In 1965, Joel Whitburn envisioned a new hobby and ended up creating an entirely novel trade. He turned to his prized collection of Billboard magazines and began documenting the journey of each song, from its entrance on the Hot 100 chart to its exit. With his exacting eye, Joel checked the title, artist and label listed for every chart entry against the actual records from his vast music collection. Week by week, position by position, he noted each song’s debut date, peak position, weeks on the chart, and much more. He was inventing music-chart data.
Five years later, after repeated requests from collector colleagues for his personal “record-keeping,” Joel typed out the research that he had painstakingly written on 3” x 5” index cards. He arranged it into an artist-by-artist listing in a slim, gold paperback, simply titled Record Research.
That book, now known as Top Pop Singles and in its 17th edition spanning two volumes, spawned a business of the same name and provided the first look at music history through the lens of chart performance. Joel added the concepts of “debut dates” and “peak positions” to the music lexicon.
He had the ultimate heart for the charts, self-publishing 173 of the nearly 200 books that he authored. Joel presented his findings in a variety of formats: by artist, by month, by year, by rank, and so on. His Record Research not only covered the pop charts – back to 1890 – but also those of Adult Contemporary, Christmas, Country, Dance-Disco, R&B and Rock.
After thoroughly documenting the history of Billboard’s charts, Joel turned his gaze to the charts of other major music trade publications: Cash Box, Gavin Report, Radio & Records, and Record World/Music Vendor. And while he was ever cataloguing and adding to his music archive, Joel also applied his findings as producer of the Billboard Top Hits series with Rhino Records, turning out 150 music compilations.
Joel was at his desk, dreaming up a new project, on his final day in 2022. The bookshelf behind him was laden with his creations, volumes which fostered many a heart for the charts.
