Billboard Hot 100

1958 iteration of the logo

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 charts listed popular song performances in theatres and recitals. In 1928, "Popular Numbers Featured by Famous Singers and Leaders" appeared, which added radio performances to in-person performances. On January 4, 1936, Billboard magazine published "Ten Best Records for Week Ending", which recorded the 10 top selling records of three leading record companies as reported by the companies themselves. 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.^[7] This, the full-page "Billboard Music Popularity Chart" for week ending July 20, 1940, and published in the July 27 issue, with lists covering jukebox play, retail sales, sheet music sales, and radio play. Listed were 10 songs of the National "Best Selling Retail Records", which is the fore-runner of today's pop chart, with "I'll Never Smile Again" by Tommy Dorsey its first number one.^[8]

Starting on March 24, 1945, Billboard's lead popularity chart was the Honor Roll of Hits. This chart ranked the most popular songs regardless of performer (it combined different versions of the same song by different artists) based on record and sheet sales, disk jockey, and jukebox performances as determined by Billboard's weekly nationwide survey.^[9] At the start of the rock era in 1955, there were three charts that measured songs by individual metrics:^[10]

• Best Sellers in Stores was the best seller chart first established in July 1940. This chart ranked the biggest selling singles in retail stores, as reported by merchants surveyed throughout the country (20 to 50 positions).
• Most Played by Jockeys was Billboard's original airplay chart. It ranked the most played songs on United States radio stations, as reported by radio DJs and radio stations (20 to 25 positions).
• Most Played in Jukeboxes ranked the most played songs in jukeboxes 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 and roll music to their playlists for many years.

Although officially all three charts had equal "weight" in terms of their importance, Billboard retrospectively considers the Best Sellers in Stores chart when referencing a song's performance before the creation of the Hot 100.^[11] On the week ending November 12, 1955, Billboard published The Top 100 for the first time. The Top 100 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. The first No. 1 in that chart was "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" by The Four Aces.^[7] 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 of July 28, 1958, had the final Most Played by Jockeys and Top 100 charts, both of which had Perez Prado's instrumental version of "Patricia" ascending to the top.^[12]

On August 4, 1958, Billboard premiered one main all-genre singles chart: the Hot 100, with "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson its first No. 1.^[13][14] The Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard and Billboard discontinued the Best Sellers In Stores chart on October 13, 1958.

The Hot 100 was created by journalists Tom Noonan, Paul Ackerman, and Seymour Stein; Stein does not recall who chose the name.^[15]

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.^[10]

There are several component charts that contribute to the overall calculation of the Hot 100. The most significant ones are:

• Radio Songs: (per Billboard) approximately 1,000 stations, "composed of adult contemporary, R&B, hip hop, country, rock, gospel, Latin and Christian 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 Arbitron listener data."
• Hot Singles Sales: (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 SoundScan." The chart is released weekly and measures sales of physical commercial singles. With the decline in sales of physical singles in the US, many songs that become number one on this chart often do not even chart on the Hot 100.
• Digital Songs: Digital sales are tracked by Nielsen SoundScan and are included as part of a title's sales points.
• Streaming Songs: a collaboration between Billboard, Nielsen SoundScan and National Association of Recording Merchandisers which measures the top streamed radio songs, on-demand songs and videos on leading online music services.

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I'll Never Smile Again

I'll Never Smile Again

"I'll Never Smile Again" is a 1939 song written by Ruth Lowe. It has been recorded by many other artists since, becoming a standard.

Jukebox

Jukebox

A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media. The classic jukebox has buttons, with letters and numbers on them, which are used to select a specific record. Some may use compact discs instead. Disc changers are similar devices that are intended for home use, are small enough to fit in a shelf, may hold up to hundreds of discs, and allow discs to be easily removed, replaced, and inserted by the user.

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (song)

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (song)

"Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" is a popular song with music by Sammy Fain and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster. The song appeared first in the movie Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), and it won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1956. From 1967 to 1973, it was also used as the theme song to Love is a Many Splendored Thing, the soap opera based on the movie.

Patricia (Perez Prado song)

Patricia (Perez Prado song)

"Patricia" is a popular song with music by Pérez Prado and lyrics by Bob Marcucci, published in 1958. The song is best known in an instrumental version by Prado's orchestra that became the last record to ascend to No.1 on the Billboard Jockeys and Top 100 charts, both of which gave way the next week to the then newly-introduced Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song was also No. 1 on the R&B Best Sellers for two weeks. Prado's 1958 recording became a gold record. Billboard ranked it as the No. 5 song for 1958.

Poor Little Fool

Poor Little Fool

"Poor Little Fool" is a song written by Sharon Sheeley and first recorded by Ricky Nelson in 1958.

Ricky Nelson

Ricky Nelson

Eric Hilliard Nelson was an American musician and actor. From age eight he starred alongside his family in the radio and television series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. In 1957, he began a long and successful career as a popular recording artist. The expression "teen idol" was first coined to describe Nelson, and his fame as both a recording artist and television star also led to a motion picture role co-starring alongside John Wayne, Dean Martin, Walter Brennan, and Angie Dickinson in Howard Hawks's western feature film Rio Bravo (1959). He placed 54 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, and its predecessors, between 1957 and 1973, including "Poor Little Fool" in 1958, which was the first number one song on Billboard magazine's then-newly created Hot 100 chart. He recorded 19 additional top ten hits and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 21, 1987. In 1996 Nelson was ranked No. 49 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time.

Paul Ackerman

Paul Ackerman

Paul Ackerman was an influential music journalist.

Radio Songs (chart)

Radio Songs (chart)

The Radio Songs chart is released weekly by Billboard magazine and measures the airplay of songs being played on radio stations throughout the United States across all musical genres. It is one of the three components, along with sales and streaming activity, that determine the chart positions of songs on the Billboard Hot 100.

Contemporary R&B

Contemporary R&B

Contemporary R&B is a popular music genre that combines rhythm and blues with elements of pop, soul, funk, hip hop, and electronic music.

Hip hop music

Hip hop music

Hip hop music or hip-hop music, also known as rap music and formerly known as disco rap, is a genre of popular music that originated in New York City in the 1970s. It consists of stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records, and rhythmic beatboxing. While often used to refer solely to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.

Country music

Country music

Country is a music genre originating in the Southern and Southwestern United States. First produced in the 1920s, country primarily focuses on working class Americans and blue-collar American life.

Gospel music

Gospel music

Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music, and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is composed and performed for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, and as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Gospel music is characterized by dominant vocals and strong use of harmony with Christian lyrics. Gospel music can be traced to the early 17th century.

The tracking week for sales, streaming and airplay begins on Friday and ends on Thursday (airplay used to have a tracking week from Monday to Sunday, but effective with the chart dated July 17, 2021, the week was adjusted to align with the other two metrics^[2]). A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Tuesday. Each chart is post-dated with the "week-ending" issue date four days after the charts are refreshed online (i.e., the following Saturday).^[16] For example:

• Friday, January 1 – tracking-week begins for sales, streaming and airplay
• Thursday, January 7 – tracking-week ends for sales, streaming and airplay
• Tuesday, January 12 – new chart released, with issue post-dated Saturday, January 16

The methods and policies by which this data is obtained and compiled have changed many times throughout the chart's history.

Although 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 Presley'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 provided 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.^[17] 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 Rembrandts: "I'll Be There for You" (number one for eight weeks)
• 1996 No Doubt: "Don't Speak" (number one for 16 weeks)
• 1997 Sugar Ray featuring Super Cat: "Fly" (number one for six weeks)
• 1997 Will Smith: "Men in Black" (number one for four weeks)
• 1997 The Cardigans: "Lovefool" (number two for eight weeks)
• 1998 Natalie Imbruglia: "Torn" (number one for 11 weeks)
• 1998 Goo Goo Dolls: "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 play (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.

Digital downloads, online streaming and bundles

Since February 12, 2005, the Billboard Hot 100 tracks paid digital downloads from such internet services as iTunes, Musicmatch, and Rhapsody. 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 was the first major overhaul of the Hot 100's chart formula since December 1998.

The change in methodology 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 were AOL Music and Yahoo! Music.^[18] On March 24, 2012, Billboard premiered its On-Demand Songs chart, and its data was incorporated into the equation that compiles the Hot 100.^[19] This was expanded to a broader Streaming Songs chart in January 2013, which ranks web radio streams from services such as Spotify, as well as on-demand audio titles.^[20] In February 2013, U.S. views for a song on YouTube were added to the Hot 100 formula. "Harlem Shake" was the first song to reach number one after the changes were made.^[21]

In July 2020, Billboard announced that they would no longer allow sales of physical/digital bundles to be reported as digital sales. This refers to songs being bought along with merchandise, either from an artists website or through another vendor. The magazine stated that this was a tactic generally used by certain artists to boost their chart positions. Instead, such physical releases are now only counted when they are shipped to the consumer, rendering the tactic "ineffectual".^[22]

Remixes

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's "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.

Recurrents

Billboard, in an effort to allow the chart to remain as current as possible and to give 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 2015^[update]), a song is permanently moved to "recurrent status" if it has spent 20 weeks on the Hot 100 and fallen below position number 50. Additionally, descending songs are removed from the chart if ranking below number 25 after 52 weeks.^[23] 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. Christmas songs have been a regular presence on the Hot 100 each December since the relaxation of recurrent rules, culminating in Mariah Carey's 1994 recording "All I Want for Christmas is You" reaching #1 on the chart in December 2019.^[24]

Adjustment of tracking week

Billboard altered its tracking-week for sales, streaming and radio airplay in order to conform to a new Global Release Date, which now falls on Fridays in all major-market territories (United States product was formerly released on Tuesdays before June 2015). This modified tracking schedule took effect in the issue dated July 25, 2015.^[3]

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Popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a society at a given point in time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects. The primary driving force behind popular culture is the mass appeal, and it is produced by what cultural analyst Theodor Adorno refers to as the "culture industry".

Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley, often referred to mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer, actor and sergeant in the United States Army. Dubbed the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, led him to both great success and initial controversy.

I'll Be There for You (The Rembrandts song)

I'll Be There for You (The Rembrandts song)

"I'll Be There for You" is a song by American pop rock duo the Rembrandts. The song was written by David Crane, Marta Kauffman, Michael Skloff, and Allee Willis as the main theme song to the NBC sitcom Friends, which was broadcast from 1994 to 2004. American rock band R.E.M. was originally asked to allow one of their songs to be used for the Friends theme, but they turned the opportunity down. "I'll Be There for You" was subsequently written and Warner Bros. Television selected the only available band on Warner Bros. Records to record it: the Rembrandts. In 1995, after a Nashville radio station brought the song to mainstream popularity, Rembrandts members Danny Wilde and Phil Sōlem expanded the theme song with two new verses and included this version on their third studio album, L.P. (1995).

No Doubt

No Doubt

No Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California, formed in 1986. For most of their career, the band has consisted of vocalist Gwen Stefani, guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal, and drummer Adrian Young. Since the mid-1990s, they were supported by trombonist and keyboardist Gabrial McNair and trumpeter and keyboardist Stephen Bradley in live performances.

Don't Speak

Don't Speak

"Don't Speak" is a song by American rock band No Doubt from their third studio album, Tragic Kingdom (1995). It was released as the third single from Tragic Kingdom in the United States on April 15, 1996, by Interscope Records. Lead singer Gwen Stefani and her brother Eric Stefani, former No Doubt member, wrote the song originally as a love song. The song went through several rewrites and new versions. Gwen modified it into a breakup song about her bandmate and ex-boyfriend Tony Kanal, shortly after he ended their seven-year relationship.

Fly (Sugar Ray song)

Fly (Sugar Ray song)

"Fly" is a song by American rock band Sugar Ray. It appears on their 1997 album Floored twice: one version with reggae artist Super Cat and the other without. The song was serviced to US radio in May 1997.

Men in Black (song)

Men in Black (song)

"Men in Black" is a song by American rapper and actor Will Smith from the 1997 film Men in Black, in which he also starred. The song was released by Columbia Records on June 3, 1997, as the lead single from both the Men in Black soundtrack and Smith's debut solo album, Big Willie Style (1997), and it was Smith's first solo single following his work with DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Lovefool

Lovefool

"Lovefool" is a song written by Peter Svensson and Nina Persson for Swedish rock band the Cardigans' third studio album, First Band on the Moon (1996). It was released as the album's lead single in Sweden in mid-1996 and on 9 September 1996 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the song was serviced to radio in August 1996. A few months after its release, the track was included in the Baz Luhrmann film Romeo + Juliet, helping the song gain international recognition.

Natalie Imbruglia

Natalie Imbruglia

Natalie Jane Imbruglia is an Australian singer and actress. In the early 1990s, she played Beth Brennan in the Australian soap opera Neighbours. Three years after leaving the programme, she began a singing career with her chart-topping cover of Ednaswap's song "Torn". Her debut album, Left of the Middle (1997), sold seven million copies worldwide. Imbruglia's five subsequent albums have combined sales of three million copies worldwide, and her accolades include eight ARIA Awards, two Brit Awards, one Billboard Music Award, and three Grammy nominations.

Goo Goo Dolls

Goo Goo Dolls

The Goo Goo Dolls are an American rock band formed in 1986 in Buffalo, New York, by guitarist/vocalist John Rzeznik, bassist/vocalist Robby Takac, and drummer George Tutuska.

