Billboard's Hot 100

[michael hagerty]

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was some chart chicanery going on when "18 With A Bullet" by Pete Wingfield was actually listed as #18 with a bullet on the "Hot 100". I wonder where this 1975 single peaked on the Cash Box and Record World charts?

"Eighteen With A Bullet" made #18 the same week in Billboard and Cash Box. I can't find a Record World number.

But before we assume out and out manipulation, remember a few points I've posted:

1) After #15 (and in a lot of cases #12), it's not really a hit.

2) The further down the chart, the smaller the number of wholesale copies sold, and the drop off comes early (see #1 above).

3) Given that wholesale orders were placed in multiples of 5 or 10, and the raw numbers got small fast, multi-way ties were not only likely but inevitable.

4) Since ties were not acknowledged on the chart, ranking tied records was at the discretion of chart staff.

So if both Billboard and Cash Box had "Eighteen With A Bullet" and nine other songs in a 10-way tie that began at, say, #15, "Eighteen" could, legitimately (at least by their accepted practices) rank anywhere from #15 to #24...again, at the chart staff's discretion. Why not give it #18? It's not rigging the number (again, by the accepted practices) and it virtually guarantees a full-page trade ad from the label.

 

[johnbasalla]

If you look at a number of pre-Hot 100 Billboard charts from the 1950s, you'll see a good number of ties.

 

[RIN3GUY]

Given that wholesale orders were placed in multiples of 5 or 10, and the raw numbers got small fast, multi-way ties were not only likely but inevitable. Since ties were not acknowledged on the chart, ranking tied records was at the discretion of chart staff.

With hundreds of record stores across America, the idea of a tie on the top half of the chart seems ludicrous, particularly one involving multiple songs. If so, their sample must have been rather small.

 

[michael hagerty]

If you look at a number of pre-Hot 100 Billboard charts from the 1950s, you'll see a good number of ties.

But not after.

 

[michael hagerty]

Given that wholesale orders were placed in multiples of 5 or 10, and the raw numbers got small fast, multi-way ties were not only likely but inevitable. Since ties were not acknowledged on the chart, ranking tied records was at the discretion of chart staff.

With hundreds of record stores across America, the idea of a tie on the top half of the chart seems ludicrous, particularly one involving multiple songs. If so, their sample must have been rather small.

Not ludicrous at all. Consider:

The figures are coming from the labels...it's the number of records shipped wholesale to distributors and (in the less frequent cases of direct orders) retailers. Polling a group of stores wasn't mentioned by Billboard as part of chart methodology until 1985.

Labels shipped in cartons of 25. Minimum order was 5. So, apart from the odd special order (which usually was not for a current record, You were going to be dealing with a number ending in a 5 or a 0.

While some monster singles moved in volumes of 50,000 or even 100,000 a week, most were at a more modest pace. Average 25,000 copies for 10 weeks and you're at a quarter-million...which in the 70s was good enough to get into the top 10, and as singles sales declined overall after 1974, probably top 5.

Numbers fall fast after that, though. The idea that 10 singles might ship 15,000 copies at wholesale the same week isn't far-fetched at all. And that activity would happen well inside the top 50.

 

[unitron]

To me, the best indicator of how a song was doing in any given area would have been on the local station's own charts. The station in the town where I grew up occasionally made reference to such a local chart, but never presented a countdown based on such a chart. The only such chart that I ever saw was in the local Gibson's Discount Center, but it has been so long that I don't remember much about it. For all I can remember, it may have been nothing more than an alphabetical listing of all the 45s that they had that week.

If the local station in that town had truly represented the tastes of those of us who lived there at the time, they probably would have played a LOT more local bands, and a lot less of the national stuff. There were some local bands there that had a pretty good following, but I seldom, if ever, heard their music played on the radio. At the same time, I feel like many of us just sort of "tolerated" the national trends going on at the time. We certainly never embraced those trends in any major way.

Of course, stations in the bigger cities had their own charts, and published them, too. Assuming that no money was passed under the table, these were probably the best representations of whatever was going on there, musically, at that time.

I miss Gibson's. They had stuff other places didn't. Unlike today where everybody has the same stuff, only less of it.

 

[davideduardo]

To me, the best indicator of how a song was doing in any given area would have been on the local station's own charts.

The problem with station charts is that there is more than a single problem.

... stations did charts for "show" and airplay was dictated by the category a song was in. If we use a famous East Coast station as an example, the #1 played every 90 minutes, then about 5 or 6 songs played every 2 hours and a quarter, then another batch every 2 hours and 45 minutes and so on. The station did not have a #2 and a # 3 and a #4 and a #5 and a #6. They had five or six songs tied for the second place in rotations. So, generally, rank was very imprecise in the best of cases.

... stations balanced the playlist to make sure the station sound was preserved. If there were too many MOR-ish sounds out there, some did not get played or were slowed way down to prevent the sound from changing. Same for instrumentals, r&b crossovers, country crossovers, etc.

... if a particular sound was missing from the list, or not plentiful enough, the station played a "turntable hit" that sounded good, even if it did not sell.

... all these things were reflected on the charts. And the chart itself was a promotion for the station, and nowhere near an indication of sales or even popularity.

 

[firepoint525]

To me, the best indicator of how a song was doing in any given area would have been on the local station's own charts.

The problem with station charts is that there is more than a single problem.

The problem with ANY chart is that there are going to be problems with that chart, and that someone is going to take issue with it. :

 

[michael hagerty]

To me, the best indicator of how a song was doing in any given area would have been on the local station's own charts.

The problem with station charts is that there is more than a single problem.

The problem with ANY chart is that there are going to be problems with that chart, and that someone is going to take issue with it. :

True, but it's important to understand what those problems are, because they affect the credibility of the chart in different ways.

My point in starting this thread (and if anyone reading this hasn't read the first post in the thread, please do) was to examine exactly what the Billboard Hot 100 was in the 60s and 70s.

Frankly, it did what it was intended to do:

1)Give record disrtributors and store owners a weekly look at what was moving at wholesale, how fast and in which direction, aiding them in their stocking decisions.

2)Give record labels a constantly (by the non-digital world's standards, weekly was constantly) changing set of chart numbers that they could promote with advertising in the magazine to spur sales further.

It went sideways when:

1) Billboard realized that labels would keep committing ad dollars to records if they thought they had a shot and began awarding stars (their version of Cash Box's "bullet") for fairly insignificant action.

2) The labels drank the Kool-Aid and began pleading (and promising bigger ad buys) to keep the star that Billboard was looking for an excuse to give them anyway.

3) The labels began goosing the numbers to an extent that Billboard itself wouldn't have dared by over-shipping ("shipping platinum" came along after years of "shipping gold"), resulting in more and bigger trade ads.

4) American Top 40 took the numbers public to a mass audience that thought they meant something else and thought there were 40 big hits at any given time, which meant...say it with me...more and bigger trade ads.

Basically, the tail ended up wagging the dog. And, while album sales were skyrocketing during this period (and yes, all of the above except for AT40 applied to the Top 200 Album chart), singles sales were falling from '74 on. So all the hype, frenzy and money was directed at a product in decline...which meant smaller raw numbers and even fewer true hits.

 

[Biondi4Mayor]

On a slightly related note, Billboard has announced Youtube will be factored into the Hot 100-

http://www.billboard.com/articles/n...lsen-add-youtube-video-streaming-to-platforms

I guess it's good to give a broader perspective of popularity (after all Jukebox sales used to be counted), but it certainly shatters any comparisons that could be drawn to the "old era", just like comparing data from pre-Soundscan to Soundscan is kind of foolish.

 

[landtuna]

On a slightly related note, Billboard has announced Youtube will be factored into the Hot 100-

http://www.billboard.com/articles/n...lsen-add-youtube-video-streaming-to-platforms

I guess it's good to give a broader perspective of popularity (after all Jukebox sales used to be counted), but it certainly shatters any comparisons that could be drawn to the "old era", just like comparing data from pre-Soundscan to Soundscan is kind of foolish.

There is a big difference between the jukebox of old (which cost real money to play and was not used to discover new songs) and YouTube (which costs nothing and is used by a lot of people to sample songs they haven't yet heard).

 

[Biondi4Mayor]

On a slightly related note, Billboard has announced Youtube will be factored into the Hot 100-

http://www.billboard.com/articles/n...lsen-add-youtube-video-streaming-to-platforms

I guess it's good to give a broader perspective of popularity (after all Jukebox sales used to be counted), but it certainly shatters any comparisons that could be drawn to the "old era", just like comparing data from pre-Soundscan to Soundscan is kind of foolish.

There is a big difference between the jukebox of old (which cost real money to play and was not used to discover new songs) and YouTube (which costs nothing and is used by a lot of people to sample songs they haven't yet heard).

By no means was I comparing the two, I only mentioned that to illustrate how different technologies, trends, and methods have been implemented over time on the charts to impact song rankings.

 

[semoochie]

What would you say is a general breakpoint now, that defines the difference between a hit and a stiff? Is it still around #15, higher or lower?

 

[NoWayNoCC]

On a related note, can anyone shed any light about why chart movement was so slow in the early '80s? This phenomenon peaked around 1982, and then finally there was a week in 1983 when at least the entire top 10 stayed the same.

This was discussed on another website a long time ago, and someone said that Billboard actually had a rule that if a song lost its bullet, it couldn't drop for another week.

 

[michael hagerty]

On a related note, can anyone shed any light about why chart movement was so slow in the early '80s? This phenomenon peaked around 1982, and then finally there was a week in 1983 when at least the entire top 10 stayed the same.

This was discussed on another website a long time ago, and someone said that Billboard actually had a rule that if a song lost its bullet, it couldn't drop for another week.

I hadn't heard the bullet rule thing.

If the Top 10 is essentially frozen, that suggests to me that there's not much difference in the sales of most of those records (remember, Billboard was still tracking wholesale at that point, with airplay mixed in beginning in late '81), and that there's a big gap between #10 and #11.

 

[bigman2005]

On a related note, can anyone shed any light about why chart movement was so slow in the early '80s? This phenomenon peaked around 1982, and then finally there was a week in 1983 when at least the entire top 10 stayed the same.

This was discussed on another website a long time ago, and someone said that Billboard actually had a rule that if a song lost its bullet, it couldn't drop for another week.

I hadn't heard the bullet rule thing.


If the Top 10 is essentially frozen, that suggests to me that there's not much difference in the sales of most of those records (remember, Billboard was still tracking wholesale at that point, with airplay mixed in beginning in late '81), and that there's a big gap between #10 and #11.

Where are you getting this info that the Hot 100 didn't factor airplay until 1980/81, that's nonsense. They always included airplay as part of the formula.

 

[NoWayNoCC]

On a related note, can anyone shed any light about why chart movement was so slow in the early '80s? This phenomenon peaked around 1982, and then finally there was a week in 1983 when at least the entire top 10 stayed the same.

This was discussed on another website a long time ago, and someone said that Billboard actually had a rule that if a song lost its bullet, it couldn't drop for another week.

I hadn't heard the bullet rule thing.


If the Top 10 is essentially frozen, that suggests to me that there's not much difference in the sales of most of those records (remember, Billboard was still tracking wholesale at that point, with airplay mixed in beginning in late '81), and that there's a big gap between #10 and #11.

Where are you getting this info that the Hot 100 didn't factor airplay until 1980/81, that's nonsense. They always included airplay as part of the formula.

What I've heard is this: The Hot 100 has always used airplay, but there was a brief period in the '60s and '70s when airplay only applied to the bottom half of the chart. This changed in June 1973 when Billboard overhauled its Hot 100 methodology and started giving more weight to airplay.

 

[oldies76]

This changed in June 1973 when Billboard overhauled its Hot 100 methodology and started giving more weight to airplay.

No wonder there are so many #1 singles in late 1973, 1974 and 1975.

By 1979, it tapered off.

 

[michael hagerty]

On a related note, can anyone shed any light about why chart movement was so slow in the early '80s? This phenomenon peaked around 1982, and then finally there was a week in 1983 when at least the entire top 10 stayed the same.

This was discussed on another website a long time ago, and someone said that Billboard actually had a rule that if a song lost its bullet, it couldn't drop for another week.

I hadn't heard the bullet rule thing.


If the Top 10 is essentially frozen, that suggests to me that there's not much difference in the sales of most of those records (remember, Billboard was still tracking wholesale at that point, with airplay mixed in beginning in late '81), and that there's a big gap between #10 and #11.

Where are you getting this info that the Hot 100 didn't factor airplay until 1980/81, that's nonsense. They always included airplay as part of the formula.

First, to correct a typo..it was late 1980, not 1981.

The information comes from Billboard itself, which added airplay to sales with the Hot 100 chart the week of October 11, 1980. I was a program director at the time, had been for 10 years, and there was considerable controversy over the move in the industry at the time, because turntable hits would now carry additional weight in the Billboard chart.

Billboard had reporting stations for years before that, and included information about airplay in columns and features (there was even a brief attempt to do a pure airplay chart to compete with Radio & Records), but they had not blended that information into the Hot 100 until October 11, 1980.

 

[michael hagerty]

This changed in June 1973 when Billboard overhauled its Hot 100 methodology and started giving more weight to airplay.

No wonder there are so many #1 singles in late 1973, 1974 and 1975.

By 1979, it tapered off.

The reason there were so many #1 singles in late 1973 and 1974 is that's when singles sales peaked (as we've discussed before), and few of the songs were #1 by a large enough margin to keep from being overtaken by the next record in a week or two. Stores and distributors saw retail sales softening before their last re-orders reached them, so the records peaked quickly. Although singles sales peaked in '74, the lack of records big enough to stay at the top for multiple weeks continued into 1975.

Longer stays at #1 happened when you had more songs that were selling significantly better than others in the Top 5, and retailers and distributors continued to place weekly reorders at the record's peak.