I often read you patiently explain that the charts exist for and serve the radio industry-something I think we all forget as we are caught up in our weekly fix. Welcome home. Yet, there is tremendous fan interest in the charts. That was the year I became fascinated with the charts and would rush home from school every Friday to hear the new KRLA top 30 counted down.
That same year I was on a shopping trip in downtown Los Angeles with my mother and discovered a record store where I could hang out while she went to department stores.
They had a copy of Billboard behind the counter and I had never seen the magazine before. There is much more awareness and scrutiny of the entertainment industry today than there was when I discovered the Billboard charts, so there are many ways people can become aware of them.
The charts are published in newspapers and magazines and cited on CNN, and digested in book form by people like Joel Whitburn and myself. Surely, this leap in sales demanded a bullet, if not on the Hot where the track lost airplay impressions from the previous week , then at least on the Hot Digital Songs chart.
The news article on Billboard. When bullets are awarded, we grade on the curve. That means the percentage of gain needed to win a bullet changes from week to week, to reflect market activity. In a week where most albums experience a gain, such as a week before Christmas when consumers purchase more product than usual, you would need a larger gain than usual to be awarded a bullet.