Extended play

Extended play

An extended play (EP) is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record. Contemporary EPs generally contain four or five tracks, and are considered "less expensive and time-consuming" for an artist to produce than an album. An EP originally referred to specific types of records other than 78 rpm standard play (SP) and LP, but it is now applied to mid-length CDs and downloads as well. In K-pop they are usually referred to as mini albums. Ricardo Baca of The Denver Post said, "EPs—originally extended-play 'single' releases that are shorter than traditional albums—have long been popular with punk and indie bands." In the United Kingdom, the Official Chart Company defines a boundary between EP and album classification at 25 minutes of maximum length and no more than four tracks.

Billboard 200

Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by Billboard magazine and is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Often, a recording act will be remembered by its "number ones", those of their albums that outperformed all others during at least one week. The chart grew from a weekly top 10 list in 1956 to become a top 200 list in May 1967, and acquired its current name in March 1992. Its previous names include the Billboard Top LPs (1961–1972), Billboard Top LPs & Tape (1972–1984), Billboard Top 200 Albums (1984–1985) and Billboard Top Pop Albums (1985–1992).

Billboard's "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 charts and release them in time for its final print issue in the last week of December.

Before 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 99 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, streaming, and airplay points. This gives a more accurate picture of any given year's most popular tracks, as the points accrued by one song during its week at number one in March might be less than those accrued by another song reaching 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.

The Hot 100 served for many years as the data source for the weekly radio countdown show American Top 40. 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.

An artist or band's ability to have hits in the Hot 100 across multiple decades is recognized as a sign of longevity and being able to adapt to changing musical styles. Only five artists had a Hot 100 Top 40 hit in each of the four decades from the 1980s through the 2010s: Michael Jackson, Madonna, "Weird Al" Yankovic, U2, and Kenny G.^[25] Mariah Carey is the first artist to have a number-one single in four different decades.^[26]

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American Top 40

American Top 40

American Top 40 is an internationally syndicated, independent song countdown radio program created by Casey Kasem, Don Bustany, Tom Rounds, and Ron Jacobs. The program is currently hosted by Ryan Seacrest and presented as an adjunct to his weekday radio program, On Air with Ryan Seacrest.

Contemporary hit radio

Contemporary hit radio

Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in many countries that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts. There are several subcategories, dominantly focusing on rock, pop, or urban music. Used alone, CHR most often refers to the CHR-pop format. The term contemporary hit radio was coined in the early 1980s by Radio & Records magazine to designate Top 40 stations which continued to play hits from all musical genres as pop music splintered into Adult contemporary, Urban contemporary, Contemporary Christian and other formats.

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson

Michael Joseph Jackson was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a four-decade career, his contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture. Jackson influenced artists across many music genres; through stage and video performances, he popularized complicated dance moves such as the moonwalk, to which he gave the name, as well as the robot.

"Weird Al" Yankovic

"Weird Al" Yankovic

Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer, musician, songwriter, record producer, actor and author. He is best known for creating comedy songs that make light of pop culture and often parody specific songs by contemporary musicians. He also performs original songs that are style pastiches of the work of other acts, as well as polka medleys of several popular songs, most of which feature his trademark accordion.

U2

U2

U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin, formed in 1976. The group consists of Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr.. Initially rooted in post-punk, U2's musical style has evolved throughout their career, yet has maintained an anthemic quality built on Bono's expressive vocals and the Edge's chiming, effects-based guitar sounds. Bono's lyrics, often embellished with spiritual imagery, focus on personal and sociopolitical themes. Popular for their live performances, the group have staged several ambitious and elaborate tours over their career.

Kenny G

Kenny G

Kenneth Bruce Gorelick, known professionally as Kenny G, is an American smooth jazz saxophonist, composer, and producer. His 1986 album Duotones brought him commercial success. Kenny G is one of the best-selling artists of all time, with global sales totaling more than 75 million records.

Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Songbird Supreme" by Guinness World Records, she is noted for her five-octave vocal range, melismatic singing style, improvisation skills, her signature use of the whistle register, and songwriting. Carey is famous for the enduring popularity of her holiday music, particularly the 1994 song "All I Want for Christmas Is You", and she has been dubbed the "Queen of Christmas". Carey rose to fame in 1990 with her debut album Mariah Carey. She was the first artist to have their first five singles reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100, from "Vision of Love" to "Emotions". An inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, she is credited for inspiring several generations of pop and R&B artists, and for merging hip hop with pop music through her crossover collaborations.

A new chart, the Pop 100, was created by Billboard in February 2005 to answer criticism that the Hot 100 at the time was too dominated by hip hop and R&B. 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.^[27]

The Billboard 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, using sales and airplay data from SoundScan Japan and radio tracking service Plantech.^[28]

The Vietnamese edition of Hot 100, Billboard Vietnam Hot 100, was launched on January 14, 2022.^[29]

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