Listed were 10 songs of the national 'Best Selling Retail Records', which was the fore-runner of today's pop chart, with ' I'll Never Smile Again' by Tommy Dorsey its first number one. This led to the full-page 'Billboard Music Popularity Chart' for the week ending Jand published in the July 27 issue, with lists covering jukebox play, retail sales, sheet music sales, and radio play. In October 1938, a review list, 'The Week's Best Records', was retitled 'The Billboard Record Buying Guide' by incorporating airplay and sheet music sales, which would eventually become the first trade survey of record popularity.

On January 4, 1936, Billboard magazine published 'Ten Best Records for Week Ending', which recorded the 10 top selling records of three leading record companies as reported by the companies themselves. In 1928, 'Popular Numbers Featured by Famous Singers and Leaders' appeared, which added radio performances to in-person performances. Other charts listed popular song performances in theatres and recitals. The first chart published by Billboard was 'Last Week's Ten Best Sellers Among the Popular Songs', a list of best-selling sheet music, in July 1913. The current number-one song on the chart is ' Last Night' by Morgan Wallen. As of the issue for the week ending on June 17, 2023, the Billboard Hot 100 has had 1,149 different number-one entries. The first number-one song of the Billboard Hot 100 was ' Poor Little Fool' by Ricky Nelson, on August 4, 1958. A new chart is compiled and released on line to the public by Billboard website on Tuesdays but post-dated to the following Saturday when the printed magazine first reaches newsstands. Radio airplay, which, unlike sales figures and streaming, is readily available on a real-time basis, is also tracked on a Friday to Thursday cycle effective with the chart dated J (previously Monday to Sunday and before July 2015, Wednesday to Tuesday ). This tracking period also applies to compiling online streaming data. The weekly tracking period for sales was initially Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but was changed to Friday to Thursday in July 2015. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming in the United States. The Billboard Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by Billboard magazine.

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