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Source Song Charts

Each of the entries in the site provides a list of the positions in the various source charts. This page describes the charts that have been used for songs. So for example an entry of "US BB 1 - Oct 1965, US CashBox 68 of 1965, Germany 373 of the 1960s, Belgium 53 of all time, RYM 11 of 1965, RIAA 56, Scrobulate 39 of classic rock" would indicate that the song:

  • Was number one in the US Billboard charts, entering the chart in Oct 1965
  • Was number 68 in the US CashBox chart of the year 1965
  • Was the 373rd song in Germany for the decade of the 1960s
  • Was the 53rd best selling song of all time in Belgium
  • Was number 11 in the "RateYourMusic" chart for 1965
  • Was 56 in the Record Industry Association of America's all time list
  • Was number 39 in the "classic rock" tag at Scrobulate

A complete set of the strings used (and which charts generated them) can be found at the end of this page.

The way that a total score for each song is derived from the individual chart entries is described on the site generation page. This result set was created 17 Jan 2024 16:59 GMT and is version 2.8.0053. The 141 source charts that contributed to the song positions were:


Name Period Covered Max Pos Num Entries Region Type Description
US Billboard 1900 - 2013 100 38596 USA position each week The complete Billboard charts for the 20th Century from Bullfrog
UK 1952 - 2011 100 34778 UK position each week The complete UK singles charts
Japan Tokyo 1988 - 2007 100 11748 Japan position each week Top 100 charts for Tokyo from //www.j-wave.co.jp/
Germany ODK 1977 - 2016 100 17650 Germany position each week Top 100 German singles of each week
Germany 1960 - 2006 35 5432 Germany position each month German top 35 charts
Germany 2000s 2007 - 2012 15 654 Germany position each week German song charts after 2007
France 1970 - 2006 10 9380 France position each week Weekly top 10 in France from 1970 from //charly1300.site.voila.fr/2006.htm
France SNEP 1967 - 1984 15 1422 France position each month Monthly top 15 in France researched by SNEP for a book
Holland 1965 - 2009 40 12429 Holland position each week Weekly top 40 in Holland
Canada Year Songs 1967 - 1999 100 3206 Canada position in year Top 100 of each year in Canada reported in Wikipedia
Canada CHUM 1957 - 1986 50 7148 Canada position each week The Canadian weekly top 50 from Toronto radio station CHUM
Sweden Alt 1975 - 1985 40 990 Sweden position each week Top 40 charts from //swedishcharts.com/archiv.asp
Sweden 1984 - 2009 20 5182 Sweden position each week Swedish top 20 charts (with many summer months missing) from //www.sr.se/p3/topplistor/tracks/
Switzerland 1968 - 2009 40 6633 Switzerland position each week Top 40 charts from //swisscharts.com/archiv.asp
Norway 1958 - 2009 40 4040 Norway position each week Top 40 charts from //norwegiancharts.com/archiv.asp
Poland 1982 - 2006 50 6339 Poland position each week Weekly charts for Poland from //www.polskieradio.pl/
Belgium Radio 2 1970 - 2008 30 8821 Belgium position each week Chart from Belgium Radio 2 (source //radio2.be/)
Austria 1973 - 2009 40 5167 Austria position each month Top 40 charts from //austriancharts.at/archiv.asp
Flanders 1954 - 1970 20 1426 Belgium position each month Calulated monthly positions in Belgium
US 1940s 1940 - 1954 50 1286 USA position each week Positions from the occasional Billboard charts that predate the top 100
Australia GoSet 1966 - 1974 60 1829 Australia position each week From the Australian magazine GoSet (source //www.poparchives.com.au/)
RIANZ 1975 - 1979 40 893 New Zealand position each week Official New Zealand chart
New Zealand Lever 1960 - 1965 9 545 New Zealand position each week Chart sponsered by Lever Brtothers in New Zealand
New Zealand Listner 1966 - 1970 23 677 New Zealand position each week Chart from NZ Listner magazine
Springbok 1969 - 1989 20 1955 South Africa position each week The national chart on Springbok radio
UK Sheet Music 1939 - 1952 1 117 UK number 1 records Top selling sheet music
UK 1940s Sheet Music 1939 - 1954 24 1167 UK position each week Top selling sheet music
UK Year 2011 - 2023 100 1300 UK position in year UK Top 100 songs of the year
US Cashbox 1956 - 1995 100 3306 USA position in year Top 100 of each year in 'Cashbox Magazine' chart
US Cashbox Sup 1950 - 1956 50 2162 USA position each week Cashbox weekly chart entries before the annual chart was published
US Record World 1964 - 1982 40 4708 USA position each week Position in the "Record World" magazine
US xBB Year 1920 - 1969 50 1207 USA position in year Billboard top songs of the year
US BB100 Year 1951 - 2023 100 6971 USA position in year Billboard Hot100 songs of the year
US WABC NY 1960 - 1982 100 2030 USA position in year Annual chart from Musicradio WABC New York
US ARC 1980 - 2013 50 1699 USA position in year From the ARC charts at "Rock the Net"
US Radio Play 1959 - 2014 188 7051 USA position in year US Chart based on airplay (MediaSentry & Billboard)
US Mediabase 2007 - 2012 100 403 USA position in year Recent US Chart based on Mediabase
US Country Number 1s 1944 - 1949 1 55 USA number 1 records Country Music Number 1s of the 1940s
Australia Year 1958 - 2005 50 1520 Australia position in year The Australian bestselling songs of each year from 1958-2005
Australia ARIA 2006 - 2014 100 800 Australia position in year A listing of the top singles of each year since 2005 from ARIA
Brazil 1902 - 2009 100 9264 Brazil position in year The Brazillian annual chart from //www.hot100brasil.com/
Finland Number 1 1989 - 2017 1 607 Finland number 1 records From //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_singles_of_2010_%28Finland%29
France InfoDisc 1960 - 2007 300 791 France position in year Chart data from //www.infodisc.fr/
France 1950s InfoDisc 1950 - 1954 20 100 France position in year Restrospective chart data from //www.infodisc.fr/
Italy 1947 - 2016 100 6692 Italy position in year From //www.hitparadeitalia.it/
Italy Number 1 1959 - 1996 1 520 Italy number 1 records From //it-charts.150m.com/numeriuno-1960.htm
South Africa 1958 - 1989 20 640 South Africa position in year From //www.rock.co.za/
Japan Osaku 1989 - 2007 100 1130 Japan position in year Hits in Osaku from the 1990s from //funky802.com/hot100/
Switzerland Year 1968 - 2017 30 1683 Switzerland position in year Year end Swiss charts
Ceylon Binaca Geetmala 1970 - 1980 42 390 Sri Lanka position in year Ceylon Radio's Bollywood song hits
Denmark Year 1963 - 1974 20 160 Denmark position in year Year end charts from Danish Radio
Germany Decade 1960s - 2000s 400 2107 Germany position in decade The best selling songs of each decade in Germany
Europe Decade 1930s - 2000s 100 804 Europe position in decade The European top 100 for decades from 1930 to 2005 (focus is on Holland)
France Early InfoDisc 1900s - 1940s 20 80 France position in decade Restrospective chart data from //www.infodisc.fr/
Eire 1962 - 2013 1 924 Eire number 1 records Number one selling records in Ireland from Wikipedia
New Zealand 1 1966 - 2016 1 838 New Zealand number 1 records Number one selling records in New Zealand from Wikipedia
Holland Free40 1976 - 2017 100 4235 Holland critic's pick Top songs from //www.free40.nl/free40jaarlinks.htm
Mexico Number 1 1961 - 1981 1 718 Mexico number 1 records List of number 1s in Mexico up to 1981. As reported in Wikipedia
US Number 1 1940 - 1954 1 144 USA number 1 records List of number 1s in the US before the Billboard Top100 was created in 1955. As reported in Wikipedia
Your Hit Parade 1935 - 1959 25 474 USA position in year Top songs on the "Your Hit Parade" radio show
KQV Radio Pittsburgh 1962 - 1971 114 729 USA position in year Top songs of the year selected by Pittsburgh radio
Keener Detroit Radio 1963 - 1972 31 2691 USA position each week Weekly top 30 selected by WKNR Detroit
Australia 40s Number 1s 1940 - 1948 1 85 Australia number 1 records Australian Number One Hit Singles calculated in "Kent Report"
Australia Number 1s 1949 - 2009 1 1022 Australia number 1 records Australian Number One Hit Singles from "Kent Report" and ARIA
Canada RPM Number 1s 1964 - 2000 1 899 Canada number 1 records A list of number 1 records in the Canadian RPM newsletter from Wikipedia
Canada Billboard Number 1s 2001 - 2016 1 160 Canada number 1 records A list of number 1 records in Billboard for Canada from Wikipedia
Japan Oricon Number 1s 1968 - 2006 1 687 Japan number 1 records Number 1 records in the Oricon weekly chart
Japan Oricon Later Number 1s 2005 - 2015 1 385 Japan number 1 records Number 1 records in the later Oricon weekly chart
Radio Luxembourg Sheet 1950 - 1959 1 142 UK number 1 records Number 1s in the Radio Luxembourg Sheet Music charts
Record Mirror 1955 - 1962 1 104 UK number 1 records Number One records as listed in Record Mirror
UK Sales 1955 - 1999 10 50 UK single sales These numbers were claimed in a set of BBC documentaries on music broadcast in 2008
US RIAA Certificate 1949 - 2008 - 2756 USA single sales RIAA certified sales levels for singles from //www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php
US Certificate (since 2008) 2008 - 2011 - 529 USA single sales RIAA certified sales levels for singles from //www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php
UK BPI Certificate 1972 - 2008 - 1906 UK single sales BPI certified sales levels for singles
France Certificate 1993 - 2008 - 346 France single sales Single sales certified by SNEP from //www.disqueenfrance.com/
Germany Certificate 1975 - 2009 - 668 Germany single sales Single sales certified by Bundesverband Musikindustrie e.V.
Canada Certificate 2001 - 2009 - 117 Canada single sales Sales certified by CRIA since 2001
Europe Number 1 1976 - 2007 1 345 Europe number 1 records Number 1 songs in Europe
Euro Digital Number 1 2008 - 2014 1 125 Europe number 1 records Billboard's Number 1 songs in Europe
Europarade Number 1 1959 - 1965 1 71 Europe number 1 records Number 1 songs in Europe
EuroVision 1956 - 2014 1 64 Europe voted for Winners of the EuroVision Song Contest
France Number 1 1955 - 1983 1 318 France number 1 records A list of number 1 records in France from Wikipedia
Germany Number 1 1953 - 2013 1 756 Germany number 1 records A list of number 1 records in Germany from Wikipedia
Spain Number 1 1966 - 2009 1 1125 Spain number 1 records Very limited list of number 1 songs in Spain
Belgium All Time up to 2007 277 277 Belgium position in all time Compiled from the most requested songs of the year for 1987-2005 listed on //tijdloze.stijnshome.be/
Poland All Time 1964 - 2004 100 100 Poland position in all time The most requested songs on Polish radio (from //www.polskieradio.pl/trojka/lp3/archiwu m_top.aspx)
Japan All Time up to 1997 30 30 Japan position in all time The best selling international songs in Japan
Peel 1900 - 1999 6 416 UK critic's pick Best songs of the century selected by John Peel
Rolling Stone up to 2004 500 500 USA critic's pick Top 500 songs listed in 'Rolling Stone' 2004
Billboard 100 up to 2014 100 100 USA critic's pick Top 100 songs of all time on Billboard 100 (2015)
Billboard 55th 100 up to 2012 100 100 USA critic's pick Top 100 songs of all time on Billboard 100 (2013)
Daily Deuce 1900 - 1929 30 USA critic's pick List of the top 30 songs of 1900-1929
Acclaimed 1902 - 2004 2500 2500 USA critic's pick Top 2500 songs selected by unknown person in US
Acclaim Year 2003 - 2013 50 514 USA critic's pick The annual lists for new years from //www.acclaimedmusic.net/
UKMIX 1952 - 2003 1000 1000 UK critic's pick A list of the top 1000 songs in the UK charts
RYM 1920 - 2011 200 24775 internet social network Songs with the highest rating each year on //rateyourmusic.com/
DDD Year 1940 - 1975 110 3166 internet social network Songs of the year from DigitalDreamDoor.com
POP Year 1920 - 2017 100 5029 internet social network Songs of the year from //www.popculturemadness.com/
Scrobulate up to 2011 100 8775 internet social network The top 100 songs in the most active tags on Scrobulate by 2005
DMDB 100 up to 1999 100 100 internet social network The top 100 songs according to Dave's Music Database
Vinyl Surrender up to 2010 200 200 internet social network The top 200 songs according to Vinyl Surrender
nuTsie 1920 - 2009 100 900 internet social network The top songs of each decade from nuTsie site
Oscar 1934 - 2016 - 429 USA voted for Winner of the Oscar for best original song
AFI 1900 - 2004 100 100 USA voted for The 100 most important songs from American films (from the AFI)
Grammy 1958 - 2016 - 283 USA voted for The Grammy for best song
Grammy Hall of Fame 1897 - 1992 - 691 USA voted for Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame
Latin Grammy Hall of Fame 1930 - 1970 - 12 USA voted for Inducted into the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame
Golden Globe 1961 - 2016 - 266 USA voted for Winners & Nominees for the Golden Globe's best song
Brits 1977 - 2023 - 46 UK voted for Winners of the Brit award for best song
MTV Video 1984 - 2017 - 173 USA voted for Winners & Nominees for the MTV Video of the Year
RIAA up to 2000 365 365 USA voted for RIAA asked 200 US politicians for the "most important songs"
2FM up to 2000 100 100 UK voted for Top 100 songs of all time voted by 2FM radio listeners in UK
TOTP up to 2000 40 40 UK voted for Top 40 songs selected by Top of the Pops viewers in UK
Australia OzNet up to 2004 1000 1000 Australia voted for Consolidated from five Australian radio station's best songs of all time lists
Virgin up to 2000 100 100 UK voted for Top 100 songs selected by Virgin Radio listeners in UK
WXPN up to 2004 885 885 internet social network Songs requested on WXPN 88.5 satellite radio
KROQ 1980 - 1990 106 1163 USA voted for Top 106 songs of each year voted by listeners of KROQ in California (listed on //earlhoward.com/kroq.htm)
Global up to 2006 33 108 world single sales Claims of the total worldwide sales for single reported on Wikipedia
TheQ up to 2005 500 500 Canada voted for The top 500 songs published as The Q!'s Thanksgiving 500 (source //www.theq.fm/?q=countdowns). Based on 15,673 votes
Australia Nostalgia 1930 - 1949 - 120 Australia critic's pick Top songs on Australian radio 1930-1949
the MusicID revenue site 2000 - 2023 100 2300 internet song sales Annual Song Charts from the MusicID revenue site
Party up to 2006 300 500 USA critic's pick Requested songs at US parties (from web site)
D Marsh 1955 - 1980 40 1040 internet critic's pick From the Book Of Rock Lists by Dave Marsh
DZ Entertainment 1942 - 1955 10 140 internet critic's pick Top 10 of each year
CD Songs 1930 - 1949 20 300 internet critic's pick Songs from web list
Jazz Standards 1900 - 1939 999 140 internet critic's pick Jazz Standards from web site
Visconti Songs 1900 - 1949 20 38 internet critic's pick Songs from a book
Music Imprint 1900 - 1949 20 70 internet critic's pick Top 20 of each decade
NY Daily News up to 2007 100 100 internet critic's pick A list of love songs
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame up to 1995 - 500 USA critic's pick From the "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll" at the museum
Billboard 50th 100 songs 1958 - 2007 100 100 USA critic's pick Billboard's list of 100 greatest songs of 50 years
Billboard 50th top songs 1958 - 2007 1 50 USA critic's pick Billboard's list of the top songs of 1958-2007
ASCAP 100 1913 - 2013 1 100 USA critic's pick ASCAP top songs of 100 years
Library of Congress up to 2017 1 203 USA critic's pick US Library of Congress artifact
WFUV up to 2006 90 90 USA voted for WFUV New York's Top 90 Songs
London Guardian up to 2011 100 700 UK critic's pick The Guardian newspaper listed the most representative songs for genres
UK Streamed 70 1952 - 2022 70 70 UK most streamed A list of the most streamed songs from the 70 years of the UK charts
Richest Songs up to 2012 10 10 world voted for Songs that earned biggest royalties
Germany 1930s 1933 - 1944 6 52 Germany critic's pick A few popular songs in Germany
aceterrier.com 1920s 1920 - 1929 100 internet critic's pick Songs listed on web site
aceterrier.com 1900s 1900 - 1919 50 internet critic's pick Songs listed on web site

Song Entries Chart

The chart above shows how the 325,239 items in the input charts is distributed over the years. The profiles of each of the 141 song charts is shown below.

Entries from 2FM

2FM

The top 100 songs of all time as voted for by radio 2FM's listeners.

Entries from Acclaim Year

Acclaim Year

The site //www.acclaimedmusic.net/ has continued to collect lists of "Acclaimed Music" since we scanned it in 2003. During that time the site has been extended to provide a good listing of the music that critics like and where it gets its information from. This chart adds the songs that have been added to the top lists for the years since 2003. The data available from this site has been steadily improving in quality since 2003 and now their spreadsheets are one of the best sources this type of data on the web.

Entries from Acclaimed

Acclaimed

The top 2500 songs selected by an unknown person in the US. Listed on //www.acclaimedmusic.net/. The site has combined lists from many locations (listed at //www.acclaimedmusic.net/Current/all_cri tics_lists.htm). The lists are all "critic's lists" so the result is bound to be focused on recent and "trendy" music. However the large number and range of input lists means the result is probably the best subjective music list available.

It is not too surprising that this list matches quite closely with the 'Rolling Stone' 500.

Entries from aceterrier.com 1900s

aceterrier.com 1900s

On the page //aceterrier.com/?page_id=1502 a citic has listed the "50 Records That Matter, 1900-1919". This site is well worth a visit if you are interested in popular songs, both for the well documented lists from before 1940 and for the later lists. Sometimes the choices are a bit eclectic, but they are always well argued and researched.

Entries from aceterrier.com 1920s

aceterrier.com 1920s

On the page //aceterrier.com/?page_id=551 a citic has listed the top 100 songs of the 1920s. These entries have no impact on the scrores. This site is well worth visiting, both for the well documented lists from before 1940 and for the later lists. Sometimes the choices are a bit eclectic, but they are always well argued and researched.

Entries from AFI

AFI

The 100 most important songs from American films as selected by the AFI. As with all trade associations the chart emphasis is on promoting the product (in this case old US films).

Entries from ASCAP 100

ASCAP 100

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) for their 100th anniversary listed the top songs of each year from 1913 to 2013. The focus is on songwriters, we have assigned each song to the artist that had the biggest success in the time period they selected. The full list can be found at //www.ascap.com/press/2014/0213-ascap-tu rns-100.aspx.

The list includes just one Dylan song, we bet you can't guess which one.

Entries from Australia 40s Number 1s

Australia 40s Number 1s

The "Kent Music Report" (see //www.austchartbook.com.au/) retrospectively calculated the monthly song charts for Australia during 1940-1948. This listing of the number one songs from that book came from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_singles_in_Australia_during_the_1940 s.

As usual for this period the charts list the song, not the rendition, all the listed versions are considered to have taken the number one slot. So there may be multiple artists credited with the same song at the same time.

Entries from Australia ARIA

Australia ARIA

The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) lists the top singles of each year from 2006 to the present on their comprehensive web site at //www.aria.com.au/pages/aria-charts-end- of-year-charts.htm. This extends the "Australia Year" chart to the present day.

Entries from Australia GoSet

Australia GoSet

Australian weekly charts as published in the Melbourne based magazine GoSet reported on the site //www.poparchives.com.au/

Entries from Australia Nostalgia

Australia Nostalgia

The top songs in Australia as reported on www.australianotr.com.au/1930s--1940s.ht ml This is from the book "Australian Radio History" by Bruce Carty.

Entries from Australia Number 1s

Australia Number 1s

After 1988 the number one hits were published by ARIA, before then the source is the weekly charts published in "Kent Music Report" (see //www.austchartbook.com.au/). The early charts were retrospectively calculated in the 1990s. This source for this data is the pages like //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_singles_in_Australia_during_the_1960 s.

Up until the mid 1950s the charts list the song, not the rendition, so all the listed versions are considered to have taken the number one slot. So there may be multiple artists credited with the same song at the same time.

Entries from Australia OzNet

Australia OzNet

At the end of each year Australian radio stations broadcast their "Best Songs Of All Time" countdowns based on requests from their listeners. This is compiled from the lists on five Australian MOR radio stations. Source is //www.onmc.iinet.net.au/trivia/top_1000_ songs.htm

Entries from Australia Year

Australia Year

The Australian bestselling songs of each year from 1958-2005

Entries from Austria

Austria

Top 40 charts from //austriancharts.at/archiv.asp

Entries from Belgium All Time

Belgium All Time

The most requested songs of the year for 1987-2005 listed on //tijdloze.stijnshome.be/

Entries from Belgium Radio 2

Belgium Radio 2

Radio 2 in Belgium has been doing a weekly top 30 since 1970. This comprehensive list comes from //radio2.be/.

Entries from Billboard 100

Billboard 100

In 2015 Billboard published a list of the 100 greatest hits of all time on the Billboard 100. Source is //www.billboard.com/charts/greatest-hot- 100-singles.

Entries from Billboard 50th 100 songs

Billboard 50th 100 songs

For the 50th anniversary of the Billboard top 100 charts they listed the 100 top songs of the period. They also listed the top songs of each year from 1958 to 2007. The two lists are available from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_10 0_50th_Anniversary_Charts Unfortunately the two lists are inconsistent.

Entries from Billboard 50th top songs

Billboard 50th top songs

For the 50th anniversary of the Billboard top 100 charts they listed the top songs of each year. They also listed the top 100 songs of 1958 to 2007. The two lists are available from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_10 0_50th_Anniversary_Charts Unfortunately the two lists are inconsistent.

Entries from Billboard 55th 100

Billboard 55th 100

In 2013 Billboard published a list of the 100 highest placed songs of the 55 years of charts. Source is //www.billboard.com/articles/list/215553 1/the-hot-100-all-time-top-songs.

