MUSICAL MUSINGS
by Josh Hosler
February 8, 2005
A GUIDE TO THE NEW HOT 100 ... AND THE POP 100!
Every few years, the industry goes bang! whoosh! and new technology kicks in. When that happens, the charts have a funny way of not adjusting well, and they need a serious kick in the pants. Most recently, the problem has been the death of the commercial single, which has caused the charts to rely almost completely on radio airplay data.
Now this may not seem strange to a radio person. After all, most radio programmers spend their time looking over other programmers' shoulders. A few privileged program directors have access to scientifically accurate callout data from listeners, but this expensive form of research is getting less common as owners consolidate and budgets get cut. More and more, radio operates on a "one-size-fits-all" model that is slowly destroying the medium.
There are those of us who realized long ago that a chart based solely on airplay is a chart decided by a tiny handful of people. This is why I prefer Billboard's charts to those of Radio & Records. R&R has always been a radio trade magazine, never even investigating the sales side. But Billboard's oldest charts were based on sales, and its most authoritative chart over the years—the Hot 100—has always been based on a combination of sales and airplay. You know the phrase: "The official Billboard chart." Casey Kasem used to say it every week, before 1988, when he jumped ship for double the salary and a countdown based on the less authoritative R&R chart.
So when the singles market in the U.S. died, I feared we'd never again have a singles chart based on what people are buying. But then the legal digital download was born, and everything changed.
After working out technical glitches for about a year and a half, Billboard has finally managed to incorporate digital download data into its charts. This week, the magazine unveiled a revamped Hot 100 chart, along with a new chart called the Pop 100. What are they? What's the difference between them? Here's a simple formula for the way songs are ranked on each chart:
Formula key:
A = gross impressions, that is, # of times a song was
heard by any listener, on any monitored radio station this week (that is, in any
radio format at all)
M = gross impressions, # of times a song was heard by any listener, on any
monitored Mainstream Top 40 radio station this week (that format only)
D = # of legal digital downloads this week
S = # of old-fashioned commercial singles sold this week (for the few that are
available)
And the formulas are:
THE HOT 100 = (A÷10,000)+(D÷5)+(S÷5)
THE POP 100 = (M÷1000)+D+S
In other words, for the sake of building the Hot 100 chart, a sale of one
download counts the same as the song being heard 2,000 times by listeners. Also,
you'll note that the Hot 100 is a multi-format chart, where the biggest country
and hip hop hits live in harmony together. For the Pop 100, one sale is worth
1,000 "gross impressions" at radio.
The Pop 100 is meant to be a gauge of which songs have transcended their original musical genres to be embraced by the public at large. This is why only Mainstream Top 40 radio stations are used for the airplay component of the chart. Now, this operates under the assumption that Top 40 radio is still a good representative of broad musical tastes. That's a questionable argument, but it is true that rock and hip hop can still coexist there. Furthermore, if you look at the top-selling digital downloads, most of them are played on Top 40 radio stations ... though not all.
The tendency of the digital downloads chart to be broader than the definition of "Pop" is the reason you'll find a few country songs lower down the Pop 100, along with some hard rock and some hardcore hip hop. Not all of the chart is "Pop" in its definition as a musical genre, but if you take "Pop" back to its etymological root, "popular," you'll find that these truly are the most popular songs in the U.S.
The #1 song on the Hot 100 this week is "Let Me Love You" by Mario. If you take Mario's airplay at Mainstream Top 40, Rhythmic Top 40, and R&B/Hip Hop (his three main formats), you'll find his song was heard over 200 million times this week! (That counts every spin on every monitored radio station, multiplied by the approximate number of people who were listening each time).
The #1 song on the Pop 100 this week is "1, 2 Step" by Ciara, which is #2 on the Hot 100. "1, 2 Step" has less airplay than Mario overall and at Mainstream Top 40 stations, but Ciara's digital sales are better than Mario's.
The most downloaded song in the U.S. this week (and perhaps the world? I'll have to check into that) is "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day. Green Day lands at #4 on the Hot 100 and at #2 on the Pop 100.
Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the new emphasis on digital downloads is a band called The Killers, whose "Mr. Brightside" suddenly appears at #40 on both charts. "Mr. Brightside" still isn't getting much pop airplay, but it's one of the 10 most downloaded songs of the week, and now it's finally getting its due.
What was the #1 song on the day you were born? Click here to find out.