Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100, also known as the Hot 100, is the main chart in the United States that shows the most popular songs each week. It is published by Billboard magazine and updated every Tuesday.

The current Billboard Hot 100 logo

The chart ranks songs based on how many people buy them, how often they are streamed online, and how much they are played on the radio in the U.S.

The first song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 was "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson in 1958. The current number-one song is "Choosin' Texas" by Ella Langley.

History

The Billboard Hot 100 shows the most popular songs in the United States. It began in July 1913 when Billboard listed the best-selling sheet music. Over time, Billboard added ways to measure popularity, such as radio play and jukebox plays.

In 1958, Billboard made the Hot 100, which combined sales, radio play, and jukebox plays to rank songs. The first number one song was "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson. Today, the Hot 100 still ranks songs using sales, radio play, and online music streaming.

*Billboard* Hot 100 component charts
Period	Hot Singles Sales (physical single sales)	Radio Songs (song airplay)	Digital Song Sales (song downloads)	Streaming Songs (song streams)
1984–2005	Active	Active	—N/a	—N/a
2005–2013	Active	Active	Active	—N/a
2013–2017	Active	Active	Active	Active
2017–present	Defunct	Active	Active	Active

Compilation

The Billboard Hot 100 is a chart that shows the most popular songs in the United States each week. It uses data from sales, online listening, and radio play to decide the rankings.

A new chart is made and shared online by Billboard on Tuesdays, but it is marked with the date of the following Saturday. The week for counting sales, streams, and radio play starts on Friday and ends on Thursday.

Policy changes

The rules for the Billboard Hot 100 chart have changed a lot over time.

The Hot 100 helps people in the music business see which songs are most popular. Billboard updates its rules to match what people like.

In the early days, people mostly bought singles, so sales were very important.

Billboard also changed how it counts songs with two versions, called double-sided singles. Before, both versions were listed together. Now, they are usually counted separately.

A big change happened in 1998. Billboard began including songs people could hear on the radio, even if they couldn’t buy them as singles. Before that, a song had to be sold as a single to be on the chart. This let more songs appear on the chart.

Today, Billboard also counts how many times people download songs or stream them on services like Spotify and YouTube. These changes help the chart show how people enjoy music now.

Year-end charts

Billboard's "chart year" runs from the first week of December to the final week in November. This helps Billboard make year-end charts and share them in time for its last print issue in December.

Before using sales and airplay data from Nielsen SoundScan, year-end charts were made by giving points based on a song’s position on the Hot 100. Now, Billboard uses data from Nielsen SoundScan to make year-end charts by adding up all the sales, streaming, and airplay points for the year. This shows the most popular tracks of the year more clearly. Sometimes, songs that become very popular in late November or December will appear on the next year’s chart because their points are counted in two chart years.

Use in media

The Hot 100 was used for many years on the radio show American Top 40. In 1991, the show stopped using the Hot 100 and began using only songs that were being played on the radio.

Some artists have had popular songs on the Hot 100 in many different years, showing they can stay popular even as music changes. Only a few artists have had top songs in each of the decades from the 1980s to the 2010s: Michael Jackson, Madonna, "Weird Al" Yankovic, U2, and Kenny G. Mariah Carey was the first artist to have a number-one song in four different decades.

Some radio stations use old Hot 100 charts for special shows. SiriusXM Pop2K plays the top songs from the 2000s, and '90s on 9 plays songs from the 1990s.

Similar charts

Billboard made a new chart called the Pop 100 in February 2005. Some people thought the Hot 100 had too much hip hop and R&B music. This chart stopped in June 2009 because it started to look like the Hot 100.

Other countries also have their own Hot 100 charts. The Canadian Hot 100 began on June 16, 2007. It uses the same way of counting sales and music on the radio as the U.S. Hot 100. The Billboard Japan Hot 100 started on May 31, 2008, using the same methods. Most recently, the Billboard Vietnam Hot 100 began on January 14, 2022.