The
Mainstream Top 40 airplay
Airplay is how frequently a song is being played through broadcasting on radio stations. A song which is being played several times every day (spins) would have a significant amount of airplay. Music which became very popular on jukeboxes, in n ...
-based chart debuted in
''Billboard'' magazine in its issue dated October 3, 1992, with rankings determined by monitored airplay from data compiled by
Broadcast Data Systems
Broadcast Data Systems (also known as BDS or Luminate BDS), is a service that tracks radio, television and internet airplay of songs. The service, which is a unit of MRC Data, is a contributing factor to North American charts published by co-owned ...
, a then-new technology which can detect when and how often songs are being played on radio stations. The 40-position chart was published in the print edition of ''Billboard'' through May 1995, after which it only appeared in ''Billboard''s sister publication,
Airplay Monitor, and the Billboard.com website, returning to the print edition in 2003. During the 1990s, the chart was called Top 40/Mainstream alongside a second Top 40 Airplay chart,
Top 40/Rhythm-Crossover. The first number-one song on both of these charts was "
End of the Road" by
Boyz II Men.
Mainstream Top 40 is compiled from airplay on radio stations which play a wide variety of music, not just "pure pop", which ''Billboard'' defines as "melodic, often synth-driven, uptempo fare".
During the 1990s, mainstream top 40 went from
R&B dominating the airwaves (and thus the charts) in the early 1990s to rock and alternative music becoming the choice of program directors in the latter part of the decade.
The mid-1990s also witnessed a drastic difference between what reached the top of the Mainstream Top 40 chart and the
Hot 100, when songs started being promoted to radio and receiving significant airplay without the release of a commercially available single, a requirement for a song to reach the Hot 100. Thus, number-one songs on the Mainstream Top 40 such as "
I'll Be There for You", "
Fly", "
Don't Speak
"Don't Speak" is a song by American rock band No Doubt from their third studio album, ''Tragic Kingdom'' (1995). It was released as the third single from ''Tragic Kingdom'' in the United States on April 15, 1996, by Interscope Records. Lead ...
", "
Lovefool
"Lovefool" is a song written by Peter Svensson and Nina Persson for Swedish rock band the Cardigans' third studio album, '' First Band on the Moon'' (1996). It was released as the album's lead single in Sweden in mid-1996 and on 9 September 1 ...
", "
Torn", "
Uninvited", and "
Iris
Iris most often refers to:
*Iris (anatomy), part of the eye
*Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess
* ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants
* Iris (color), an ambiguous color term
Iris or IRIS may also refer to:
Arts and media
Fictional ent ...
" failed to reach or have a similar impact on the Hot 100.
Hot 100 rules changed allowing airplay-only songs to chart in late 1998.
Number-one pop songs of the 1990s
See also
*
1990s in music
*
List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of the 1990s
*
List of artists who reached number one on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart
References
External links
Current Billboard Pop Songs chart Billboard.com.
Billboard Charts Legend Billboard.com.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mainstream Top 40 1990s
United States Mainstream Top 40
Lists of number-one songs in the United States
Billboard charts
1990s in American music