If you’re looking to quantify the success of a new song, the first place you look is the Billboard charts. A song’s standing there, and how long it stays on top, tells you if you’ve got a bona fide hit on your hands.
But how far back do these charts go, and what was the first song to ever claim the crown? It had to be some weird twangy number that’s either about eating an apple under a tree with your darling, or incredibly racist, or both, right?
Before I answer that question, though, a couple of things to keep in mind: Billboard is much, much older than I ever would have imagined, especially given that the modern version is a glossy bit of fluff decorated with some teenager I’ve never seen, but that a whole section of TikTok would take a bullet for. It was founded in 1894, making it 130 years old in November of this year. Looking at archives of old issues, it was also remarkably dense, with word counts that would put most modern non-fiction novels to shame.
The idea of a music chart came a couple years later, though, as the first ever iteration of the Billboard music charts was a simple list in the August 9, 1913 edition titled “Last Week’s Ten Best Sellers Among the Popular Songs,” which really rolls off the tongue. Within it are the 10 top songs of the week, with no artists listed, rudely. One additional twist: These sales were based off of sheet music sales, just to give you some idea of the time we’re working with. I guess you’d rush out to the local music store and then hand it to the piano man in the closest saloon.
It does give us our answer, though. The crown of the first #1 Billboard artist belongs to an icon in both the worlds of music and blackface — Al Jolson. Told you it would be a little racist! But the song, “You Made Me Love You,” is kind of a banger. Listen for yourself below: