Pop Music Charts from 1900
Contents
Looking for the latest Billboard charts from 1900? Here’s a quick rundown of the top songs from that year, including ‘In the Good Old Summertime’ and ‘A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.’
The Billboard Charts
The Billboard charts are a record of the most popular songs in the United States. They are updated every week, and have been since 1900. The charts are compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and are based on radio airplay, online streaming, and sales of digital downloads.
The Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming in the United States.
The Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 highest-ranking 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. 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 is based mostly on sales (both digital and physical) of albums in the United States. The weekly sales period was originally Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but since July 2015, tracking week begins on Friday (to coincide with the Global Release Date of the music industry) and ends on Thursday. A new chart is published the following Tuesday with an issue post-dated to the Saturday of that week, four days later. The board requires that charts be limited to recording released within a certain time frame; this corresponds to Porter’s definition of contemporary music, which includes popular after-the-fact recordings as well as current hits: “Contemporary music includes recordings released in the current time frame … as well as some older recordings”![1]
The main destinations for contemporary music are airplays on radio stations, online streaming services such as Spotify, iTunes Store and Apple Music, YouTube channels and TV shows that feature modern popular music such as American Idol and The Voice.[2]
The Billboard 200 chart is updated daily, and each week Billboard publishes an article related to the current number one album on their website.[3] The magazine also features short articles about recent album releases and annual features about significant albums from years past Tom Roland described how it works: “Billboard surveys retail chain stores that carry more than 51 percent of all recorded albums sold in the United States – about 3,500 stores – each week. These retail outlets report their statistics to Nielsen SoundScan…which tallies overall album sales (both digital download and physical copies), single sales (digital download only) and streams for every song.”[4]
The UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry. The chart week runs from 00:01 Sunday to midnight Saturday, with most UK radio stations broadcasting the Top 40 between 10:00 and 16:00 on Sundays. The chart was founded in 1952 by Percy Dickins of New Musical Express (NME), who telephoned 20 record stores to ask what their top 10 highest-selling singles were.
The Official Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry. As of 11 April 2021, the UK Singles Chart has had 1379 different number one hits. The current number one is “Black” by Polo G featuring Young Thug.
In 1900, the first ever pop music chart was published in the United Kingdom. The chart was compiled by magazine publisher Williamina Fleming and featured seven different songs. It wasn’t until 1952 that the chart became weekly, and it has been published every week since then.
The Official Chart is based on a combination of sales (physical and digital), airplay, and streams. The OCC website explains that “the weighting applied to each stream is down to how much it reproduces the value of a purchase”.
The Official Chart Update
The Official Chart Update is the UK’s top 40 songs of the week, as compilation by the Official Charts Company (OCC), based on sales of downloads, CDs, vinyl and other formats across a seven day period. It is released every Tuesday at 5:45 pm. The UK Singles Chart began to be compiled in 1952. According to the OCC, since 2004 it has been calculated by measuring the ratio of sales from digital outlets compared to physical formats. This ratio is then collated against a list of hundreds of record retailers known asEither in-store playlists or computerised terminals determine which tracks are being played in each store and then a daily tally sheet is sent from each store to central HQ where they are collated and processed using weighting according to that store’s importance within the market (as decided by past sales figures).
The Billboard Charts vs. The UK Singles Chart
Billboard charts are the most popular charts in the United States, however the UK Singles Chart is the most popular chart in the United Kingdom. The Billboard charts are based on sales, airplay, and streams, whereas the UK Singles Chart is based on sales and streams.
The Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming in the United States. The weekly tracking period for sales was originally Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but was changed to Friday to Thursday in July 2015. This monitoring period also applies to compiling online streaming data. Radio airplay, which, unlike sales figures and streaming data, is readily available on a real-time basis, is tracked on a Monday to Sunday cycle previously. Before Billboard consolidated all aspects of the music industry onto one chart in 1958, multiple charts existed including jukebox plays, injection airplay, broadcast airplay, and others.
The Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by Billboard magazine. It 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 is based collectively on each album’s weekly physical and digital sales, as well as airplay and streaming activity. A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Tuesdays.
The first number-one album on the Billboard 200 was Sally Rogers self-titled album, which debuted in 1956. As of the issue dated April 13, 2019, Lil Nas X’s 7 is the most recent album to top the chart.
##Heading:The UK Singles Chart
##Expansion:
The UK Singles Chart (currently entitled Official Singles Chart) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-selling singles in the United Kingdom, based upon physical sales, paid-for downloads and streaming. The Official Chart, broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and MTV (Official UK Top 40), is the UK music industry’s recognised official measure of singles and albums popularity because it includes sales figures from more than 600 retailers representing 90% of total singles consumption. To be eligible for the chart, a single is currently defined by OCC as either a ‘single bundle’ having no more than four tracks and not lasting longer than 25 minutes OR one digital audio track not longer than 15 minutes with a minimum sale price of 40 pence. Currently, only physical media (including digital downloads) contributes towards eligibility for certification; streams were officially included from July 2014 onwards but have retroactively been made eligible since January 2014 (although only counted since April 2015). Certification levels are related to how many units have shipped or been downloaded rather than pure sales figures; basically a song must have shipped 100,000 units – which can either be actual paid for physical copies OR 150 equivalent streams – or downloaded 400,000 times before it reaches gold status; 300,000 units or 900k streams for platinum etc..