Entries from Brazil

Brazil

The annual top 100 from 1902-2009 (source //www.hot100brasil.com/). This seems to be a fairly unofficial list, but it is the only one we can find for Brazil. Some Wikipedia editors have decided that this source should not be used on their site, since we have no alternate source we will continue to use it.

Entries from Brits

Brits

Winners of the annual "Brit" award for best song held each year since 1982. The one-off 1977 awards (held for the Silver Jubilee) awarded the best songs of the previous 25 years.

Entries from Canada Billboard Number 1s

Canada Billboard Number 1s

After RPM ("Records, Promotion, Music") shut down the definitive charts for Canada could claim to be those in Billboard. The listing from Wikipedia (with pages like //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hot_100_ number-one_singles_of_2007_%28Canada%29) provides an interpretation of which songs topped these various charts.

Entries from Canada Certificate

Canada Certificate

The CRIA in Canada have been certifying sales since the early 1980s. There web site (at //www.cria.ca/goldplat.php) lists all the certifications since 2001.

Entries from Canada CHUM

Canada CHUM

The Canadian weekly top 50 from Toronto radio station CHUM (//www.1050chum.com/)

A more detailed look at the song chart Canada CHUM can be found here

Entries from Canada RPM Number 1s

Canada RPM Number 1s

RPM ("Records, Promotion, Music") was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. Founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964 it was supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000. The weekly charts are available (as scanned images) through the Canadian national library at //www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/rpm/index- e.html. The number ones have been obtained from pages like //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_RPM_numb er-one_singles_of_2000 but with data fixed when the original source shows different entries.

Entries from Canada Year Songs

Canada Year Songs

This listing of the top 100 songs in Canada for each year can be found on the site //musiccanada.wordpress.com/charts/. Normally WordPress sites tend to be unreliable. In this case the data seems reasonable for the early years but becomes increasingly more "unique" as time goes on. We have just used up to 1999.

Entries from CD Songs

CD Songs

This list of the top 20 songs of years between 1930 and 1949 is based on "A Time To Remember" cards. It is only included because there is so little source data for the era and contributes just enough points to be noticed (i.e. less than any real chart)

Entries from Ceylon Binaca Geetmala

Ceylon Binaca Geetmala

The Ceylon radio show "Binaca Geetmala" transmitted to much of India. Every week it would review the most popular songs from Bollywood films. This listing of the year end charts comes from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaca_Geetmala.

Entries from the MusicID revenue site

the MusicID revenue site

The site revenue site combines charts from the countries with the six biggest music markets. It lists the top albums and songs for every day, month, year and decade from January 2000 to last month. The chart used here is the top 100 songs from every year from 2000 to last year.

The site is created by the same people as the MusicID impact site. The difference is that while the MusicID impact site.info covers the period from 1900 to 2023, the approach we take here requires a large number of input charts. After about 2009 the results become increasingly dubious (because there are fewer source charts). the MusicID revenue site in contrast takes a differnt route, there are weekly charts for every week starting in 2000, these are factored by the revenue from music in each country giving a chart of the top songs and albums for every day. This approach works well for periods where reliable charts are available. Since version 2.7.001 we've emphasised the the MusicID revenue site charts for years after 2010.

Entries from D Marsh

D Marsh

The "Book Of Rock Lists" by Dave Marsh & Kevin Stein was published in 1981. It provides a variety of lists, these entries are from "The Top 40 Singles By Year" as made available at //www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/dmarshsi.html.

Entries from Daily Deuce

Daily Deuce

The web site "The Daily Deuce" provides opinions on music, most of the time we'd ignore these type of lists as being to personal to be a good source, however they have listed the top 30 songs of 1900 to 1929 and there are so few sources for that period that we'll take any. The source list was //thedailydeuce.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/t op-30-songs-before-1930s.html.

Entries from DDD Year

DDD Year

Songs of the year as listed on //digitaldreamdoor.com/ This site provides some fun lists like "100 Greatest Beach Music Songs" and is well worth checking out.

A more detailed look at the song chart DDD Year can be found here

Entries from Denmark Year

Denmark Year

It is very hard to find good Danish song charts from before 1990. The site //danskehitlister.dk/ has gathered some of this data together. This listing is of their end of year song charts, with some years missing (for some reason this chart becomes a list of hit albums after 1974).

Entries from DMDB 100

DMDB 100

A guy called Dave Whitaker has collected various lists of albums and songs and used the information to create the site //www.davesmusicdatabase.com/. For each major album Dave provides all sorts of interesting information, the site is well worth checking out. This is his calculated list of the 100 top songs of the 20th century.

Entries from DZ Entertainment

DZ Entertainment

A Chicago based DJ hiring company lists the top 10 most requested songs for each year from 1942 to the present. We've ignored the most recent selections but included their picks from before 1955. The source was //www.dzentertainment.com/topsongs.htm.

Entries from Eire

Eire

Number one selling records in Ireland as quoted on Wikipedia with the gap filled in. (source //www.irishcharts.ie/)

Entries from Euro Digital Number 1

Euro Digital Number 1

After 2008 Billboard started publishing a chart for Europe. This is the number 1 songs in that chart as reported at //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_Euro_Digital_Songs.

Entries from Europarade Number 1

Europarade Number 1

Number one songs in Europe as reported on pages such as //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European _number-one_hits_of_1959. On that page the claim is made that these are from the Europarade charts but elsewhere it notes that Europarade started in early 1976 by TROS Radio in the Netherlands, so these entries must be from elsewhere.

Entries from Europe Decade

Europe Decade

The European top 100 for each decade from 1930 to 2009 (focus is on Holland and Germany). The listing does not include the claimed year of release, that has been deduced from other charts and hence some of the "hits of the 1930s" seem to have actually been released in the 1920s.

One of the places where this is listed is //www.apcchart.com/, but we think that is just a copy (and we are sure this is not where we originally got it from).

Entries from Europe Number 1

Europe Number 1

There are a number of groups that have been listing the top hit songs in Europe since the 1970s. This chart is a list of the number one records in Europe and was reported on //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_hits_in_Europe.

Someone has since replaced the contents of that page with a description of the Billboard "European Hot 100 Singles" (which is a different chart) and removed the listing of number one records (not even the Billboard ones are listed).

Entries from EuroVision

EuroVision

The EuroVision Song Contest is a televised annual contest held in Europe to select a "Song for Europe". This list of winners comes from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Eurovisi on_Song_Contest_winners.

Entries from Finland Number 1

Finland Number 1

Number one hits on the "Suomen virallinen lista" as listed on Wikipedia on pages like //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_singles_of_2010_%28Finland%29.

Entries from Flanders

Flanders

The site //www.flanders-hitparade.net/ has calculated a monthly chart for Belgium over the period 1955 - 2009. The early charts came from "Song Parade", "Jukebox Top 20", "Humo's Top 20 / Top 50", "Joepie - VTM Super 30 / Super 50" and "Ultratop 50". From 1970 the chart seems to be mainly based on the "Radio 2" one (which we already have in more detail), so we are only using the data from 1955 - 1970.

Entries from France

France

Weekly top 10 songs in France from 1970 to present. Source is at //charly1300.site.voila.fr/2006.htm. It has been claimed that other sites contain more objective charts (e.g. based on radio airplay), however the nominated sites have their own data quality issues and in the case of (//lescharts.com/) only starts in 1984. We have now incorporated some data from the InfoDisc site (see later entry).

If someone (with a better grasp of French and/or a less paranoid attitude to providing credit card details) sends us a summary of the French hits anywhere between 1900 and 1984 in CSV format we will look at it.

Entries from France 1950s InfoDisc

France 1950s InfoDisc

The InfoDisc site has done some retrospective calculations to work out the French charts of the period 1900-1955. This chart is the top 20 songs of the years 1950 to 1954 and can be found at pages like //www.infodisc.fr/Siecle_50.php.

Some readers have compllained that the quality of the infodisc data is not very good, and it certainly does have some mistakes in it. However since we have little alternate data available for France we will continue to use it.

Entries from France Certificate

France Certificate

Since 1994 SNEP in France have been certifying sales of singles. This list is from //www.disqueenfrance.com/. We understand that SNEP have been issuing certificates since well before 1994 but have never found a source for the earlier data that seems credible.

Entries from France Early InfoDisc

France Early InfoDisc

The InfoDisc site has done some retrospective calculations to work out the French charts of the period 1900-1955. This chart is the top 20 songs for the decades from the 1900s to the 1940s and can be found at pages like //www.infodisc.fr/Siecle_0019.php.

Entries from France InfoDisc

France InfoDisc

We were told that the //infodisc.fr/ site had the most notable French charts in 2007. At that time there was very little data there that could be accessed without payment. Now the site now has added some summary information that is freely available so we have used it here.

In order to get a complete list we combined the top 300 from each decade with the claimed biggest sellers in France. This exercise demonstrated some issues with the data at the site. For example Elton John's song Candle in the Wind '97 which they estimate to be the 4th best selling song of all time in France (at //www.infodisc.fr/S_ToutTemps.php) did not make it into the top 300 for the 1990s (at //www.infodisc.fr/SongPts_90.php)!

Entries from France Number 1

France Number 1

This list of number one songs in France is from Wikipedia (pages such as //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_n umber-one_hits_of_1955). This article neither explains where the list comes from nor provides external links, so it should be treated with some caution.

Entries from France SNEP

France SNEP

The web site //top.france.free.fr/ claims that these are the monthly charts of net sales in France for 1967 to 1984. The information was gathered during the writing of a book for SNEP royalties distribution, and comes from: Royalty statements by artists; SDRM fiches and statements; and Sales Statistics.

There are issues with all the charts from France, but this source seems to be unbiased and has no obvious inconsistencies.

A more detailed look at the song chart France SNEP can be found here

Entries from Germany

Germany

The German top 35 charts (original source was //ki.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de/~topsi/ deu1960/, we think)

Entries from Germany 1930s

Germany 1930s

A corespondent called Scriptor listed the top five or six popular songs (with no propaganda or patriotic ones) for each year of the 1930s in Germany. These entries don't contribute to the song's score.

Entries from Germany 2000s

Germany 2000s

The German charts used elsewhere were taken down by Media Control. This is a summary of the freely available data from the Media Control site //www.charts.de/ covering the years after 2007. Only songs that reached the top 15 are listed, however the number of weeks is the number of weeks that a song had been in the full charts until the last time it dropped out of the top 15 (for reasons that are not worth going into).

Entries from Germany Certificate

Germany Certificate

Since 1974 Bundesverband Musikindustrie e.V. has been certifying sales of singles. This list is from //www.musikindustrie.de/gold_platin_date nbank.html, unfortunately the really bad site design means that we don't know if we have all the entries from 2003-2008.

Entries from Germany Decade

Germany Decade

The best selling songs of each decade in Germany. Covers the 1960s onwards.

Entries from Germany Number 1

Germany Number 1

This is a list of number-one hits in the "Media Control Charts" of Germany. The source was //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_o f_number-one_songs_in_Germany.

Entries from Germany ODK

Germany ODK

The "Offiziellen Deutschen Charts" are licenced by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie e.V. and provide weekly listings of song popularity based on purchases, downloads and streams. Their listing starts in 1977 and can be found at //www.offiziellecharts.de/charts/single/.

