radio hits were unavailable for separate purchase. Because of such countervailing strategies, it cannot be said that a Hot 100 chart necessarily lists the country's 100 most popular or successful songs. Strategies like these were the main reason behind the December 1998 change in the charts.
Some critics have argued that an overemphasis on a limited number of singles has distorted record industry development efforts, and there are nearly as many critics of the Hot 100 as there are supporters. Certain of these criticisms, however, are becoming less and less germane as digital downloads have revitalized the concept of “singles sales.”
The Billboard charts have endured as the only widely-circulated published report on songs that have been popular across the United States over the last half-century. Competing publications such as Cash Box
Cash Box magazine
Cashbox magazine was a weekly publication devoted to the music and coin-operated machine industries in the USA which was published from July 1942 to November 16, 1996...
, Record World
Record World
Record World magazine was one of the three main music industry trade publications in the United States, along with Billboard and Cash Box magazines. It was founded in 1946 under the name Music Vendor, but since 1964 changed it to Record World, under the ownership of Sid Parnes and Bob Austin, both...
, Radio & Records
Radio & Records
Radio & Records was a trade publication providing news and airplay information for the radio and music industries. It originally started out as an independent trade from 1973 to 2006 until VNU Media took over in 2006, up until its final issue in 2009.-History:The company was founded in 1973 and...
and most recently Mediabase
Mediabase
Mediabase is a music industry service that monitors radio station airplay in 180 US and Canadian markets. Mediabase publishes music charts and data based on the most played songs on terrestrial and satellite radio, and provides in-depth analytical tools for radio and record industry professionals...
have offered alternate charts, which sometimes differed widely.
Use in media
The Hot 100 served for many years as the data source for the weekly radio countdown show American Top 40American Top 40
American Top 40 is an internationally syndicated, independent radio program created by Casey Kasem, Don Bustany, Tom Rounds and Ron Jacobs. Originally a production of Watermark Inc...
. This relationship ended on November 30, 1991, as American Top 40 started using the airplay-only side of the Hot 100 (then called Top 40 Radio Monitor). The ongoing splintering of Top 40 radio
Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...
in the early 1990s led stations to lean into specific formats, meaning that practically no station would play the wide array of genres that typically composed each weekly Hot 100 chart.
Similar charts
A new chart, the Pop 100Pop 100
The Pop 100 was a songs chart that debuted in February 2005 and was released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States until its discontinuation in 2009...
, was created by Billboard in February 2005 to answer criticism that the Hot 100 was biased in favor of rhythmic songs, as throughout most of its existence, the Hot 100 was seen predominantly as a pop chart. It was discontinued in June 2009 due to the charts becoming increasingly similar.
The Canadian Hot 100
Canadian Hot 100
The Canadian Hot 100 is a music singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine which ranks songs in Canada. The chart debuted in the Billboard issue dated June 16, 2007 and was made available for the first time via their online services on June 7, 2007...
was launched June 16, 2007. Like the Hot 100 chart, it uses sales and airplay tracking compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and BDS
Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems
Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems, better known as BDS, is a service that tracks monitored radio, television and internet airplay of songs based on the number of spins and detections...
.
The Japan Hot 100
Japan Hot 100
The Japan Hot 100 is a music singles chart in Japan. It is compiled by Billboard and Hanshin Contents Link ever since February 2008. The chart is updated every Wednesday at billboard-japan.com and every Thursday at billboard.com ....
was launched in the issue dated May 31, 2008, using the same methodologies as the Hot 100 charts for the U.S. and Canada, utilizing sales and airplay data from SoundScan Japan and radio tracking service Plantech.
See also
- List of number-one hits (United States)
- List of artists who reached number one in the United States
- List of number-one Hot 100 Airplay hits
- BestsellerBestseller (music)A bestseller in music is a song or album listed at or near the top of a hits list or chart such as the Billboard charts produced by Billboard magazine which published its first hit parade in 1940. As with most book bestseller lists, these lists are usually based on sales to the retail sites and...
- Billboard chartsBillboard chartsThe Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
- Chart-topper
- Single Certifications
- Billboard Music Awards
- List of best-selling music artists
- List of best-charting U.S. music artists
- Billboard Hot 100 50th Anniversary Charts
- List of Billboard Hot 100 chart achievements and milestones
Sources
- Fred BronsonFred BronsonFredric M. Bronson is an American journalist, author and writer. He is best known for his appearances on American Idol, the weekly "Chart Beat" column in Billboard magazine, and as the author of books related to Billboard charts.Born to Irving and Mildred Bronson and raised in Culver City,...
's Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, 5th Edition (ISBN 0-8230-7677-6) - Christopher G. Feldman, The Billboard Book of No. 2 Singles (ISBN 0-8230-7695-4)
- Joel WhitburnJoel WhitburnJoel Carver Whitburn is an American author and music historian.Whitburn founded Record Research Inc. in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, in 1970, and put together a team of researchers to examine in detail all of Billboards music and video charts...
's Top Pop Singles 1955-2008, 12 Edition (ISBN 0-89820-180-2) - Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Pop Charts, 1955–1959 (ISBN 0-89820-092-X)
- Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Sixties (ISBN 0-89820-074-1)
- Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Seventies (ISBN 0-89820-076-8)
- Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Eighties (ISBN 0-89820-079-2)
- Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Nineties (ISBN 0-89820-137-3)
- Additional information obtained can be verified within Billboard's online archive services and print editions of the magazine.