Billboard is an American trade magazine owned by Penske Media Corporation, known for its music charts that rank the top songs and albums in the United States based on radio airplay, physical sales, and streams. It’s become the gold standard in the recording industry for what’s driving pop culture.
Hours of research by our editors, distilled into minutes of clarity.
Scoring a number one single is a difficult task—less than 4% of the songs that have made Billboard’s Hot 100 chart have ever reached the top spot. This list breaks down the most elite hitmakers in Billboard history, including the Supremes, Taylor Swift, and the Beatles, who released an incredible 20 number-one singles.
For a music nerd, there’s nothing more fascinating than poring over the Billboard charts from past decades to see how music—and the way it’s categorized—has evolved. This digital archive allows you to click through almost every issue of the magazine and, in the process, watch the gradual emergence of nearly every American musical trend of the past century.
The magazine was initially “devoted to the interests of advertisers, poster printers, bill posters, advertising agents & secretaries of fairs.” While it occasionally tracked music via sheet music, record, and jukebox sales through the 1930s, it added its first true top 10 singles chart in 1940.
The song was number one on Billboard’s Best Selling Retail Records chart, the predecessor to the Hot 100. The chart only measured record copies sold, excluding other indicators of popularity, like sheet music sales or jukebox plays, that were used on other charts.
In 1942, the publication introduced the Harlem Hit Parade chart, listing the top 10 records sold at select record stores in the majority-Black borough of New York. In 1945, it changed the chart’s name to Most Played Juke Box Race Records, using the music industry term (“race record”) that identified recordings by Black artists, even if they played music markedly similar to the white artists on the other charts.
The single reached the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart on November 21, 1960. At just 1:38, it’s the shortest number one in Billboard’s history. It also didn’t last long at the top: It was replaced the following week by Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”
The song topped the Hot 100 in 1960 thanks to a performance on the popular TV show “American Bandstand,” which led to a “Twist” dance craze. Checker recorded twist-themed follow-up singles, helping to propel “The Twist” back up the chart in 1962.
In his book “Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves,” music journalist Chris Dalla Riva argues that payola, the music industry term for undisclosed paid publicity, likely continued into the 1970s with the Billboard chart. Dalla Riva cites chart irregularities and reports about Bill Wardlow, Billboard’s then director of sales, who was a known booster for disco label Casablanca Records.
Billboard introduced its Modern Rock Tracks chart in 1988, looking to capture the rising popularity of acts like the Cure, REM, and U2. Music writer and Billboard obsessive Chris Molanphy traces the chart from his earliest days through grunge, alternative, and corporate eras, demonstrating just how much taste changes over time.
Before 1991, retail stores manually reported sales to Billboard, which then used those figures as part of its calculations for its weekly charts. In 1991, the magazine began using Nielsen SoundScan, a technology that tracked every unit sold in participating stores, providing a more accurate picture of what consumers were actually buying.
Art, music, sports, entertainment, movies, and many other subjects—these elements define who we are as a society and how we express ourselves as a culture. Take a deep dive into the topics shaping our shared norms, values, institutions, and more.