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Billboard 200
The
Billboard
200
magazine. It isfrequently used to convey the popularity of anartistor groups of artists.Often, a recording act will be remembered by its "number ones", those of their albums that outsold all others during at least one week. The chart is based solely on sales (both at retail and digitally) in theUnited States. The sales tracking week begins on Monday and ends onSunday. A new chart is published the following Thursday with an issuedate of the following Saturday.Example:Monday 1 January — sales tracking week beginsSunday 7 January — sales tracking week ends Thursday 11 January — new chart published, with issue date of Saturday20 January.Normally new product is released to the American market on Tuesdays.Digital downloadsare included in
Billboard
200 tabulation, as long as theentire album is purchased as a whole. Albums that are not licensed forretail sale in the United States (yet purchased in the U.S. as imports) arenot eligible to chart. A long-standing policy which made ineligible titlesthat are sold exclusively by specific retail outlets, such asWal-MartorStarbucks, was reversed on November 7, 2007, and took effect in theissue dated November 17.
The current number-one album (as of the issue datedFebruary 7,2009)
on the Billboard 200 is
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History
Billboard
began publishing an album chart in 1945. Initially only fivepositions long, the album chart was not published on a weekly basis,sometimes three to seven weeks passing before it was updated. Abiweekly (though with a few gaps), 15-position Best-Selling PopularAlbums chart appeared in 1955. With the explosion of rock and rollmusic,
Billboard
premiered a weekly Best-Selling Popular Albums chart on March24, 1956. The position count varied anywhere from ten to thirty albums. The first number-one album on the new weekly list was
Belafonte
byHarry Belafonte. The chart was renamed to Best-Selling Pop Albums later in1956, and then to Best-Selling Pop LPs in 1957.Beginning on May 25, 1959,
Billboard
split the ranking into two charts,
Best-Selling Stereophonic LPs
Best-Selling Monophonic LPs
Stereo Action Charts
(thirty positions) and
Mono Action Charts
(forty positions) in 1960. In January 1961, they became
Action Albums— Stereophonic
(15 positions) and
Action Albums—Monophonic
(25positions). Three months later, they became
Top LPs—Stereo
(50positions) and
Top LPs—Monaural
(150 positions).On August 17, 1963 the stereo and mono charts were combined into a150-position chart called
Top LPs
. On April 1, 1967, the chart wasexpanded to 175 positions, then finally to 200 positions on May 13, 1967.In 1972 the album chart's title was changed to
Top LPs & Tapes
; in 1984 itwas retitled
Top 200 Albums
; in 1985 it was retitled again to
Top Pop Albums
; in 1991 it became
The Billboard 200 Top Albums
; and it was givenits current title of
The Billboard 200
on March 14, 1992.
Catalog albums
In 1960,
Billboard
began concurrently publishing album charts whichranked sales of older or mid-priced titles. These
Essential Inventory
chartswere divided by stereo and mono albums, and featured titles that hadalready appeared on the main stereo and mono album charts. Monoalbums were moved to the
Essential Inventory—Mono
chart (25 positions)after spending forty weeks on the
Mono Action Chart
, and stereo albumswere moved to the
Essential Inventory—Stereo
chart (20 positions) aftertwenty weeks on the
Stereo Action Chart
.
In January 1961, the
Action Charts
became
Action Albums—Monophonic
(24 positions), and
Action Albums—Stereophonic
(15 positions). Albumsappeared on either chart for up to nine weeks, then were moved to an
Essential Inventory
list of approximately 200 titles, with no numericalranking. This list continued to be published until the consolidated
Top LPs
chart debuted in 1963.In 1982,
Billboard
began publishing a
Midline Albums
chart which rankedolder or mid-priced titles. The chart held fifty positions and was publishedon a bi-weekly (and later tri-weekly) basis.On March 25, 1991
Billboard
premiered the Top Pop Catalog Albumschart.Current criteria for this chart are albums that are more than eighteenmonths old and have fallen below position 100 on the
Billboard 200
.
Analbum need not have charted on the
Billboard 200
at all to qualify forcatalog status.
Holiday albums
Billboard
has adjusted its policies for holiday albums several times.Holiday albums were eligible for the main album charts until 1963, when a
Christmas Albums
list was created. Albums appearing here were not listedon the
Top LPs
chart. In 1974 this rule was reverted and holiday albumsagain appeared within the main list.In 1982 the
Christmas Albums
chart was resurrected, but a title'sappearance here did not disqualify it from appearing on the
Top Pop Albums
chart. In 1994 the chart was retitled
Top Holiday Albums
. As of 2006 the chart holds fifty positions and is run for several weeks during theend-of-calendar-year holiday season. Its current policy allows holidayalbums to concurrently chart on the
Top Holiday Albums
list and the
Billboard 200
, but only during the album's first year of release. After aholiday album's first year, it can return to
Top Holiday Albums
in futureyears but then is only eligible to concurrently appear on the
Top PopCatalog Albums
chart.
Nielsen SoundScan
Since May 26, 1991, the
Billboard 200'
s positions have been derived fromNielsen SoundScansales data, as of 2008 contributed by approximately14,000 music sellers. Because these numbers are supplied by a subset of sellers rather thanrecord labels, it is common for these numbers to besubstantially lower than those reported by theRecording Industry Association of AmericawhenGold, Platinum and Diamond albumawards
are announced (RIAA awards reflect wholesale shipments, not retail sales).
Year-end charts
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