Entries from Global

Global

The claimed sales for a number of singles as reported in Wikipedia. Such lists are usually inaccurate and this one is certainly incomplete. This listing does not contribute to a song's score.

Entries under this tag should be treated with some caution and certainly not used to justify definitive statements. As an example quoting one of the "Global" sales figures in a Wikipedia article would be wrong. As described here all artists exaggerate their "worldwide sales figures", some worse than others.

Entries from Golden Globe

Golden Globe

Winners and nominees of the Golden Globe award for the best original song in a film. (source //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Globe_Awa rd_for_Best_Original_Song)

Entries from Grammy

Grammy

Winners and nominees of the Grammy award for best song each year. The year noted is the year for which the song won, so for example "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow is listed as the 1994 song despite the fact she was presented the award in 1995. (source //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Award_for _Song_of_the_Year)

Entries from Grammy Hall of Fame

Grammy Hall of Fame

The Grammy Hall of Fame Award is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance". A list of recordings awarded this title appear at //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Hall_of_F ame_Award. The year noted in the entry is the year on which the song won the award. The chart here shows the years when the songs were released.

One of the users pointed out that some entries listed on the Grammy website are missing from the Wikipedia page. This data has been extended with the information from //www.grammy.com/.

The years up to 2011 have been loaded here.

A more detailed look at the song chart Grammy Hall of Fame can be found here

Entries from Holland

Holland

The weekly top 40 in Holland (This data originally came from //www.radio538.nl/web/show/id=44685).

A more detailed look at the song chart Holland can be found here

Entries from Holland Free40

Holland Free40

Since 1976 "Free 40" has provided an alternative weekly album chart for Holland. We had included the list from //www.free40.nl/free40jaarlinks.htm (as one of our albums charts). Unfortunately that old listing mixed some singles into the list. The more recent site at //www.free40.nl/charts/free100.php has different listings for singles and albums. This is the top singles from each year.

Entries from Italy

Italy

The retrospectively calculated annual top 100 from 1947-2016 (source //www.hitparadeitalia.it/).

Entries from Italy Number 1

Italy Number 1

An Italian collector of magazines has created this list of number ones from charts published in Italy from the 1960s to the 1990s. The source was //it-charts.150m.com/numeriuno-1960.htm.

Entries from Japan All Time

Japan All Time

A short list of the best selling international songs in Japan. This list does not include Japanese language songs (see the Tokyo list). The source was //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-sel ling_singles_in_Japan.

Entries from Japan Oricon Later Number 1s

Japan Oricon Later Number 1s

After 2006 the list of number ones in Japan can be found in pages like //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oricon_n umber-one_singles_of_2008.

As with the earlier list the not very good translation lowers the quality of the result. If this was for anywhere other than the second largest music market in the world we would not have incorporated it. If anyone has a reliable set of Japanese charts we would like to hear from you.

Entries from Japan Oricon Number 1s

Japan Oricon Number 1s

The Oricon chart is the most widely recognised one in Japan. This list of number one songs from 1968 to 2005 was found at //www007.upp.so-net.ne.jp/k-makoto/datas tation/datastation.htm and translated using Bablefish. Songs with an artists or title that were not translated have had to be removed.

The combination of an unofficial source and a not very good translation lowers the quality of the result. If this was for anywhere other than the second largest music market in the world we would not have incorporated it. If anyone has a reliable set of Japanese charts we would like to hear from you.

Entries from Japan Osaku

Japan Osaku

This year end chart lists the top 100 of each year in the 1990s in Osaku Japan. Any song with an artists or title that were not in Roman script have had to be removed (so the focus is on International songs). Source //funky802.com/hot100/.

Entries from Japan Tokyo

Japan Tokyo

Japan is the second largest music market in the world, but obtaining reasonable historic chart data is really quite difficult. This is a weekly top 100 chart from 1988 to the present for Tokyo (source //www.j-wave.co.jp/original/tokiohot100/ cgi-bin/top100.cgi ).

Unfortunately our Japanese text handling is not up to translating the artist names and song titles that are not in Latin text. In addition there are inconsistencies between the names of the same songs from one week to the next. We have tried to make the names consistent and map them as best we can, but there are more corrections to be made.

Any validated charts for Japan from before 1989 would be really welcome.

A more detailed look at the song chart Japan Tokyo can be found here

Entries from Jazz Standards

Jazz Standards

The website //www.jazzstandards.com/ lists "Jazz Standards", that is the songs that are most popular in Jazz. Note that their list is a list of the songs, not the actual recordings, that is they care less about who the performer is than who wrote the song. We've had to interpret the performers based on the notes at the site. Only the top 20 and easy to match songs from before 1939 have been included here.

Entries from Keener Detroit Radio

Keener Detroit Radio

WKNR Detroit, known as Keener radio, ran a weekly top 30 from 1963 to 1972. The radio station has a site at //www.keener13.com/ which has a lot of material from the 1960s.

The weekly charts have been collected into a downloadable spreadsheet at //www.keener13.com/guides/keenerguidedat a.csv.

Entries from KQV Radio Pittsburgh

KQV Radio Pittsburgh

Over the course of the 1960s the ABC affiliate in Pittsburgh, WKQV, produced an annual listing of the biggest hits. The original listings can be seen at //user.pa.net/~ejjeff/jeffkqv2.html.

Entries from KROQ

KROQ

At the end of every year of the 1980s the listeners of KROQ in California voted for 106 songs to be played. As listed on //earlhoward.com/kroq.htm

Entries from Latin Grammy Hall of Fame

Latin Grammy Hall of Fame

The Latin Grammy Hall of Fame Award is a special Grammy award established to honor Latin recordings that are at least twenty-five years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance". The list at //www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy/Award s/Latin_Hall_Of_Fame/ only lists the awards for 2001.

Entries from Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The US Library of Congress maintain a "National Recording Registry" of important audio. This includes key speeches, music and other audio. The complete set consists of the 432 (as at early 2015) most important items. This is a list of the 168 songs on the list. The complete list can be found at //www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/registry/nr pb-masterlist.html.

This list has been completely reprocessed following some comments (and suggested fixes) from Chet.

Entries from London Guardian

London Guardian

In June 2011 the London Guardian newspaper published "A history of modern music" that tracked 7 genres (jazz, folk, pop, rock, indie, dance, hip/hip) from 1900. They provided a playlist of 100 songs for each genre (at //www.theguardian.com/news/datablog+musi c/series/a-history-of-modern-music ).

The listing is provided for information only it has no significant impact on the scores. The number shows the time order and does not indicate success or significance.

A more detailed look at the song chart London Guardian can be found here

Entries from Mexico Number 1

Mexico Number 1

This is the list of number 1 records reported for Mexico between 1961 and 1981. It comes from pages such as //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_hits_of_1962_%28Mexico%29 which claims the data was from Billboard.

Entries from MTV Video

MTV Video

Winners and nominees of the MTV Video of the Year award for the best music video. (source //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_Video_Music_ Award_for_Video_of_the_Year)

Entries from Music Imprint

Music Imprint

Music Imprint is a web site that uses ratings from fans to order songs. Normally we'd ignore such sites but this one has songs starting in 1900. We have taken the top 20 from the decade listings up to the 1940s. The data came from //www.musicimprint.com/ in Sep 2010.

Entries from New Zealand 1

New Zealand 1

The number one records in New Zealand listed on Wikipedia. Originally this was loaded from pages such as //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_singles_in_New_Zealand, however for some reason these pages have now be moved to ones like //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_singles_in_1966_%28New_Zealand%29.

This list claims to have come from the RIANZ //www.rianz.org.nz/, however they seem to have removed it from their site.

Entries from New Zealand Lever

New Zealand Lever

The Lever hit parades featured on New Zealand government radio stations starting in the 1950s and continuing to 1965. The data was gathered by Lintas NZ Ltd via polling. The source for the Lever charts starting in 1960 was the site //www.flavourofnz.co.nz/ which has a number of historic music charts (and other interesting New Zealand based information).

Entries from New Zealand Listner

New Zealand Listner

Before 1975 there are few sales-based music charts for New Zealand. The "NZ Listener" magazine compiled weekly charts from votes submitted by their readers. These charts have been assembled at the site //www.flavourofnz.co.nz/ to give an indication of the pop music was in vogue in NZ in the period. This interesting site has a range of NZ based information.

Entries from Norway

Norway

Top 40 charts from Norway //norwegiancharts.com/archiv.asp A mistake in processing meant that these charts had to be regenerated in version 1.9.012.

Entries from nuTsie

nuTsie

The music site //www.nutsie.com/ tracks the most played song of each decade from 1920 to the present. This is the list as it was in September 2010.

Entries from NY Daily News

NY Daily News

The New York Daily News included a listing of their 100 favorite love songs in 2007. This listing is included just for fun, it does not contribute to a song's score in any way. As listed at //stereogum.com/4607/the_100_greatest_lo ve_songs_according_to_the_ny_da/list/.

Entries from Oscar

Oscar

The Oscar for best original song from a film for each year from 1934 to the present. The year listed for the Oscar is the year of the song, the award ceremony is in the following year. (source //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_fo r_Best_Original_Song)

The Oscar is awarded to the song's writer, rather than its performer, we have attempted to identify the correct artist with each song, however this is difficult. If you find places where our guess was incorrect please tell us so we can fix the issue.

Entries from Party

Party

The most requested songs at organised parties in the US. This listing does not contribute to a song's score. The year that the song was in this list does not count towards estimating the year of the song.

Entries from Peel

Peel

The best songs of the century as selected by John Peel (AKA the Peelenium). The BBC seem to have removed this list from the Radio 1 website, so you have to visit the rather complex location //web.archive.org/web/20030416031557/htt ps://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/alt/johnpeel/ peelenium.shtml for the original list.

I am sure that John Peel would have got a kick out of the fact that his list is so distinct from the other charts that it has the lowest matching correlation with the rest of them.

Entries from Poland

Poland

Weekly charts for Poland from //www.polskieradio.pl/. The period covered starts in 1984

Entries from Poland All Time

Poland All Time

The most requested songs on Polish radio (from //www.polskieradio.pl/trojka/lp3/archiwu m_top.aspx). This has been added to supplement the Polish weekly chart with some music from prior to 1984

Entries from POP Year

POP Year

Songs of the year from //www.popculturemadness.com/Music/ a site that includes all sorts of fun lists (like "Politically Incorrect Songs") and is worth a visit.

Entries from Radio Luxembourg Sheet

Radio Luxembourg Sheet

Before the official UK chart started Radio Luxembourg published a sheet music top 20. This was the first ever Top Twenty countdown show, and set the pattern of chart shows for the decades that followed. This listing is the number 1 songs on that chart for the 1950s. Like all sheet music listings the actual artist was not noted in the original chart, the songs have therefore been assigned to artists that were performing popular versions at the time. The data here comes from //www.onlineweb.com/theones/1950_sheet.h tm an interesting source of UK chart information.

Entries from Record Mirror

Record Mirror

The Record Mirror was a British weekly pop music newspaper. From 1955 to 1962 it published its own record chart which was used by many national newspapers. On 24 March 1962 the paper stopped compiling its own chart.

This listing is based on the information at //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Record_M irror_number-one_singles.

