Charts That Got Ghosted: Remembering Long-Lost Billboard Lists

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.

• Top 100

  • Nov. 12, 1955-July 28, 1958
  • First No. 1: “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” Four Aces
  • Last No. 1: “Patricia,” Perez Prado

  “New Chart To List ‘Top 100’ for DJ Shows,” a headline read on page 17 of the Nov. 12, 1955, issue.

  “The Billboard this week inaugurates a new record chart, ‘The Top 100,’ aimed at furnishing more detailed, information for disk jockey programming,” the story explained. “This listing of 100 pop record sides will be tabulated each week from the many hundreds of replies to regular dealer, juke box operator and disk jockey questionnaires. It represents a combined report on sales and plays from all three user categories.”

  The Top 100 consolidated the Best Sellers in Stores, Most Played in Juke Boxes and Most Played by Jockey charts, which continued to run through July 28, 1958. In the Aug. 4, 1958, issue, the Top 100 was reborn as the Hot 100.

  At the time, eventual Sire Records co-founder and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame enshrinee Seymour Stein was a high school student learning the music business at Billboard. With top 40 radio taking off, “I can only imagine that what the industry was looking for was a hotter, quicker way of getting chart information,” he told Billboard in 2015, recalling how the Hot 100 began, incorporating the same three metrics that fed the Top 100 — and how the Hot 100’s name may have been chosen.

  “Record stores certainly reacted favorably; radio stations, too,” Stein said. “Through the success of the chart, more execs were drawn up to the Billboard offices, often with their artists in tow, whether it was for a story or just to say thanks for acknowledging their No. 1 position.”

• Teen Beat

  

  • July 17, 1961-Aug. 14, 1961
  • First, and only, No. 1: “Tossin’ and Turnin’,” Bobby Lewis

  Teen Beat debuted the same week as Adult Contemporary, the latter of which was then named Easy Listening. Adult Contemporary has now published for more than 65 years — Teen Beat didn’t make it a month. The charts highlighted the range of styles on the Hot 100, with the 20-position Teen Beat premiering with hits by the likes of then-relative newcomers Brenda Lee, Chubby Checker and Ricky Nelson; Frank Sinatra, meanwhile, was on Adult Contemporary.

  Despite Teen Beat’s brief life, the idea behind it has lived on via the Pop Airplay chart, which began in 1992, as well as other charts that track reach at other youth-friendly formats.

  Plus, since 1995, Billboard has published the family-focused Kid Albums chart. Kidz Bop Kids have a record 45 No. 1s on it; one of the acts with one: The TEENtations.

• Top Compact Disks

  

  • June 1, 1985-March 31, 1990
  • First No. 1: Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen
  • Last No. 1: Nick of Time, Bonnie Raitt

  The first CD manufactured in the U.S.A.? Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A., also fittingly the first No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Compact Discs chart reflecting pop album sales. The star-studded inaugural top five also featured Phil Collins, Prince & the Revolution, Sade and Madonna. (The same week, a CD sales chart launched for classical CDs.)

  As fans augmented vinyl with the new digital format, or simply came of musical age, “Around 1987, CDs surpassed the LP in volume and revenue,” Marc Finer, former Sony Corp. product communications director, told Billboard in 2022, upon the CD’s 40th anniversary. “From that point, there was no looking back. For the next eight to 10 years, it was sales increases every year. It drove a demand that nobody anticipated.”

  By 1990 (and after a one-letter name change to Top Compact Disks), Billboard pressed the stop button on the chart — not because CDs weren’t selling; it was the opposite: they were ascending so much that they would dominate music sales into the 2000s, making the list essentially redundant with the overall Billboard 200.

  Although streaming now comprises the large majority of album consumption, CD sales jumped 16% to 16.3 million units in the first half of 2026, according to Luminate. (In the illustration above, perhaps a hand should be clawing out from the ground, holding high a shiny CD. Actually, never mind, it’s scary enough.)

  Per the data tracker’s July report, “The act of buying physical music is as much about aesthetic ownership and direct financial support for the artist as it is listening to the music on the product itself.”

• Modern AC

  

  • May 17, 1997-July 16, 2005
  • First No. 1: “One Headlight,” The Wallflowers
  • Last No. 1: “You and Me,” Lifehouse

  Modern AC was created as somewhat of a Frankenstein format, stitching together sounds from multiple sources. (The Cranberries’ “Zombie” would be one fitting song.)

