Pop Music Chart Day

What the day is

Pop Music Chart Day is observed on January 4, marking the first published music popularity chart in 1936.

Origin and background

The early charts measured whatever could be counted, which was not records. They tracked sheet music sales and the songs selected most often on jukeboxes, then moved to record sales and radio play as those industries grew. The combined chart most people know, merging sales with airplay into a single ranking, arrived in 1958.

The most interesting thing about charts is that they were unreliable for a very long time, and everybody involved knew it. Until the early 1990s, sales figures came from store managers telephoning in estimates of what was selling. That system was slow, easy to lean on, and vulnerable to a record label's promotional staff suggesting what a store ought to be reporting. Radio had its own long history of payment for airplay, which produced a major scandal in the 1950s.

Then the counting changed. In 1991 the American charts switched to point-of-sale data read from barcodes, which replaced estimates with a count of actual transactions. The rankings reorganized almost immediately. Country and rap records jumped dramatically, revealing that both had been selling far better than the old reporting showed, while some heavily promoted acts turned out to be smaller than the charts had claimed. Nothing about the public's taste changed that week. Only the measurement did.

The streaming era has forced the same questions again, with chart rules repeatedly rewritten to decide how many plays equal a sale and what to do about bundling.

How to take part

• Look up the chart from the week you were born, which is the standard move and still a good one.
• Compare the 1990 and 1992 charts and see the measurement change happen.
• Remember a chart is a record of counting, not of quality.
• Listen to something that never charted anywhere.
• Find out how your favorite streaming chart actually counts a play.