Hot Dance Club Songs

Billboard's Hot Dance Club Songs chart (also known as Club Play Singles, and formerly known as Hot Dance Club Play and Hot Dance/Disco) is a weekly national survey of the songs that are most popular in U.S. dance clubs. It is compiled by Billboard exclusively from playlists submitted by nightclub disc jockeys who must apply and meet certain criteria to become "Billboard-reporting DJs."

The current number-one song on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart for the issue dated October 9, 2010 is "You Lost Me" by Christina Aguilera.

History

Hot Dance Club Songs has undergone several incarnations since its inception in 1974. Originally a top-ten list of tracks that garnered the largest audience response in New York City discothèques, the chart began on October 26, 1974 under the title Disco Action. The chart went on to feature playlists from various cities around the country from week to week. Billboard continued to run regional and city-specific charts throughout 1975 and 1976 until the issue dated August 28, 1976, when a thirty-position National Disco Action Top 30 premiered. This quickly expanded to forty positions, then in 1979 the chart expanded to sixty positions, then eighty, and finally reached 100 positions from 1979 until 1981, when it was reduced to eighty again.

During the first half of the 1980s the chart maintained eighty slots until March 16, 1985 when the Disco charts were splintered and renamed. Two charts appeared: Hot Dance/Disco, which ranked club play (fifty positions), and Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales, which ranked 12-inch single (or maxi-single) sales (also fifty positions).

These two charts still exist today, under the official titles Hot Dance Club Songs and Hot Dance Single Sales. In 2003 Billboard introduced the Hot Dance Airplay chart, which is based solely on radio airplay of seven dance music stations electronically monitored by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems. These stations are also a part of the electronically monitored panel that encompasses the Hot 100.

Statistics and Record World data

Although the disco chart began reporting popular songs in New York City nightclubs, Billboard soon expanded coverage to feature multiple charts each week which highlighted playlists in various cities such as San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, Detroit and Houston (among others). During this time, Billboard rival publication Record World was the first to compile a dance chart which incorporated club play on a national level. Noted Billboard statistician Joel Whitburn has since "adopted" Record Worlds chart data from the weeks between March 29, 1975 and August 21, 1976 into Billboards club play history. For the sake of continuity, Record Worlds national chart is incorporated into both Whitburn's Dance/Disco publication (via his Record Research company) as well as the 1975 and 1976 number-ones lists.

With the issue dated August 28, 1976, Billboard premiered its own national chart (National Disco Action Top 30) and their data is used from this date forward.

Chart milestones

• Artists with the most number-one Hot Dance Club Songs hits:

1. Madonna — 40

2. Janet Jackson — 19

3. Mariah Carey — 15 (tie)

3. Kristine W — 15 (tie)

3. Donna Summer¹ — 15 (tie)

6. Beyoncé — 14

7. Whitney Houston — 13

8. Rihanna — 11

9. Deborah Cox — 10 (tie)

9. Pet Shop Boys — 10 (tie)

• The first 12-inch single made commercially available to the public was "Ten Percent" by Double Exposure in 1976.
• The first number one on Billboard's Disco Action chart was "Never Can Say Goodbye" by Gloria Gaynor in 1974.
• The first number one on Billboard's National Disco Action Top 30 was "You Should Be Dancing" by the Bee Gees in 1976.
• From the dance chart's inception until the week of February 16, 1991, several (or even all) songs on an EP, album or 12-inch single could occupy the same position if more than one track from a release was receiving significant play in clubs (for example, Donna Summer charted several full-length albums, both Chaka Khan and Madonna have hit number one with remix albums). Chart entries like this were especially prevalent during the disco era, where an entire side of an album would contain several songs segued together seamlessly to replicate a night of dancing in a club. Beginning with the February 23, 1991 issue, the dance chart became "song specific," meaning only one song could occupy each position at a time.
• Because of the former policy allowing multiple songs to occupy one position at the same time, there have been three instances when not only multiple songs were at number one, but the songs were performed by different artists. In all scenarios this was due to the tracks being included in film soundtrack albums. In 1978, four tracks from Thank God It's Friday (Donna Summer, Pattie Brooks, Love & Kisses, Sunshine), in 1980, two tracks from Fame (Irene Cara, Linda Clifford) and in 1985 two songs from Beverly Hills Cop (Patti LaBelle, Harold Faltermeyer) hit number one together.
• Hot Dance Club Songs is one of the last remaining Billboard charts that remains "frozen" for one week (either the last week in December or the first week in January, depending on the calendar year). As this chart is not monitored electronically like most of the other charts, all songs "hold" their positions for the additional week, and still have the frozen week added to their "weeks on chart" total.
• Madonna holds the record for the most chart hits, the most top-twenty hits, the most top-ten hits and the most total weeks at number one (69 weeks).
• Two albums hold the record for producing the most top-ten hits, with seven each: Madonna's American Life and Beyoncé's I Am... Sasha Fierce.
• The Trammps are the only act to replace themselves at number one (issue date June 5, 1976, "That's Where the Happy People Go" → "Disco Party").
• Kristine W's first nine chart entries all hit number one. She therefore also holds the record for the longest streak of uninterrupted chart-toppers, which was broken in 2006 with the number-two peak of "I'll Be Your Light".
• "The Boss" is the only song to reach number one by three different artists: Diana Ross in 1979, The Braxtons in 1997 and Kristine W in 2008.
• The longest running number-ones on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart are "Bad Luck" by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes² in 1975 and the album Thriller by Michael Jackson. Both entries spent eleven weeks in the top spot.
• "One Word" by Kelly Osbourne made chart history on June 18, 2005 when it became the first song to simultaneously top the Hot Dance Club Songs, Hot Dance Singles Sales and Hot Dance Airplay charts.
• Donna Summer is the only active artist to have placed a single on this chart in all four decades since its inception, starting with "Love to Love You Baby" in 1975.
• LeAnn Rimes became the first country music artist to have topped both the Billboard country chart and the Hot Dance Club Songs chart. Rimes, who had several remixes of her country hits reach the dance chart, achieved that distinction during the week of February 28, 2009, when the electronic dance music remixes of her 2008 single "What I Cannot Change" reached number one..
• Beyoncé, Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland are the only artists on this chart to reach number one as members of a group (Destiny's Child) and as solo artists. The same three artists also achieved that accomplishment on the Hot Dance Airplay chart.

Footnotes

¹ Summer's total includes titles which hit number one during the span of time in which Record World's dance chart data is used (see "Statistics and Record World data").

² Eight of the 11 weeks-at-number-one for "Bad Luck" is during the span of time in which Record World's dance chart data is used (see "Statistics and Record World data").

See also

• List of number-one dance hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Dance chart
• List of number one dance airplay hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance airplay chart

External links

• Billboard Online
• Current Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart (top 25)
• Current Billboard Hot Dance Airplay chart (top 10)