Before Spotify algorithms and TikTok hits, Billboard magazine was dropping charts on record sales, radio plays, jukeboxes, and disc jockey plays. Too much, who wants to follow all of that? And so in 1958, Billboard decided to unify singles data into one clean chart and launched the "Hot 100" with the goal of telling audiences who stood at the tippy top of music's highest mountain... at least last week. Which lucky tune got to plant its flag at #1 first?
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Teen heartthrob Ricky Nelson nabbed the first-ever Billboard Hot 100 #1 with "Poor Little Fool" in August 1958. His perfectly-coiffed hair and smooth vocals launched the chart that would become the music industry's gold standard for rating hits, while teenagers across America swooned at their radios.
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