But songs of all of these types can and do appear on the Hot 100.Īt one time, Billboard got its radio data for the Hot 100 only from stations playing Top 40 music. R&B, rap, country, rock, dance and other genres all have their own separate charts, with rules limiting what kind of song is allowed there. But when we refer to the Hot 100 as "the big pop chart," pop really does mean popular: Billboard will allow onto the Hot 100 any current song, in any genre, that radio is playing or people are buying or streaming. Is the Hot 100 a "pop" chart?While the term began as an abbreviation for "popular," pop has also come to denote a sugary genre unto itself - catchy music, usually meant to appeal to young people, tailor-made for the radio and mass consumption. The current edition of AT40, hosted by Ryan Seacrest, uses an unpublished chart with no direct relationship to Billboard. But after a 1991 host change, and in response to longtime station complaints about the edgier hits making the chart (e.g., " Me So Horny"), AT40 switched to other, more radio-centric charts for its data. For more than 20 years (1970–91), the national syndicated program American Top 40 with Casey Kasem did actually count down the Top 40 of the Hot 100 (for Boomers and Gen-X pop nerds, it was paradise). That's usually because the wide range of genres on Billboard's big chart are a little too wide for their tastes, falling outside of a station's target demographics - an adult-pop station that doesn't play rap, for example.
This might all seem obvious - but it should be noted that many radio or TV programs that count down the top 40, top 20 or top 10 don't use the Hot 100. Virtually all music critics and chart historians referencing a "Top 40 hit" are talking about the Hot 100's first 40 positions, and if a song is understood to have "missed the Top 40," it peaked on the Hot 100 at No.
(The full list of 100 songs is published in Billboard's weekly magazine and online.) But nowadays, when Americans refer to the Top 40 as "a list of popular songs," generally they're referring to the first 40 songs on the Hot 100. Is "the Top 40" related to the Hot 100?As a term for a radio format that plays current, popular music, "Top 40" dates back to the early '50s, before the Hot 100 even existed. 2 can't be - but this chart, designed for the music business and followed by pop nerds like me worldwide, is still the best benchmark we have to measure the bigness of hits.ĭefining our terms: Before dissecting how the Hot 100 came to be the industry standard for pop hitography, let's answer some basic questions. It's not perfect - any chart where Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Missy Elliott peak only at No. It's a voracious creature, built to absorb whatever medium is delivering music to the masses at any given time. The better question is this: How is it that, half a century later, we still follow a chart called the Hot 100 to measure which songs are dominating our earbuds, our streets, our beaches, our dancefloors, our American lives? We don't listen to transistor radios anymore, or buy seven-inch 45-RPM vinyl (not in quantity, anyway). If he'd known in 1958 what a music video was, he'd have shot one with ladies in various states of undress, too.) (Trust: 28-year-old Ricky Nelson had swag.
All rights reserved.So, yeah, gender politics in pop music have scarcely evolved in a half-century- plus ça change and all that.
Her previous album, Cuz I Love You, peaked at #4.Ĭopyright © 2022, ABC Audio. This becomes her highest-charting album of all time and the highest-charting album released by a woman so far this year. Her new album, Special, debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 after selling 69,000 copies and amassing over 37 million streams in its first week. Prior to her funky new song hitting the airwaves, the highest-charting single with that word in its title was “Damn!” by YoungBloodz and Lil Jon, which peaked in fourth place back in 2003.Īlso, it’s been 20 years since a song with “Time” in its title was at #1 - the last being Ja Rule and Ashanti‘s “Always on Time.” It also should be noted that Lizzo now has the official bragging rights to being the first and - to date - only artist to bring the word “Damn” to the #1 spot. Fans streamed Lizzo’s hit 14.3 million times and bought up 14,000 copies over the past week, giving it the edge it needed to go to #1. “About Damn Time” spent 14 weeks climbing to the top and finally broke through the iron grip Harry’s “As It Was” had on the chart.
This is the Grammy winner’s second song to go to #1, following her breakout hit “Truth Hurts,” which raced to the top of the chart in 2019 and stayed there for seven weeks. Her infectious anthem “About Damn Time” is now the new top song in the country.
Lizzo has knocked Harry Styles off the top of the BillboardHot 100.