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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: Dawn of the Hit Parade
Description: Billboard introduced the first-ever pop music chart on 4th January, 1936. Catering to jukebox operators, rather than everyday music fans, the chart was an occasional magazine feature, listing top tracks from each of the major record labels based on sheet music sales, record sales, requests from band leaders, and mail-in requests to radio stations. Big Band numbers dominated the chart, which evolved (as the record industry recovered from the Depression) to eventually recognise black music with the ‘Harlem Hit Parade’, and Country music with the ‘Most Played Juke Box Folk Records’ feature in the 1940s.In this...