Hot Dance Club Play
Billboard magazine's Hot Dance Club Play chart (formerly known as
Hot Dance Music/Club Play and
Hot Dance/Disco) is a weekly national survey of the songs that are most popular in U.S. dance clubs. It is compiled by
Billboard exclusively from playlists submitted by
nightclub disc jockeys who must apply and meet certain criteria to become
"Billboard-reporting DJs."
The current number one song on the
Hot Dance Club Play chart (issue date/week ending
August 19 2006) is "C'est La Vie" by
Kim English.
The
Hot Dance Club Play chart has undergone several incarnations since its inception in
1974. Originally a top-ten list of tracks that garnered the largest audience response in
New York City discothèques, the chart began on
October 26, 1974 under the title
Disco Action. The chart went on to feature playlists from various cities around the country from week to week.
Billboard continued to run regional or city-specific charts throughout
1975 and
1976, while rival music publication
Record World was the first publication to feature a chart that encompassed club play on a national level.
Billboard has since adopted
Record World's chart statistics from the weeks between
March 29,
1975 and
August 21,
1976 into their
Hot Dance Club Play chart history, as
Billboard did not publish a national chart during this time.
(source: Joel Whitburn's "Billboard Hot Dance/Disco 1974-2003", ISBN 0-89820-156-X)Beginning on
August 28, 1976, a thirty-position
National Disco Action Top 30 premiered, which quickly expanded to forty positions. In
1979 the chart expanded to sixty positions, then eighty, and finally reached 100 positions from
1979 until
1981, when it was reduced to eighty again.
During the first half of the 1980s the chart maintained eighty slots until
March 16,
1985 when the
Disco charts were splintered and renamed. Two charts appeared:
Hot Dance/Disco, which ranked Club Play (fifty positions) and
Hot Maxi-Single Sales, which ranked
12-inch single (or
maxi-single) sales (also fifty positions).
These two charts still exist today, under the official titles
Hot Dance Club Play and
Hot Dance Single Sales. In
2004 Billboard introduced the
Hot Dance Airplay chart, which is based solely on radio airplay of nine dance music stations electronically monitored by
Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems. These nine stations are also a part of the electronically monitored panel that encompasses the
Hot 100.
It is generally assumed that when one refers to a song or an artist "going to number one on the Dance chart," he or she is referring to the
Hot Dance Club Play chart.
*Artists with the most number-one Hot Dance Club Play hits::1.
Madonna â€" 36:2.
Janet Jackson â€" 16:3.
Mariah Carey â€" 12 (tie):3.
Whitney Houston â€" 12 (tie):3.
Donna Summer â€" 12 (tie):6.
Deborah Cox â€" 9 (tie):6.
Kristine W â€" 9 (tie):8.
C+C Music Factory/Clivilles & Cole â€" 8 (tie):8.
Pet Shop Boys â€" 8 (tie)
*The first 12-inch single made commercially available to the public was "Ten Percent" by
Double Exposure in 1976.
*The first number one on
Billboard's Disco Action chart was "
Never Can Say Goodbye" by
Gloria Gaynor in 1974.
*The first number one on
Billboard's National Disco Action Top 30 was "You Should Be Dancing" by the
Bee Gees in 1976.
*From the dance chart's inception until the week of
February 16,
1991, several (or even all) songs on an
EP or
album could occupy the same position if more than one track from a release was receiving significant play in clubs (for example,
Michael Jackson spent eleven weeks at number one in
1983 with "
Thriller (all cuts)"). Beginning with the
February 23, 1991 issue, the dance chart became "song specific," meaning only one song could occupy each position at a time.
Hot Dance Club Play is one of the last remaining
Billboard charts that remains "frozen" for one week (either the last week in December or the first week in January, depending on the calendar year). As the Hot Dance Club Play chart is not monitored electronically like most of the other charts, all songs "hold" their positions for the additional week, and still have the frozen week added to their "weeks on chart" total.
*Madonna holds the record for the most chart hits, the most Top 20 hits, the most top-ten hits and the most total weeks at number one (64 weeks). She also has the most top-ten hits from one album (seven tracks from her album
American Life).
*
The Trammps are the only act to replace themselves at number one (issue date
June 5,
1976, "That's Where the Happy People Go" â†' "Disco Party").
*Kristine W's first nine chart entries all hit number one. She holds the record for the longest streak of uninterrupted chart-toppers, which was broken in 2006.
*
Masters At Work and
Byron Stingily have the most number of
Hot Dance Club Play chart hits - eleven each - without any Hot 100 entries.
*The longest running number-ones on the
Hot Dance Club Play chart are "Bad Luck" song by
Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes in 1975 and the above mentioned album "Thriller (all cuts)" by Michael Jackson. Both entries spent eleven weeks in the top spot.
*"One Word" by
Kelly Osbourne made chart history on
June 18,
2005 when it became the first song to simultaneously top the
Hot Dance Club Play,
Hot Dance Singles Sales and
Hot Dance Airplay charts.
*
List of number-one dance hits (United States)*
List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Dance chart*
Billboard Online*
Current Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart (top 25)*
Current Billboard Hot Dance Airplay chart (top 10)
