What was the first Billboard Hot 100 song?
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?
