The first chart published by
Billboard was "Last Week's Ten Best Sellers Among The Popular Songs", a list of best-selling
sheet music, in July 1913. Other early charts listed popular song performances in theatres and recitals in different cities. In 1928, "Popular Numbers Featured by Famous Singers and Leaders" appeared, which added radio performances to in-person performances. Titled "Ten Best Records for Week Ending", it listed the 10 top-selling records of three leading record companies as reported by the companies themselves. In March 1937, the "Songs with the Most Radio Plugs" chart debuted with data from a separate company. In October 1938, a review list, "The Week's Best Records", was retitled "The Billboard Record Buying Guide" by incorporating airplay and sheet music sales, which would eventually become the first trade survey of record popularity. In the July 27, 1940, issue, the first "Billboard Music Popularity Chart" was published for the week ending July 20, with separate listings covering retail sales, sheet music sales,
jukebox song selection and radio play. Among the lists were the 10 songs of the "Best Selling Retail Records", which is the fore-runner of today's pop chart, with "
I'll Never Smile Again" by
Tommy Dorsey (featuring vocals by
Frank Sinatra) its first number one. Another accolade of a successful song was a position on the "Honor Roll of Hits", introduced on March 24, 1945, initially as a 10-song list, later expanded to 30 songs, which ranked the most popular songs by combining record and sheet sales, disk jockey, and jukebox performances as determined by ''Billboard's'' weekly nationwide survey. This chart amalgamated different records of the same song by different performers as one, and topping the first chart was "
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive". In November 1955, a composite standing chart that combined retail sales, jukebox and disk jockeys play charts but counted individual records separately was created as "The Top 100" chart, with "
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" by
The Four Aces its first No. 1. After July 28, 1958, the composite chart the "Top 100" chart was also discontinued; and the "Hot 100" began the following week on August 4, 1958, listing "
Poor Little Fool" by
Ricky Nelson as its first No. 1. The methodology for compiling the chart has changed over the years, currently the Hot 100 combines
singles sales, radio
airplay,
digital downloads, and
streaming activity (including data from
YouTube and other video sites). Many
Billboard charts use this basic formula apart from charts dedicated to the three data sources: sales (both physical and digital), airplay and streaming. In the early period, the issue dates and the chart dates given in
Billboard were different until January 13, 1962, when the issue dates and the chart dates both referred to the
week ending dates. The first chart had 10 albums, before reducing to five in the following weeks, then increasing again to 10 in 1948. The album chart was split into 33-8 and 45 rpm lists in 1950 before they recombined in 1954, then divided into mono and stereo classifications in 1959 before they merged into a 150-item pop album chart in 1963. It was eventually expanded into a 200 album list on May 13, 1967. The first such
annual charts released were for the year 1946, published in the January 4, 1947, issue, although annual listing of songs had been published some years prior, such as the undifferentiated annual chart based on "Honor Roll of Hits" for 1945. Between 1991 and 2006, the top single/album/artist(s) in each of those charts was/were awarded in the form of the annual
Billboard Music Awards, which were held in December until the awards went dormant in 2007. The awards returned in May 2011.
Chart compilation methodology For many years, a song had to be commercially available as a single to be considered for any of the
Billboard charts. At the time, instead of using
Luminate (formerly
Nielsen SoundScan or
Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems, BDS),
Billboard obtained its data from manual reports filled out by radio stations and stores. For different musical genres, which stations and stores are used separates the charts; each musical genre has a core audience or retail group. Each genre's department at
Billboard is headed up by a chart manager, who makes these determinations. According to the 100th-anniversary issue of
Billboard, prior to the official implementation of SoundScan tracking in November 1991, many radio stations and retail stores removed songs from their manual reports after the associated record labels stopped promoting a particular single. Thus, songs fell quickly after peaking and had shorter chart lives. In 1990, the
country singles chart was the first chart to use SoundScan and BDS. They were followed by the Hot 100 and the
R&B chart in 1991. Today, all of the
Billboard charts use this technology. Before September 1995, singles were allowed to chart in the week they first went on sale based on airplay points alone. The policy was changed in September 1995, to only allow a single to debut after a full week of sales on combined sales and airplay points. This allowed several tracks to debut at number one. In December 1998, the policy was further modified to allow tracks to chart on the basis of airplay alone without a commercial release. This change was made to reflect the changing realities of the music business. Previous to this, several substantial radio and MTV hits had not appeared on the
Billboard chart at all, because many
major labels chose not to release them as standalone singles, hoping their unavailability would spur greater
album sales. Not offering a popular song to the public as a single was unheard of before the 1970s. The genres that suffered most at the time were those that increasingly impacted
pop culture, including new genres such as
trip hop and
grunge. Among the many pre-1999 songs that had ended up in this Hot 100 limbo were
The Cardigans' "
Lovefool",
Natalie Imbruglia's "
Torn" (which peaked at 42),
Goo Goo Dolls' "
Iris" (which hit number 9),
OMC's "
How Bizarre",
Sugar Ray's "
Fly", and
No Doubt's "
Don't Speak". On June 25, 2015,
Billboard made changes in its chart requirements. The official street date for all new album releases was moved from Tuesday to Friday in the United States. For all sales-based charts (ranking both albums and tracks),
Billboard and Nielsen changed the chart reporting period to cover the first seven days of an album's release. As a result of the changes, The
Billboard 200, top albums sales, genre-based albums, digital songs, genre-based downloads, streaming songs, and genre-focused streaming surveys ran on a Friday-to-Thursday cycle. Radio Songs, which informs the Hot 100, synced to the Monday-to-Sunday period after formerly covering Wednesday to Tuesday. All other radio charts and genre tallies followed the Monday-to-Sunday cycle. The move was made to coincide with the
IFPI's move to have all singles and albums released globally on Fridays.
Incorporation of digital platforms Starting on February 12, 2005,
Billboard changed its methodology to include paid
digital downloads from digital music retailers such as
Rhapsody, AmazonMP3, and
iTunes. With this policy change, a song could chart based on digital downloads alone. On July 31, 2007,
Billboard changed its methodology for the Hot 100 chart to include digital streams, which at the time was obtained from
Yahoo and AOL's streaming platforms. This change was made exclusively to the
Billboard Hot 100 chart. The effect of this chart change was minuscule at the time because it was estimated to account for 5% of the chart's total points. In October 2012,
Billboard significantly changed the methodology for its country, rock, Latin, and rap charts, when it incorporated sales of digital downloads and streaming plays into what had previously been airplay-only charts. Another change was that rather than measuring airplay only from radio stations of a particular genre, the new methodology measures airplay from all radio formats. This methodology was extended to their Christian and gospel charts in late 2013. These methodology changes resulted in higher positions on the genre charts for songs with crossover appeal to other genres and radio formats (especially pop) at the expense of songs that appeal almost exclusively to core fans of the given genre, a change that proved controversial with those devotees. On February 20, 2013,
Billboard announced another change in the methodology for its charts that incorporated
YouTube video streaming data into the determination of ranking positions on streaming charts. The incorporation of YouTube streaming data enhanced a formula that includes on-demand audio streaming and online radio streaming. The YouTube video streams that used in this methodology are official video streams,
Vevo on YouTube streams, and user-generated clips that use authorized audio.
Billboard said this change was made to further reflect the divergent platforms of music consumption in today's world. ==Songs==