Entries from RIAA

RIAA

The RIAA asked 200 various prominent people in the US for their "most important songs" and compiled this list of the results. The list reflects the type of songs selected by politicians in the US. (source //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_the_Cen tury)

A few of the "songs" on the list are actually albums, we have not attempted to deal with them at all.

Entries from RIANZ

RIANZ

The "Recording Industry Association of New Zealand" started publishing sales based charts in 1975. On the RIANZ site (at //www.rianz.org.nz/rianz/rianz_homepage. asp) they cover the charts starting in 1999. The source for this earlier data is the site //www.flavourofnz.co.nz/ which is attempting to provide NZ music charts covering the whole period from 1960.

Entries from Richest Songs

Richest Songs

The BBC attempted to estimate the songs with the biggest global songwriters royalties. They listed the top 10 songs. There are a number of issues with this list, however it is still a valid estimate. This list of the top ten has no impact on the song's score.

Entries from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The "Rock & Roll Hall of Fame" in Cleveland, Ohio has a list of the "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". This unordered list was selected by the curators at the museum when it opened in 1995 and comes from //www.listsofbests.com/list/37752-500-so ngs-that-shaped-rock-and-roll. The fact that a song is in this list does not contribute to its overall score.

Entries from Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

The top 500 songs of all time listed in the magazine 'Rolling Stone' in 2004 (source //www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/5 00songs).

The 'Rolling Stone' album chart closely matches with global tastes, in contrast the songs list has just about no correlation with the world's song charts.

Entries from RYM

RYM

The site //rateyourmusic.com/ gives users the chance to rate different songs and albums. The ratings are not objective (and of course they shouldn't be) but the large volume of contributors makes this worthwhile (at least for modern music). These charts were extracted during Feb 2007 with the later years each being extracted during the following year.

Some entries have been removed where it is obvious that particular groups of fans have conbined to distort the results.

Entries from Scrobulate

Scrobulate

The site //www.last.fm/ keeps track of songs being played on computers (and some MP3 players), this list contains the top 100 songs in the most active tags on Scrobulate in 2005. Unfortunately the list is distorted by the contributors in order to promote certain bands, the most obvious offenders have been removed.

Notice the focus on recent music.

Entries from South Africa

South Africa

The biggest hits in South Africa as listed on //www.rock.co.za/

Entries from Spain Number 1

Spain Number 1

This list is made up from entries on the Spanish version of Wikipedia. There is a short list of the number one hits in Spain for July 1966 to October 1967, another for 1980-1984 and then a complete list from 1990 to the present. The songs were listed as the best selling songs in Spain on "Los 40 Principales", a radio show that started broadcasting in 1966. The original source was //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Los_40_P rincipales_(Spain)_number-one_hits_from _the_1960s. This has been extended with the data from articles like //es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Los_n%C3%B Amero_uno_de_Los_40_Principales_(Espa%C 3%B1a)_1990-1999.

The most recent review of these sources was in Oct 2010. We would be interested in any data to fill the gaps or if anyone has more complete lists from 1966 to 2000.

Entries from Springbok

Springbok

This is the national chart as broadcast each week on Springbok Radio (and Radio Orion). This data was reported on //www.rock.co.za/files/springbok_top_20_ %281%29.html where it says that it originally came from John Samson, Chris Kimberley and Kevin Farquharson.

Entries from Sweden

Sweden

Swedish top 20 charts (with many summer months missing).

Entries from Sweden Alt

Sweden Alt

Top 40 charts from 1975 to 1986 from //swedishcharts.com/archiv.asp This extends the time frame from the other Swedish chart.

Entries from Switzerland

Switzerland

Top 40 charts from //swisscharts.com/archiv.asp

Entries from Switzerland Year

Switzerland Year

Year end Swiss charts listed at //swisscharts.com/year.asp?key=1969.

Entries from TheQ

TheQ

TheQ 100.3 is a Canadian radio station, this list is The Q!'s Thanksgiving 500 (source //www.theq.fm/?q=countdowns) and was based on 15,673 votes

Entries from TOTP

TOTP

"Top of the Pops" was a long running weekly music show in the UK (now no longer shown). This list was the songs selected by viewers

Entries from UK

UK

The complete singles charts from the UK started in the early 1950s and has been going ever since. This updated data set expands the original data to include all the positions (rather than just the top 40) and dates up to the end of 2008.

This data comes from //www.chartstats.com/ which is a great site for examining the UK charts.

A more detailed look at the song chart UK can be found here

Entries from UK 1940s Sheet Music

UK 1940s Sheet Music

The complete singles charts from the UK started in 1952 and has been going ever since. Before this chart there were listings of sheet music sales, this list of the top selling sheet music from 1939 to 1955 is listed at //www.britburn.co.uk/. As is normal with sheet music charts the actual recording artist was not listed, we attempted to work out which singer had the UK's most successful version.

The Britburn project was an effort to create a library of every song that ever charted in the UK (together with lyrics and coverart). As far as we can see the data is good and was actively edited from 2007 to 2010. The website has some data files and spreadsheets that can be downloaded.

Entries from UK BPI Certificate

UK BPI Certificate

The BPI will (for a fee) audit the level of sales of a song in the UK and certify that the the record has managed "Silver", "Gold", "Platinum" or "Multi-Platinum" levels of sales. A database of qualifying songs was originally at //www.bpi.co.uk/platinum/platinum.html but has now moved to //www.bpi.co.uk/certifiedawards/Search.a spx.

As we have mentioned elsewhere quoted sales figures are generally not to be trusted. The BPI certification programme is, one of the most reliable set of sales figures available on the internet. However the fact that record companies have to fund the process means that the BPI list focuses on well known groups that large record companies want to promote in the UK.

Entries from UK Sales

UK Sales

In 2008 the BBC (//bbc.co.uk/) produced a set of documentaries on the key music in the UK for each decade from the 1950s to the 1990s. They listed the sales figures for the 10 best-selling singles of each decade. We assume this came from BPI, but have no alternate source or any note on how they worked out the figures.

Entries from UK Sheet Music

UK Sheet Music

The complete singles charts from the UK started in 1952 and has been going ever since. Before this chart there were listings of sheet music sales, this list of the top selling sheet music from 1950 to 1952 comes from //www.onlineweb.com/theones/1950_sheet.h tm which has a comprehensive list of sheet music entries. The site //www.britburn.co.uk/ provides a more comprehensive list of sheet music hits so this was used to get the UK 1940s number ones.

Entries from UK Streamed 70

UK Streamed 70

To celebrate the 70th year of the charts the BBC listed the songs from each year from 1952 to 2022 that were most streamed in 2022.

Entries from UK Year

UK Year

The UK top 100 songs of each year from 2011.to 2023.

Entries from UKMIX

UKMIX

The site //www.ukmix.org/articles/charts/coat.htm l has used some processing to calculate the 1000 "biggest hits" in 50 years of UK charts. The method used was to sum a score from each week that a song was in the charts. So the result is unbiased, even if the way the weekly score is calculated is a bit arbitrary.

Entries from US 1940s

US 1940s

These positions are from a number of occasional Billboard charts (of varying length and not always regularly taken) from the period 1940-1954. (source //www.catsfield.co.nz/).

Entries from US ARC

US ARC

The ARC charts for the USA reported at //www.rockonthenet.com/charts/arc.htm.

Entries from US BB100 Year

US BB100 Year

The Billboard Hot 100 US songs for each year as reported in pages such as en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End _Hot_100_singles_of_2012

Entries from US Billboard

US Billboard

A music collector that calls himself Bullfrog and his associates have been gathering and validating US chart information for the last few years in order to help them collect and correctly tag music. Their current data set covers all the US chart entries from 1894 to the current day. We have restricted ourselves to the data from after 1900 since we don't cover anything before Jan 1900.

(Source //bullfrogspond.com/, the version used here was 20090808 with the 2008 data from 20091219, the 2009 data from 20110305, the 2010 and 2011 data from 20120929 the 2012 data from 20130330 and the 2013 data from 20150328). During 2015 Billboard forced Bullfrog to take down his data, so no updates have been avalable since then.

A more detailed look at the song chart US Billboard can be found here

Entries from US Cashbox

US Cashbox

Top 100 songs of each year in 'Cashbox Magazine' year end chart (original source //members.aol.com/_ht_a/randypny/cashbox /). The original Cash Box magazine was a weekly coin-machine and music-industry publication from Jul 1942 through its last issue dated 16 Nov 1996. From the late '40s through the early '60s, Cash Box published both Juke Box and Best Sellers singles charts. This chart concentrates exclusively on the latter, since they were more extensive and were the forerunners of the Cash Box Top 100.

The Cashbox charts have now also been made available at //www.cashboxmagazine.com/archives.htm.

Entries from US Cashbox Sup

US Cashbox Sup

The 'Cashbox Magazine' weekly chart for the time before the year end charts were started (source //members.aol.com/_ht_a/randypny/cashbox /).

Entries from US Certificate (since 2008)

US Certificate (since 2008)

Since October 2008 (when we loaded the RIAA certificates) the RIAA have updated their web site, it now has more information and fewer errors, but can still be found at //www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php. These entries are the certificates awarded between October 2008 and June 2011.

As we have mentioned elsewhere quoted sales figures are generally not to be trusted. The RIAA certification programme is, almost without doubt, the most well audited set of sales figures available on the internet. However the fact that record companies have to fund the process means that the RIAA list focuses on well known groups that large record companies want to promote in the US.

Entries from US Country Number 1s

US Country Number 1s

From Jan 1944 to Dec 1949 Billboard listed songs played by "Country & Western" stations. This is the list of number one songs from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_country_hits_of_the_1940s_(United_St ates). Normally we would exclude any genre specific charts, but there are so few charts from this era that an exception has been made here.

Entries from US Mediabase

US Mediabase

This extends the years covered by the site //www.popradiotop20.com/popradio.htm to 2012. The annual charts for the years 2007 to 2012 were calculated by that site based on the Mediabase charts of radio plays.

Entries from US Number 1

US Number 1

Before 1955 the Billboard charts in the US were based on record sales. This listing of the number one records from 1940 to 1954 is from Wikipedia (pages such as //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number-one_hits_ of_1940_%28USA%29)

Entries from US Radio Play

US Radio Play

The site at //www.popradiotop20.com/popradio.htm has a set of weekly charts that are based on the Mediabase/Radio & Records listing of airplay (1994 - 2014 and 1973 - 1992) and the Billboard charts (1959 - 1973 and 1993 - 1994).

Entries from US Record World

US Record World

Listing of top 40 songs in "Record World" magazine from 1964 to its close in 1982 (source //www.geocities.com/muggy59/). The geocities site is no longer available, so this link is here for historical reasons only. Also see the article at //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_World.

Entries from US RIAA Certificate

US RIAA Certificate

The RIAA will (for a fee) audit the level of sales of a song and certify that the the record has managed "Gold", "Platinum" or "Multi-Platinum" levels of sales in the US. A database of qualifying songs can be examined at //www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php.

As we have mentioned elsewhere quoted sales figures are generally not to be trusted. However, the RIAA certification programme is, almost without doubt, the most well audited set of sales figures available on the internet. However the fact that record companies have to fund the process means that the RIAA list focuses on well known groups that large record companies want to promote in the US.

