Top 40

This article is about the generic music industry term. For the radio format, see Contemporary hit radio.

The Top Forty or Top 40 is a music industry shorthand for the currently most-popular songs in a particular genre. When used without qualification, it typically refers to the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music songs of the previous week. Top 40 became the dominant radio format of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

History

The term "Top 40" for a radio format appeared in 1951.

The Top 40, or top forty, whether surveyed by a radio station or a publication, was a list of songs that shared only the common characteristic of being newly released. Its popularity coincided with the rapid changes in recording technology in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1954, the recording industry agreed upon a standard recording format for higher fidelity music, so any new record player could play any new record. Also in that year, new single records were released on 45 rpm records, and the Top 40 thereafter became a survey of the popularity of these records (and their airplay on the radio). Tape recording had become perfected, allowing artists more freedom as they composed songs, especially novelty songs.

Other lists of hit songs may include a different number of entries, such as a "Top 50" or Hot 100 (Billboard magazine). By the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the 45 rpm record would decrease in popularity and other means would be used to evaluate the popularity of new songs, such as cassette-single, CD single, and digital MP3/AAC sales (plus radio airplay).

In contemporary publications

The current top songs are tracked by a variety of trade publications, such as:

• Dutch Top 40, the Dutch music chart.
• Los 40 Principales, in Spain.
• The Net 40, a worldwide user generated Top 40 show.
• Ö3 Austria Top 40, the official Austrian music chart.
• Pop Songs, a chart of current popular songs in the United States, compiled by Billboard Newspaper and its various predecessors
• Radio & Records magazine, recently purchased by Billboard Publications
• UK Top Forty, the British version of the same concept.

Radio programs that highlight currently popular songs also refer to the "Top 40."

Further reading

• Pete Battistini, "American Top 40 with Casey Kasem The 1970s", Authorhouse.com, January 31, 2005. ISBN 1-4184-1070-5
• Susan Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (New York: Times Books, 1999)
• Durkee, Rob (1999). American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century. New York: Schriner Books. ISBN 0-02-864895-1. 
• Fisher, Mark (2007). Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-50907-0. 
• Ben Fong-Torres, The Hits Just Keep On Coming: The History of Top 40 Radio (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 1998)
• Elwood F. 'Woody' Goulart, The Mystique and Mass Persuasion: Bill Drake & Gene Chenault’s Rock and Roll Radio Programming (2006)
• David MacFarland, The Development of the Top 40 Radio Format (New York: Arno Press, 1979)

External links

• Billboard Top 40 Mainstream
• Public Radio documentary featuring a history of Top 40