How Does a Song Get to Number One?

“Straight in at number one.” For decades, those words meant a song had sold more copies in a week than any other. Today, few people buy singles at all. So how does anyone still decide which song is number one?

The answer is that charts have changed with the way we listen. The principle is the same: count how much people chose a song this week. But what counts, and how, has been rewritten for the streaming age.

A short history

The UK’s first singles chart was published in the music paper New Musical Express in November 1952. In the US, Billboard launched its Hot 100 in August 1958, combining sales and radio play into one ranking. For most of the 20th century, charts counted physical sales, first of records, then of cassettes and CDs, gathered from a sample of shops.

Digital downloads were added in the 2000s. Then, from the early 2010s, streaming began to count, and quickly became the biggest part of the chart.

The principle is the same: count how much people chose a song this week.

What counts today

Sales

Downloads and physical copies still count, and each one counts fully. But for most songs, sales are now a small part of the total.

Streams

Because a single stream is worth far less than a sale, chart compilers convert streams into the equivalent of sales. A set number of streams counts as one sale. Both the US and UK charts give paid streams more weight than free, ad-supported ones, because a paying subscriber is closer to someone buying music. On the Billboard Hot 100, video streams from services such as YouTube also count.

Radio

This is one of the biggest differences between charts. The Billboard Hot 100 includes how often a song is played on US radio, measured by audience size. The UK Official Singles Chart doesn’t include radio at all: it is based on sales and streams only.

How a week is counted

Charts measure a fixed week. For both the main US and UK charts, the tracking week runs from Friday to Thursday. The UK chart is announced on Friday afternoon, and the new Billboard Hot 100 is published early the following week.

That’s also why new songs and albums come out on Fridays. In July 2015, the music industry agreed a common global release day, known as New Music Fridays. Before that, release days differed between countries; in the UK, for example, new music came out on Mondays. A Friday release gives a song a full seven days of sales and streams in its first chart week.

Keeping the charts fair

Because chart positions are valuable, the people who compile them set rules to stop them being gamed. Over the years these have included:

• Limits on how many streams from one listener count in a day, so that a few devoted fans can’t push a song up by playing it on repeat.
• Rules about bundles, such as an album sold together with a T-shirt or concert ticket, which once inflated sales figures.
• Rules that move older songs down faster. Without them, a few hugely popular songs could stay in the chart for many months. The UK, for example, counts streams at a lower rate for tracks whose popularity has been falling for several weeks.

Chart rules change regularly as listening habits change.

Getting to number one

So what does it take? In practice, a strong first week on streaming services, helped by playlists, social media, fans streaming and buying on release day, and, in the US, radio support. A song that goes viral on a short-video app can climb quickly as people seek it out on streaming services.

Different charts can disagree. A song can be number one in the UK but not in the US, or top the global streaming charts without reaching number one on either.