Entries from US WABC NY

US WABC NY

Musicradio WABC New York was one of the most popular "Top 40" radio stations of the 1960s and 1970s. This annual chart was published at the end of each year starting in 1964. The years 1960-1963 were back calculated by the radio station from the weekly chart. (source //www.musicradio77.com/music.html)

Entries from US xBB Year

US xBB Year

This listing is meant to be the Billboard top songs of the year. The entries were obtained from pages like //www.billboard.com/#/charts-year-end/ho t-100-songs?year=2010. However since those pages have since been removed and the data has proved unreliable all entries after 1970 have been deleted. The "US BB100 Year" chart should be consulted instead.

Entries from Vinyl Surrender

Vinyl Surrender

Vinyl Surrender is a web site that allows its members to vote on tracks. This was the top 200 songs in May 2010. Source is //www.vinylsurrender.com/Music/MUSIC.php

Entries from Virgin

Virgin

Virgin Radio in the UK is a nationwide commercial radio station. This was the top 100 songs selected by listeners in 2005. (as reported for example at //www.vinylsurrender.com/Lists/SRC-Virgi nRadio-TOP100.php)

Entries from Visconti Songs

Visconti Songs

The book "1001 Songs to hear before you die" is a critics list of 1001 songs. The lists from the 1950s to the 2010s are typical 'songs picked by critics', focused on what people 'should' listen to rather than what they do. However the listing from before 1950 is one of the few listings of songs from the first part of the century. The scores add just enough points to be noticed (i.e. less than any real chart)

Entries from WFUV

WFUV

WFUV 90.6 New York polled listners in 2006 for their all-time essential songs, this is the list of the top 90. These entries are here for information only, they don't contribute to the overall score. //www.wfuv.org/music/best/essentialsongs

Entries from WXPN

WXPN

Songs requested on WXPN 88.5 satellite radio up to 2004 as listed on //xpn.org/music/

Entries from Your Hit Parade

Your Hit Parade

The show "Your Hit Parade" was a weekly popular music show broadcast from 1935 to 1955 on radio, and from 1950 to 1959 on television. The show played the most popular and bestselling songs of the week, listeners were informed that the "Your Hit Parade survey checks the best sellers on sheet music and phonograph records, the songs most heard on the air and most played on the automatic coin machines, an accurate, authentic tabulation of America's taste in popular music.". It also covers a period where there are few other charts.

This listing of the biggest annual songs comes from //www.jitterbuzz.com/hitpar.html#charts.

Templates for entries

The following list shows the templates used for each input chart so you can identify the exact source for each entry.

Back to Introduction

The comments here are from the the MusicID impact site site. This version is not able to accept comments yet

5 Apr 2020

SUBJ1

The Top 100 Music Videos ranks the official music videos by view count in theprevious week. It s also updated weekly.


9 Mar 2020

Project+

Hi, I wonder if I can put some charts on this page since I have put somecharts there and nobody has replied yet.+

Tell us where the source of the charts is and if it is significant enough we will do the rest.


5 Aug 2019

Updating advices

Would you pls check the facticity of the data on those charts again?

Party The most requested songs at organised parties in the US. This listing does not contribute to a song's score. The year that the song was in this list does not count towards estimating the year of the song. (contains obvious mistakes of information,artists about the songs)

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Has been updated)

Billboard 100 In 2015 Billboard published a list of the 100 greatest hits of all time on the Billboard 100. Source is //www.billboard.com/charts/greatest-hot- 100-singles.

Billboard 50th 100 songs For the 50th anniversary of the Billboard top 100 charts they listed the 100 top songs of the period. They also listed the top songs of each year from 1958 to 2007. The two lists are available from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_10 0_50th_Anniversary_Charts Unfortunately the two lists are inconsistent.

Billboard 50th top songs For the 50th anniversary of the Billboard top 100 charts they listed the top songs of each year. They also listed the top 100 songs of 1958 to 2007. The two lists are available from //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_10 0_50th_Anniversary_Charts Unfortunately the two lists are inconsistent.

Billboard 55th 100 In 2013 Billboard published a list of the 100 highest placed songs of the 55 years of charts. Source is //www.billboard.com/articles/list/215553 1/the-hot-100-all-time-top-songs

(Billboard revealed 65th All-Time top 500 songs before with the new version of top 100,should replace the current charts)https://www.billboard.com/charts#id-chart-category-greatest-of-all-time

Thank you for updating again.


10 Feb 2019

Project+

Hi, Could you add the US ARC charts from 1960s and 1970s?

If you look at the source of the ARC charts you will see that their data actually starts from 5 Jan 1980. Prior to that they use the Billboard charts (which we already have)


9 Dec 2018

NZ

https://nztop40.co.nz/chart/?chart=3874 Official NZ Year End chart+


1 Nov 2018

Big Mistake+

Better check your "Party" chart archive again. The information was not true, for example, Mc Hammer has never recorded "Bust A Move" before, The Village People never had a song named "Funky Cold Medina"(actually released by Tone-Loc, I don't think they performed that song )+


6 Jul 2018

http://lp3.polskieradio.pl Guy this is true poland chart website, //www.polskieradio.pl/ is for news


5 Jul 2018

France+

http://www.top-france.fr/html/annuel/1973.htm French year end chart since 1960. SNEP should not be here for the reason TMP charts are already here and SNEP is morely not official and so special


2 Jul 2018

http://www.musicvf.com/top_songs_of_the_1980s decade charts from 1900s to2000s should be added, chart is based on Genre and world charts which contains reasonable data that you don't have+

We don't use genre charts (is "I will always love you" by Dolly Parton a "Country" hit?, what about Whitney Houston's version?)


2 Jul 2018

http://www.musicvf.com/top_songs_of_the_1980s decade charts from 1900s to2000s should be added, chart is based on Genre and world charts which contains reasonable data that you don't have+

They don't link to their sources and they include genre charts (such as Hip-Hop, Dance Club and Country). Even with those questionable entries they have 120,000 songs and we have more than 145,000. So, no, that data isn't good enough to consider.


2 Jul 2018

France+

http://artisteschartsventes.blogspot.com/p/top-500-70s_29.html and othercharts from this site are useful


22 Jun 2018

We already have input from that site

I know,but not 1900-1960


19 Jun 2018

https://www.rollingstone.com/lists Rolling Stone Single charts from 1960-2018,album charts from 1960-2018,all time charts from RS should be used

We don't see any singles chart from the 1960s. We have a lot of USA data already, such as the Rolling Stone 500. We don't see any of their other charts that cover periods or locations that we are missing.


19 Jun 2018

Sorry but Scrobulate is not trustable at all it is for some specific listeners,just the same as VHS and Pitchfork+

We agree, that is why the scrobulate chart gets very little impact on the scores. And we've not refreshed it for some time.


17 Jun 2018

America+ We think that data is already included+

Not actually,you guy have only used 1961-1981 Mexican records,that site offers1961-2016(Mexico) and 1961-1980(Argentina)

After 1981 the chart splits into "Mexican" songs and "Foreign" songs, there is no fair way to use that data.


8 Jun 2018

http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/years.htm Year charts and decade charts from acclaimed music should be used here between 1900-1960.In case charts before 1960 are so hard to find+

We already have input from that site


8 Jun 2018

America+

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CHUI372 On this site you can find number one records in Mexico and Argentina. That would be better if you will use "Hit Parade" (Other languages)number one records from Mexico charts.

We think that data is already included


8 Jun 2018

http://listadesuperventas.blogspot.com/2010/02/1980.html?m=0 I'm sure this chart is not easy to be combined,but it's the only Spanish chart that I can find on internet

That does look like a reasonable chart, we'll try and add it.


8 Jun 2018

Is http://www.ultratop.be/ an official website? What's the difference betweenradio 2 chart and it?

It doesn't look "official" to me, but we have enough data for Belgium anyway


8 Jun 2018

Chart Billboard 50th top songs and Billboard 55th top 100 should be removed,first chart is actually the same as year end charts.Number 1 in year charts has already gained enough points,although they are actually the top in that period. Songs under about #80 in 50th chart is now not on top 100 chart.That's the reason 50th top 100 is necessary here. So, the chart betweentwo years,55th chart is excessive here,it may have caused bad results.


20 May 2018

DMDB

Charts from Dave's music,like UK all-time +best-selling chart,decade charts seems interesting, http://davesmusicdatabase.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-all-time-million-selling-singles-in.html?m=1And he updated some official charts personally,like http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-uks-biggest-selling-singles-of-all-time__21298/ is from 2017,he made a new chart in 2018.


17 May 2018

Some questions about Swiss charts+

You have already used Switzerland week charts,as you mentioned before,in year end charts,items that span across boundaries tend to be underrated. the MusicID impact site has already contained too many year-end charts in US (cause they are useful ), or in some cases you don't have week charts (Australia,Italy and so) swiss year-end charts here are somewhat superfluous. If year-end charts are valuable,why I didn't see UK year-end charts. What's more,here are some more valuable source charts: Holland all time chart https://www.top40.nl/bijzondere-lijsten/top-2500 Holland decade charts https://www.top40.nl/bijzondere-lijsten/decenniumlijst-90-s (top40. com also contains charts like global charts) Best selling songs in England http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-uks-biggest-selling-singles-of-all-time__21298/

We don't have UK year end charts because we have not just the weekly charts but many sources of data (in fact a little bit too many). The fact we have some weekly charts for Switzerland doesn't mean we have too much data (like we do for the UK for example).

As the FAQ's explain we use the music revenue in each country to determine if we have enough source data. And even given that we weigh each chart to balance out their contribution to the total score (so a number 1 in the UK doesn't count as much as a number 1 in the USA)


16 May 2018

Source chart-last fm

Source chart//www.last.fm/is totally different from before

That is not unusual. The Last.FM lists now seem to focus on what the A&R men want to sell us


9 May 2018

Do I always have to wait so long for your replies?

Given the fact that you have not yet *paid* for our services, yes

Try asking a better question


10 Jan 2018

U.S. Airplay

The site +//www.popradiotop20.com/popradio.htm is no longer functional.


24 Jan 2016

Cashbox Album charts

Can you tell me where I might be able to find the top 100 weekly chart listings from Casbox magazine.

Many thanks

Andy

If you look on the "Song Chart" page you'll find the sources we know about


23 Oct 2015

Project

Hi there,

Hope you're still reading these. Would love to know if there is any structured info, I'm working on a pet project where I'd like people to know what was a number one hit on their birthday for example.

Any ideas?

Yes, we are still reading (and replying to) comments.

Our answer to your question is on the page http://the MusicID impact site/music/faq_birthday_number1.htm, select the decade, the year and the month and you will be shown what was number one for the whole month (in various places)


26 Jul 2015

French Infodisc Charts

Even though you have said these charts are not totally reliable, it seems like they still give a pretty fair idea of the highest charting singles in France. If you are interested there is a way to get the (1500) highest charting singles on Infodisc. They are from 1955 - 2013. You do not have most of these listed yet (only a few based on Sales). Go to Infodisc.fr, then click on Les Chansons (songs), then click on Bilan par place (Balance Sheet By Place). This has (30) total pages. It gives the highest position of the single, the total weeks at Number 1, 2 or 3 and the total weeks in the Top 100. Perhaps you can incorporate this into your data? Thanks.

We already have enough data from infodisk.fr, the fact that so few songs that were hits in France are listed is because our list is worldwide and most hits in France were not hits elsewhere.


