For all the charts that Billboard produces weekly — more than 250 in all, covering songs, albums, artists and more, measuring activity domestically and worldwide — some surveys have gone on to the hereafter.
That they dearly departed mirrors the evolution of the music business, and Billboard’s reaction to shifts in music consumption.
Billboard published its first chart ranking the sales of recorded music — the 10-position National List of Best Selling Retail Records — in the July 27, 1940, issue, but even by then certain tallies had passed on, including recaps of sheet music sales that dated to the 1910s, after Billboard began in 1894.
In the decades since, technology continued to advance, with listeners over generations trading vinyl for 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs and digital files — only for vinyl and CD sales to thrive again today.
Most commonly, Billboard chart methodologies change, reflecting how music fans listen to the biggest hits over time. The Billboard Hot 100 started in 1958 blending self-reported radio airplay, sales and juke box data; the first two metrics remain in the chart’s feed, but streaming now rounds out, and often dominates, the formula, and with songs’ information collected electronically since the early ‘90s. Similarly, a combination of streams and album sales currently powers the Billboard 200, which for decades measured strictly sales.
Still, in honor of spirits that echo, and mostly since it’s spooky season (that illustration above really is quite scary), here’s a look at five lists that once lived. Even though they now linger only in the shadows of 132 years of Billboard publishing, they’re worth remembering for their contributions to chart history.