  “While modern adult stations can vary from each other in many ways, the panelists share an emphasis on music from the modern rock universe, or music that is compatible with it, without a significant amount of harder modern rock,” Sean Ross, then the editor of former weekly Billboard sister publication Top 40 Airplay Monitor, and Kevin Carter, its managing editor, wrote upon the unveiling of the Modern AC chart. “Usually, the stations target an audience that grew up with the modern rock of the ‘80s but that may have been disenfranchised by the modern rock format’s harder, post-Nirvana skew.”

  Noting that KYSR (Star 98.7) Los Angeles had become the first modern adult contemporary signal in fall 1995, Ross in a sidebar observed that the format’s “defense arsenal” included its ability to play alternative classics “at some time other than the ‘Retro Lunch’,” and to cherry-pick hits from pop, alternative and adult alternative radio.

  “I believe that modern adult as a format has legs,” consultant Randy Lane shared. “It’s powered by singer-songwriters performing real music with meaningful lyrics. Although the music texture at the heart of this format may eventually change, there will always be a large group of people who will gravitate toward rock-based, non-rhythmic hit music.”

  Matchbox Twenty tallied a record five Modern AC No. 1s, followed by Goo Goo Dolls with four. The bands also had the most (10) and second-most (eight) top 10s, respectively. Among women, Avril Lavigne and Sarah McLachlan led with two No. 1s, each, while Sheryl Crow had the most top 10s (seven). Santana’s “Smooth,” featuring matchbox twenty’s Rob Thomas, (likely) forever stands as the chart’s longest-leading hit: for 21 weeks in 1999-2000.

  As Lane foreshadowed, the format’s sound shifted by the mid-2000s, as alternative got even crunchier, in part because modern AC’s presence allowed it to; the Lilith Fair era subsided; and adult pop welcomed newer, less rock-leaning stars. On the final chart, Kelly Clarkson had two songs in the top 10, and the likes of Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga were soon on the way.

  Throughout the chart’s run, certain stations dually reported to Adult Pop Airplay, which began in Billboard’s pages in March 1996 and continues to publish weekly 30 years on. Modern AC’s influence is still felt, with Teddy Swims, Michelle Branch (an OG) and Noah Kahan on the latest list.

• Hot Ringtones

  • Oct. 30, 2004-Nov. 26, 2011
  • First No. 1: “My Boo,” Usher & Alicia Keys
  • Last No. 1: “Pink Panther,” Henry Mancini and His Orchestra

  “For cell phone users who want a little bling for their buck, ringtones are a fashionable way to make a statement,” NPR mused in October 2004. “From showtunes to salsa, waltzes to rock, it’s all there. For a dollar or two, cell phone users can download ringtones to match almost any mood. It’s become so common Billboard has introduced a new chart for top-selling ringtones. It turns out the song ‘My Boo’ is not just burning up the airwaves. It’s also tops in backpacks, purses or anywhere cell phones are stored.”

  In a time when cell phones were stored, and used primarily for phone calls, Hot Ringtones tracked those files’ popularity, which was sizable. In an interview for NPR’s report, then-Billboard director of charts Geoff Mayfield cited that “My Boo,” also then No. 1 on the Hot 100, sold 97,000 copies in ringtones that week. “To put that in perspective,” he said, “your average ringtone sells for $1.99 or $2.50. The sales total for the No. 1 ringtone this week is more than three times the No. 1 digital track.

  “From a business point of view, it is a growing revenue stream for songwriters, for publishers,” Mayfield continued. “We’re looking at it as a $300 million business in the U.S. and a $3 billion industry globally.”

  Hot Ringtones measured clips that merely replicated songs. In December 2006, Billboard added the Hot RingMasters chart, which tracked actual song snippets. It ran through November 2014, last led by Swift’s “Shake It Off.” As streaming went mobile and download sales dropped (and texting surged), consumers became less accustomed to paying for songs individually, including for when their phone might ring.

  “You know, it’s the darndest thing for me, because if I wanted to buy a whole song, I can get that for 99 cents from iTunes,” Mayfield said. “And yet if I want to get kind of a poor facsimile of a song and put it on my cell phone, that’s going to cost me at least twice as much. And yet these are outselling the digital downloads, which have been such a promising revenue stream for the music industry the past couple of years. So I think it’s just a matter of personalization. If you put a song that you really adore on your ringtone, it’s a statement that that phone owner delivers.”