User:Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars/Billboard rock charts

The Billboard rock charts began in 1981 when charts were introduced for Rock Albums & Top Tracks in the March 21 issue of the magazine. The two charts were merged into Top Rock Tracks in 1984, eventually becoming what has been called Mainstream Rock since 1996. As the music and radio industries, as well as the technology to monitor and measure sales and airplay, have evolved, Billboard currently publishes a number of different rock charts. As alternative rock became more mainstream, the Modern Rock Tracks chart was introduced in 1988. In 2009, Billboard adopted the more commonly used term and the chart is simply called Alternative (Alternative Songs on Billboard.com). At that same time, with differences between the charts becoming more blurred, Billboard debuted the Rock Songs chart, which at first ranked only the airplay of songs on alternative, mainstream rock and triple A radio stations, but since October 2013 ranks the top rock songs based on an all-format methodology used by the Billboard Hot 100.

Mainstream Rock
The Rock Albums & Top Tracks charts were introduced in the March 21, 1981, issue of Billboard. The 50- and 60-position charts ranked airplay on album rock radio stations. Because album-oriented rock stations focused on playing tracks from albums rather than specifically released singles, these charts were designed to measure the airplay of any and all tracks from an album. Rock Albums combined airplay from all tracks from a particular album to come up with the top albums, while Top Tracks listed the top individual songs being played on rock radio. Mike Harrison of Billboard explained that when major artists release albums, more than one song from the album can become popular at the same time.

The first number-one song on the Top Tracks chart was "I Can't Stand It" by Eric Clapton.

In September 1984, the two charts were merged and renamed Top Rock Tracks. It reduced from a 60-song tally to 50 songs on October 20, 1984, following a major revamp to the magazine with the introduction of new charts and a new graphic approach to its charts. Coinciding with an increase in its reporting panel of album rock stations, the name of the chart was changed again with the issue dated April 12, 1986, to Album Rock Tracks. In November 1991, instead of reporting panels, Billboard changed its methodology of measuring airplay by using monitored airplay as provided by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems to compile many of its charts. As a result, this data showed that many songs could spend months to over a year on the Album Rock Tracks chart. Billboard decided to drop to a 40-position chart (still its current format), and songs that fell out of the top 20 and after spending 20 weeks on the chart were moved to a new 10-position recurrent chart. The recurrent chart was scrapped two years later but not the methodology.

Acknowledging the trend that rock radio was moving away from being an album-based format to a song-focused one, Billboard changed the name of the chart to Mainstream Rock Tracks beginning with issue dated April 13, 1996. The Mainstream Rock Tracks chart was published in the print edition of Billboard for the last time in its issued date July 26, 2003, following another redesign. The chart is now only available through the magazine's subscription-based website, Billboard.biz.

When R&R ceased publication in June 2009, Billboard incorporated its rock charts, Active Rock and Heritage Rock into its own publication. The radio station reporters of the two charts combine to make up the Mainstream Rock chart. Active rock stations concentrate on current hits over classic rock standards while heritage rock stations put a greater emphasis on classic rock with a few newer tracks mixed in.

Alternative
The mid- to late-1980s saw an increase in college rock music being played on more commercial radio stations but that airplay was not being recognized by major media outlets. That changed when Billboard, in its issue dated September 10, 1988, introduced the Modern Rock Tracks chart — a 30-position chart compiled from commercial and college-radio airplay reports (initally, 18 commercial and 11 college-operated radio stations) in the United States. The first number-one song on the chart was "Peek-a-Boo" by the English rock band, Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Through the early 1990s, the chart was dominated by foreign acts and dance-oriented music. Things began to change in late 1991, when grunge hit the music scene and bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam started receiving airplay on modern rock stations. This not only changed the face of modern rock but also mainstream rock. British rock disappeared from the alternative rock and the old AOR bands began losing favor to the new and upcoming American rock bands.

The chart expanded from 30 to 40 positions the week of September 10, 1994, to match the 40-postion Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and where it has stayed since.

During the first several years of Modern Rock Tracks, the chart featured music that did not receive commercial radio airplay anywhere but on Modern Rock radio stations, of which there were few. This included many electronic and post-punk artists. Gradually, as alternative rock became more "mainstream" (particularly spearheaded by the grunge explosion in the early 1990s), the Modern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock Tracks charts began featuring more of the same songs.

As of 2013, approximately 50 radio stations are electronically monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems. Songs are ranked by a calculation of the total number of spins per week with its "audience impression", which is based upon exact times of airplay and each station's Arbitron listener data.

The chart was renamed Alternative Songs beginning with the June 20, 2009 issue after Billboard fully absorbed Radio & Records, whose similar chart was called "Alternative" instead of "Modern Rock".

Hot Rock Songs
In recent years, there has been more crossover between the Mainstream and Modern Rock Tracks charts. For six and a half years, following "Jaded" by Aerosmith in 2001, every number one song on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart also appeared on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, with 26 of them topping both rock tracks charts. This string was finally broken by Ozzy Osbourne's "I Don't Wanna Stop" in July 2007.

Hot Rock Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine which ranks the airplay of songs on alternative, mainstream rock and triple A radio stations. The first chart was published in the issue dated June 20, 2009. "Know Your Enemy" by Green Day was the first number-one song. The Rock Songs chart has had seventeen number-one hits.