18 Jan 2015

songs' chart peak dates

i just recently stumbled upon this jaw-dropping treasure trove for music chart freaks like myself...i've yet to check up & down all the data here so i wonder if a song's chart peak date is also listed here, e.g. donna summer's hot 100 no. 6 "i feel love" with a chart peak date of november 12, 1977...+

The fully correct answer is that it depends on the input chart, but for most charts the answer is no, it only lists the entry time. The monthly "Number One" pages of course do have that for you.

Of course we do also list all the source data locations, so, for example, you could find that information for the Billboard charts by looking at the original spreadsheet


1 Jan 2015

Re: US BB Year-End charts

Thanks for responding!

"as far as we can see there is no longer any way to get the real data from Billboard, if you know of one we'd like to hear about it"

I just recently discovered that a lot of the Billboard magazines are archived and available for free in Google Books. Looking at the December 26, 1998 issue, the year end singles chart does match wikipedia and bobborst.com (at least based on a quick scan).

The Year End "Hot 100 Singles" chart starts about halfway through the magazine, on page YE-42: https://books.google.com/books?id=Mw0EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Scanned pages are no good to us as sources of course (we need digital data), but that listing does suggest that whatever the listing Billboard used to have it was not the Hot 100.

We have relabeled the original chart (as "US invalid BB") to indicate it's unreliability and added the Billboard listing from the Wikipedia pages as "US BB".

Thanks for pointing this out


29 Dec 2014

US BB Year-End charts+

I started adding chart data to my collection with the US BB Year-End charts as found here: http://www.bobborst.com/popculture/top-100-songs-of-the-year/

I've found it to be accurate when comparing to wikipedia, the billboard website, and other sources. +However, the data never seems to match your US BB Year listing. For instance, for 1998, the #1 year end song was "Too Close" by Next:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1998 http://www.bobborst.com/popculture/top-100-songs-of-the-year/?year=1998

Your page for 1998 shows Too Close by Next as US BB 8 of 1998, and Jump Jive an Wail by the Brian Setzer Orchestra as US BB 1 of 1998 (it did not make Billboard's list at all): http://the MusicID impact site.info/music/yr1998.htm

What gives?

Our original source for the Billboard year end data (for example for 1998) was the actual Billboard site (with a query they have since removed), which we extracted before they removed it.

The chart on the Wikipedia page (and the bobborst.com data) for 1998 seems to come from http://top40-charts.com/, *NOT* from Billboard (as far as we can see there is no longer any way to get the real data from Billboard, if you know of one we'd like to hear about it)

Now whether Billboard changed their analysis after we extracted the data we don't know, but we report what Billboard said when we looked (in 2007 we think)


17 Nov 2014

Conny Froboess

#12 - Zwei Kleine Italiener was also #87 on the Europe Decade List of the 1960's that you use. (www.apcchart.com).

Our (older) version has "Hair" by Zen as the 87th entry for the 1960s. We'll have to update at some point


11 Nov 2014

Record World

Are the 1970s Record World pop chart surveys available on line or via hard copy books. Please send me some information. +Thank you for your time and consideration. Rocky

We have documented all we know about that chart on the "Song Charts" page, including a link to our original source (now no longer active). In this case the WayBack machine is your friend, try looking at (for example):

https://web.archive.org/web/20091023223533/http://geocities.com/muggy59/


30 Sep 2014

Dean Martin

I do not understand, how it's possible that a song by Dean Martin Everybodyloves somebody is not on the song's chart among 1000.

Surely that type of surprise is the joy of this type of analysis. "Everybody Loves Somebody" is only just outside the top 1,000 but it suffers from the fact that it didn't do quite so well in Europe (especially the UK) and was released in 1964 (where we have a lot of charts).

Of course it is listed on Dean Martin's page.


8 Sep 2014

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Recordings

I notice you have the (500) songs that shaped rock and roll in your data. In2009 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame added an additional (161) songs to this list. These recordings range from the 1920's and 1930's ( Leroy Carr,Carter Family,Billie Holiday, Bob Wills ); the 1940's and 1950's ( Nat king Cole. Lionel Hampton, Joe Liggins, Professor Longhair ) thru the 1990's and 2000's (Fatboy Slim, Fugees, Gnarls Barkley, OutKast ). I wonder if at some point you might consider adding these recordings to your data? I found the list on "rockhall.com/exhibits/one-hit-wonders".

We'd be happy to, but that page is no longer available


1 Dec 2013

part of a favorite song

uh uh There +goes the Neighboorhod


25 Nov 2013

Sheena Easton

Hi the MusicID impact site,

I downloaded your spreadsheet. I noticed that you have as one of your songs/rows: "Sheena Easton", "Totally wired", "1980", "Peel list 2 of 1980". This must be The Fall's song? (I'd love if Sheena had covered it though!)

Piaras

You are exactly right. That year The Fall's "Totally wired" was number 2 and "Morning Train" by Sheena Easton was number 3, the lines must have got muddled

Thanks for the correction


16 Jul 2013

Cash Box Chart Archives

FYI, the Archive of Cash Box Best-Selling Singles charts is now back online at http://50.6.195.142/archives.htm.


11 Oct 2012

the MusicID impact site is amazing

the MusicID impact site is amazing website, I'm glad I am member here


2 May 2012

Book of Billboard Music Charts (1900 - 2009)

Is there a book available that documents the Billboard music charts from 1900, on? Billboard itself only sells books charting music from 1955, on. +BUT they used to sell a hard bound volume documenting music from the turn of the last century, up to 1955. +I would very much like to purchase a book that references the first half of the 20th century in its music charts.

Thanks for any direction you can give me. +Jeff Weinstein

Do a search for Joel Whitburn's books


5 Feb 2012

Thank you

This site is invaluable to me as I proceed with my pet-project, my personal Top 379 (top379.com). I haven't yet added a list of links to my site, but I'll be sure to include this one!


30 Dec 2011

new link for front page

You may wish to add www.45cat.com to your front page listing of useful resources.

Thanks for the suggestion, it looks like a good source of details about songs.


29 Oct 2011

Queston for Chart

Hello, sorry if my english is not perfect!

With Google I found this very interesting site.

I would be very happy if you could help me!

At our library we have Billboard magazines in mikrofiche-format and I researched the issues from 1913 to 1921. In this page I readed that there was no chart before 1920 and I can remember that a few years ago I have found a website with weekly U.S. Top 10-charts beginning in 1920, but now I couldn't find it again.

Can you tell me please where or from which sources I can find weekly Top 10-lists (it don't matter if Sales-chart or Sheet-music-chart) since 1920?

In Billboard I have not found it, because there was only a list of "Popular songs" but no chart.

Would be very thankful if you could help me, please!

Much of this information is covered by the "Song Charts" listing for Billboard, if you look that page has a link to the source data you want.

From the 1890s (when the Billboard magazine started) until the 1950s (when the weekly song chart was initiated) there are, as you have mentioned, a number of occasional "Popular Song" charts. However these were not a regular feature and had a variety of different forms.

A researcher called Joel Whitburn analysed these various charts and created a retrospective chart that covers 1890 to the start of the regular charts. This information has been published in a range of books and other source. It has been consolidated, corrected and published by a group of researchers that call themselves "Bullfrog". This is the data that we use (and you can find listed on the "Song Charts" page)


26 Sep 2011

Chart data

Here are some suggestions for new chart data: 1.KEXP's Top 903 Albums - www.kexp.org/top2008 2.WFUV 90 Essential Songs - www.wfuv.org under Music: Bests and Essentials Lists 3.WFUV 90 Essential Albums - www.wfuv.org under Music: Bests and Essentials Lists

We feel that all three of those charts are somewhat questionable, being all time charts based on "listner votes". However our instinct is to include charts unless there is a good reason for not doing so.

We've added the charts, but made it so they don't contribute to the overall score (the positions are noted on the entries of course).

Thanks for the suggestion


25 Sep 2011

Billboard info for songs listed from 1901 - 1929

Hi, again, this is my fifth time sending message to this site...What a spectacular site. Love it!! First, the comprehensive info, then, the nitty-gritty details on every songs. Thirdly (and most importantly) the forever responsive reply. Irregardless its a meaningful questions, corrections or downright simple questions.

Some sites don't reply at all..its annoying.

Anyway, my questions is during the period from 1901 to 1929, has billboard exist yet? Do they have charts and radios doing the counting of the song rotation? I thought billboard only start in the late 50's, wasn't it? I'm a music aficionado, songs and info from the 30's is hard to find, and yet you have the effort to go beyond the 20's.. May i know where in other sites i can search for 20's music info (other than wiki)?

Arnaz

We're glad to see that you enjoy the site. Your comments encourage us to keep putting in the effort.

To answer your question:

Billboard magazine started publishing in 1894. They published their first music "hit parade" in 1936 and their first "Hot 100" in 1958. We understand that from 1936 to 1958 the charts were irregular and didn't have a consistent form. In addition the focus was on "sheet music" sales so while the chart will say, for example, that the song "Sentimental Journey" was a hit in 1945 it won't tell you if the version by the Merry Macs, Hal McIntyre or Les Brown & Doris Day was the most popular.

A US music historian called Joel Whitburn has used the information from the irregular charts, the Billboard magazine contents and other sources to retrospectively calculate the charts from 1890 to 1958. This is published as a spreadsheet by a guy calling himself "Bullfrog" (the source is listed in the chart entry).

That is the listing we base our information on.


10 Jun 2011

French Charts

Sorry but Infodisc is not trustable at all.

Only top.france.free.fr is based on singles sales and under control of french IFPI.

Given the obvious mistakes in that source we would agree that Infodisc does not seem like a good source. However until we have too many sources for the French charts we feel that we have to keep it.

The site you mention does appear to have some valid charts, we have added it to the lists. Thanks for the suggestion.


15 Mar 2011

Canadian Charts

I really enjoy your site. +I could spend hours here, being a chart nut.

Being Canadian, I was a little disappointed that you ware using the Chum charts.

They were a consistent source; however, a little limiting.

They were only a Top 30 chart from Toronto. In 1979, they went to a rock edge and did not give a fair representation of hits in Canada. We did have a national hits magazine, RPM. It was out from 1964 - 2000. I suppose all previous years, are done now and archived.

Just thought I would pass this along.

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/rpm/index-e.html

Thanks for all your hard work.

Thanks for the encouragement. We would also prefer to use the RPM chart for Canada, unfortunately we don't have a source we can use. The national archives you linked to (which we have looked at before) have weekly charts as scanned images, which of course, can't easily be processed for example to extract chart runs.

If you know of anywhere where this data is available as text, a spreadsheet, or a database we'd be happy to add it.


21 Feb 2011

thanks for this nice post


28 Dec 2010

Charts in France

Except for Jeanny (part 1)(#25 in oct '86), Falco never charted in France! For your information, there was no official charts in France before november '84.

The charts we use are clearly listed on the song chart page. That explains where our data came from and why we use it. That text explains the issues with French chart data, every data source (including the SNEP one) has serious problems but that is not a good reason to ignore the scant information that is available. All of our entries clearly indicate where they came from.

Just because SNEP only started a chart in 1984 does not mean that there were no charts before then. The word "official" is meaningless in this context.

If you feel that the charts used are not "notable" then just ignore those entries.

