Billboard Singles Chart Discovers Internet Radio Streams

Beginning this week, Billboard will include audio and video streams from services like Yahoo! Music and AOL in its formula for the weekly "Hot 100" singles chart. The top songs will still mostly be determined by radio airplay (55 percent of the formula) and digital downloads (40 percent), with streams accounting for five percent. For now, only Yahoo! and AOL — two of the biggest online streamers — will be included in the calculus, but a Billboard rep says other services, like Rhapsody, will be included soon. It's hard to say if the move will have any immediate impact — this week's number one, Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls" is big across the board — but it certainly is a move toward better reflecting what people are listening to.

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

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