How Music Charts Helped to Shape Rock and Pop Music

How did the music charts help to shape rock and pop music?

Introduction

The earliest music charts can be traced back to english newspapers in the early 1800s. These early charts simply listed the most popular songs of the week, much like today’s charts. However, these early charts were not limited to any one genre of music. In fact, they often included a wide variety of songs, from opera to country to folk. It wasn’t until the late 1940s that music charts began to focus on a specific genre: rock and roll.

The first rock and roll chart was published by Billboard magazine in 1948. This chart, called the Best Sellers in Stores chart, listed the most popular songs based on sales at record stores. This chart was influential in shaping the sound of early rock and roll, as it helped to determine which songs were being purchased by fans.

The Billboard Hot 100, which lists the most popular songs based on a range of factors including sales, airplay, and online streaming, is now considered THE definitive chart for measuring the success of a pop song. However, it was not always this way. In fact, the Hot 100 didn’t even include rock and roll songs until 1958! This change came about due to increased interest in rock and roll music from both fans and radio stations. As rock and roll became more popular, it slowly began to take over the Hot 100’s top spot, cementing its place as one of THE most important genres in pop music history.

The Billboard Charts

The Billboard charts are one of the most influential tools in the music industry. By tracking data such as radio airplay, digital sales, and physical sales, they help to determine which songs are the most popular. This, in turn, helps to shape what music is being played on the radio and what is being bought by consumers.

The 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. 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 out of Billboard’s original concentration on jukebox statistics, which subsequently evolved into the Hot 100 and Hot 200 tabs.

Since its inception in 1956, the Billboard 200 has served as a barometer of success for music releases in the United States. Many critics believe that certain albums have been unfairly relegated to lower positions because of less favorable sales patterns or because certain genres are not as commercially viable as others. For example, The Beatles ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, which spent 27 weeks at number one on the chart in 1967 and 1968, was ranked only number 19 on Billboard ‘s list of the 50 Greatest Albums of All Time in 1995. Similarly, Michael Jackson ‘s Thriller , which spent 37 weeks atop the chart in 1983 and 1984 and is currently ranked as the best-selling album ever by Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), was not included in 100 Greatest Albums until it was inducted into that ranking at number 54 in 2003.

The Hot 100

The Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for singles, 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 sales period was originally Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but since July 2015, the tracking period has been Friday to Thursday. A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Tuesdays. 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 on April 17, 2021, the Hot 100 has had 1,155 different number one hits. The current number one song is “Up” by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion.

The UK Charts

The UK music charts have been helping to shape rock and pop music since 1952. The charts are compiled by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and are based on sales of physical singles, digital downloads, and streamings in the United Kingdom. The charts are published every Tuesday in the trade paper Music Week.

The Official UK Singles Chart

The Official UK Singles Chart is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry. The chart originally ran from 1952 to 1989, when it was adapted into a Top 75 format before finally being discontinued in 1997. In 2005, a new chart was introduced, which calculated data from both physical sales and legal downloads. This version of the UK singles chart was published for the first time on 14th April 2018.

The current number one single is “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran.

The Official UK Albums Chart

The UK Albums Chart is a record chart based on weekly album sales in the United Kingdom; during the 2010s, a total of 148 different albums have reached number one. The chart is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC) on behalf of the British record industry. Since 1994, the chart has been based on data provided bymusic retailers in the form of barcodes, and since 2004, sales of digital downloads, such as iTunes tracks, have also been counted towards determining an album’s position in the chart.

In August 2014, it was announced that airplay figures would also be included in the calculations from October 2014 onwards; previously only sales figures had been used to compile the chart. This incorporation of airplay follows the growth of radio as a consumption platform for music; Radio 1 claims that 95% of 16- to 29-year-olds listen to radio each week. The inclusion of streaming and other outlets allows a more accurate reflection of an album’s popularity.

As of 8 February 2020, 138 different albums have achieved top spot on the UK Albums Chart; 62 albums reached number one in 2019. The current number-one album is Fine Line by Harry Styles. Two other artists have achieved more than one album at number one in 2019: Billie Eilish and Lewis Capaldi, both with two each.”

Conclusion

While the music charts may not be perfect, they have definitely had a profound impact on the development of rock and pop music over the past several decades. By tracking which songs are being played and purchased the most, they provide a valuable snapshot of what the general public is currently listening to. This data can then be used by record labels to determine which artists and songs are worth investing in and promoting. In many ways, the music charts are like a barometer for the health of the overall industry, and as such, they should be taken seriously by everyone involved in it.