If you have a source of French charts tell us where we can find it.


8 Nov 2010

US album charts from 1956

Dear all at the MusicID impact site,

I've been doing some research on song popularity in the US from the mid-1930s to the 1950s, and I've just come across your fantastic database.

I would like to ask you a question about your sources for the charts: why is 1956 the first year you include album charts in your database? As far as I know - althought I might be wrong - Billboard magazine in the US was already publishing a music popularity chart in 1940, which included data on record sales as well as sheet music sales.

Is the data from those charts not significant, or more difficult to integrate in your calculations, or is there any other reason why it's not considered?

Many thanks for your help and for a unique source of information on music!

Daniela

Our usual limitation is the availability of charts.

Billboard started publishing album charts in 1945, however they didn't publish a regular weekly album chart until 24 Mar 1956.

We have used the "Bullfrog" data as our main source for the Billboard song charts, this combines the various sheet music sales charts and song charts to build a listing that goes back to 1896. Unfortunately we don't know of any similar data available for the Billboard album charts.

The sources we have, which are all described on the "Source Charts" pages, only start with the weekly chart in 1956.

We would not incorporate any chart that is obviously biased towards a particular artist, or which covers an era or region which is already catered for. However charts from before 1955 are so difficult to obtain that almost any additional data would be welcome.

If you have any charts from before 1956, or can point us at a source which we can access, we will be able to add them in.

Our reason for not including those charts is simply that we don't have them.


13 Oct 2010

Peel list

what is the "peel list"?

It was a list compiled by the broadcaster John Peel of the best four songs from every year of the 20th century. There are details on the "Song Charts" page (the sixth item in the right menu).

This selection of music was also known as the "Peelennium", and Wikipedia's entry under that name has the complete list.

You can get a feel for how influential he was by looking up "List of Peel sessions" on Wikipedia


18 Jun 2010

Missing Data???

Hi there!

When do you predict to add datas from UK & US tables?

Great Job!

We add data as it becomes available. The dificulty is that we don't want to add entries in that will change later, for example by spending more time in the charts. So we didn't add the entries for 2008 until the following year had completed (i.e. during Jan 2010).

For the Billboard data its a bit more complex than that. This data comes from the Bullfrog list, which is updated regularly on the news groups. For that chart we have to wait for each track to be assigned a key, that is a string of the form "1972_003", which indicates it was the third biggest song of 1972 ("American Pie" by Don McLean just in case you're interested). This is a unique identifier (sometimes called the "Whitburn Number") which tracks a particular song for its career. Of course you don't know which year a particular song will be assigned (for example "American Pie" was released in late 1971) let alone what ranking it will get. So Bullfrog and his associates assign temporary IDs for songs until they can calculate the real one. So until all the songs for 2009 have IDs assigned we won't add the Billboard charts.

In either case I would expect that we will be adding the main UK and US charts for 2009 some time in early 2011.

There are all sorts of reasons why we don't keep up to date with the current chart data. To be honest if our main focus was recent music we would have a different site structure and a better way to automatically extract data from the large number of sources that are currently available. But our main effort (and interest) has been directed at getting the best information we can for earlier eras and at consolidating the information from the few sources we have. That is why our site is not so good for data from the last few years.


17 May 2010

Definition for US BB Year

Hi- I love your site. Thanks for all your hard work.

I am conducting some research of my own and need to know what your definition of US BB; "Billboard Top Songs of the Year" means. What does it mean to be considered a "Top Song?" What is the criteria that makes a song a top song?

Thank you very much. Jim Hiller

You ask for a clarification on the chart whose position strings look like "US BB <position> of <year>". You have clearly already found the "Templates for entries" that lists all the patterns used to describe chart entries and from there found that the source chart with the rather unhelpful comment you mention.

The fact is that when we first started gathering chart data we were less concerned with documenting sources. A short chart description like this one is a sure fire indicator that this is an older chart whose source is uncertain.

This chart was originally from Steve, he thinks it was a annual summary listing on the "Billboard" website that is no longer available. The criteria used to determine "Top Song" was the one that Billboard selected, probably similar to the other annual charts they publish.

Given the fact that we have the "Bullfrog" charts which are a complete listing of the weekly Billboard positions since 1890 it would be justified to drop this older, less well qualified chart. However not only is this one of the longest running charts taking it away would reduce the US content of the site, and as it is we have slightly less US content than the sales figures would justify. So despite the fact that this chart mostly just reinforces other information it has been decided to keep it. That is the way we exploit the "Wisdom of Crowds".

Your query gets into some interesting topics that have caused some discussion in the past. Thanks for the question


8 Apr 2010

Mucic charts

Hello! Why do you use are not new, but already outdated charts Last.fm?

The charts from last.fm are fairly difficult to process, so our version is always fairly outdated.

Having said that it might be time to review the charts we have from there. Thanks for the suggestion


28 Mar 2010

great site

This is a very informative and great site. Thank you!

I would like to get lists of the number ones that you have used - please tell me where I can get the list from.

Regards

Allan Smith (London)

Thanks for the kind words.

This page has links to most of our source charts, if you follow them you'll find the original data. Those sources will list the data you want, of course you may have to process them in order to extract all the top records.

Alternately you can find some lists of number 1 records on Wikipedia, for example look at the page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Number-one_singles

I suspect that will help with your search.


8 Feb 2010

music lists

With this site's focus on music lists, you should also check out Dave's Music Database.

Website: DavesMusicDatabase.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Daves-Music-Database/300371661944

Indeed, the site not only provides a good description of the most popular albums but its rankings also appear to be an objective combination of the most important source charts. Well worth checking out.

We have added his top 100 albums and top 100 songs lists as new charts

Thanks for the suggestion


12 Jan 2010

Decade

Hi there!

Here's a thought: Would also be interesting if you present charts by decade... I guess.

I'm your fan!

The songs and albums of each decade are already listed. If you go to any year page there is a list of "associated pages" at the top. This provides links to a few years before and after the one you are looking at. In addition there are links to pages that give the top songs (or albums) of each decade (they are listed as 1900s, 1910s, 1920s and so on).

There are a number of sets of pages that are only accessed indirectly, the decades, the "Europe v North America" pages and so on.


11 Jan 2010

Maybe this can help

Hi there,

I always check this for actual and some archive charts in Europe. They also have Mexico but i never checked it. Maybe this is a good tool for 2009 chart and future charts. Give it a try

//uk-charts.com/

Have fun

The web site you suggest links to a number of country's charts, some of which are already used here. Unfortunately the Mexico data you mention only starts in 2007, so it is too recent for this site.

But thanks for the suggestion


2 Jan 2010

Euro Chart

In my opinion i would only count Euro Chart and drop all european charts that contributes for euro chart. However i'd keep all results untill the 1st Euro Chart. If so, i also think you would have to increase the importance of the songs featured in euro chart like the US... These ones are surely the most important.

I guess it would be important too if you find any data for South Africa.

If by any chance you would think you could have any help, just let me know... Have a great new year!

Note: May I insist on you publishing the results you have for 2009? Like I said before, it would be very interesting how your chart improves... it would be more "dynamic".You can protect yourselves by puting a note like: "Chart not defenitive. Data still incoming. Return and check our upgrades"

As we have already discussed the European charts were included only after some discussion. The country charts are more extensive so if anything was to be removed it would have to be the less reliable Euro charts rather than the country ones.

Keeping the Euro charts does distort the results, but removing them would also distort them. We suspect that keeping them is the lesser of these two evils.

We, of course, already have one chart from South Africa, any additional data (for example album success in South Africa, charts from Mexico, China, India or Russia) is always welcome.

We will indeed continue to publish the 2009 results as we gather the data, but as we mentioned the volume of source charts won't be enough to give good results for a few years yet. The 2009 page already has a message that explains why its data is not reliable.


24 Dec 2009

Euro Chart

Hi again :)

Just a doubt... if you consider "euro chart" you have to consider that it already considers charts from most of european countries. If you prefer country by country in europe you should not include Euro Chart.

Or try to find out which european countries are contributing for "Euro Chart" and stop counting them in your tables.

If not, european results are not very correct... For example, Holland counts in Euro Chart, songs that feature on both gets better performance here because they are in both charts.

I would like to get you more information but i'm not sure so it's not official... (i THINK) UK charts are also included in euro-chart and this chart began in the early 90's (NOT SURE)

Have fun... keep up this great hard work!

Merry Xmas!

Your concern is a completely valid one. We share your doubt that the European Charts are "official" (or at least not systematically biased).

However the European Decade chart starts in 1930, where there are very few other charts. The other European charts start much later of course.

The site follows the ideas in the book "The Wisdom of Crowds", this claims that combining many different, unreliable, sources will lead to result that is more reliable than any of the originals. Provided that there is no systematic bias built into the selection of the sources.

You suggest that adding the European charts gives additional weight to results from the contributing countries. That is clearly correct. When we were considering adding these charts we asked ourselves if this was necessarily a bad thing. After all the very fact that so many charts are available for the countries of Europe does demonstrate that there is an interest in conveying that information.

So, yes, we agree that including the "European" charts does exaggerate an already existing over emphasis on European success, but we felt that this continued to reflect the data that is available and so is, just about, OK.

Of course we are aware that the current data includes slightly too much input from Europe, but this is a balance between getting the ratio's correct and the data that is available. We continue to try and redress this, for example we will be reluctant to add any new European charts, but historic charts from South America or Asia would be added immediately, if only we could find them.

Thanks for the input, this is an interesting subject that continues to provoke discussion


8 Nov 2009

Latin Grammy

I would like to ask two questions:

1. Do you follow the Latin Grammy and Latin Grammy Hall of Fame lists? 2. Why do you have the Grammy Hall of Fame chart till 2005?

thank you.

At the moment the "Latin Grammy" and "Latin Grammy Hall of Fame" lists are not included.

We try to focus on charts and lists that are fairly general, for example we would never add a chart of "Seatle based garage hits of the 1990s" because it would overemphasise a tiny segment of the music world. So, we ignore lists like the "Country Music Awards", "Billboard Hip-Hop Awards" and the "Billboard Christian Album Charts".

However, one could argue that "Latin Music" is a broad enough category that including it would not distort the chart, and that by adding the Grammy lists only the absolute top entries would be noted anyway. On balance that sounds like a reasonable suggestion, so we have looked at the source charts.

Unfortunately the "Latin Grammy" awards only started in 2000. So they don't really add much to the information we already have.

The "Latin Grammy Hall of Fame" list looks at recordings that are at least 25 years old, a perfect match to our existing charts. Unfortunately the entries listed at the Grammy web site were all awarded in 2001, it looks like that was the only year that the award was run. However we have added those entries to our listings, thanks for the suggestion.

Your comment about the "Grammy Hall of Fame" only having entries up to 2005 is not quite right, we have some entries up to 2008. However while we were checking we noticed that a number of the entries that are listed on the official site are missing from the Wikipedia page (which was our original source). Our guess is that checking on one of these missing entries led you to the reasonable conclusion that we only had a limited coverage.

We have now identified all the missing entries and added them into our list. Thank you for pointing out this issue with our original source, the careful checking of users like yourself helps ensure that our data remains accurate.

Thank you for your input.


9 Sep 2009

Very nice site!

Thank You

(Oh and by the way your link to sites selling perscription drugs was automatically removed)