Billboard charts

The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs and albums in the United States and elsewhere.[citation needed] The first chart published by Billboard was "Last Week's Ten Best Sellers Among The Popular Songs", a list of best-selling sheet music, in July 1913.[6] In the July 27, 1940, issue, the first "Billboard Music Popularity Chart" was published for the week ending July 20,[8][9] with separate listings covering retail sales, sheet music sales, jukebox song selection and radio play.Among the lists were the 10 songs of the "Best Selling Retail Records", which is the fore-runner of today's pop chart, with "I'll Never Smile Again" by Tommy Dorsey (featuring vocals by Frank Sinatra) its first number one.[15][16] The Hot 100 currently combines singles sales, radio airplay, digital downloads, and streaming activity (including data from YouTube and other video sites).[6] Billboard charts now cover these music genres: rock, pop, country, dance, bluegrass, jazz, classical, R&B, rap, electronic, Latin, Christian, world and holiday music, and even ringtones for mobile (cell) phones.[citation needed] According to the 100th-anniversary issue of Billboard, prior to the official implementation of SoundScan tracking in November 1991, many radio stations and retail stores removed songs from their manual reports after the associated record labels stopped promoting a particular single.[citation needed] Before September 1995, singles were allowed to chart in the week they first went on sale based on airplay points alone.[citation needed] In December 1998, the policy was further modified to allow tracks to chart on the basis of airplay alone without a commercial release.Previous to this, several substantial radio and MTV hits had not appeared on the Billboard chart at all, because many major labels chose not to release them as standalone singles, hoping their unavailability would spur greater album sales.Among the many pre-1999 songs that had ended up in this Hot 100 limbo were The Cardigans' "Lovefool", Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" (which peaked at 42), Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris" (which hit number 9), OMC's "How Bizarre", Sugar Ray's "Fly", and No Doubt's "Don't Speak".The official street date for all new album releases was moved from Tuesday to Friday in the United States.Radio Songs, which informs the Hot 100, synced to the Monday-to-Sunday period after formerly covering Wednesday to Tuesday.Billboard said this change was made to further reflect the divergent platforms of music consumption in today's world.