The Billboard Hot 100 is the main song chart of the American music industry and is updated every week by the Billboard magazine. During the 1990s the chart was based collectively on each single's weekly physical sales figures and airplay on American radio stations.
The methodology for determining sales and airplay figures drastically changed with the chart dated November 30, 1991. Instead of surveying retail stores and radio stations, sales data was now gathered by Soundscan via a collection of the number of barcode scans a record received while airplay was to be compiled by Broadcast Data Systems, which continuously monitored what songs were being played on radio.[1] As the decade progressed, a growing trend in the music industry was to promote songs to radio without the release of a commercially available singles in an attempt by record companies to boost albums sales. Because such a release was required to chart on the Hot 100, many popular songs that were hits on top 40 radio never made it onto the chart. Beginning December 5, 1998, the Hot 100 changed from being a "singles" chart to a "songs" chart.[2] Not only did Billboard start allowing airplay-only tracks to chart, it broadened its radio panel to include "R&B, adult R&B, mainstream rock, triple-A rock, and country outlets", which was formerly "confined to the mainstream top 40, rhythmic top 40, adult top 40, adult contemporary, and modern rock formats."[3]
"Another Day in Paradise" by Phil Collins began the 1990s in the number-one position, spending the first two weeks of the decade on top, but its first week at number one was on the chart dated December 23, 1989. Santana's "Smooth" featuring Rob Thomas finished the decade and began the next with a 12-week run atop the Hot 100.
Mariah Carey amassed the most number-one hits (14 songs) and had the longest cumulative run atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart (60 weeks) during the 1990s. Carey is also the only artist to spend at least one week at the summit of the chart in each year of the decade.Boyz II Men remained at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 50 weeks during the 1990s. They scored five number-one songs, with three of them spending over 10 weeks atop the chart.The song "One Sweet Day", performed by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men, spent 16 weeks on top of the chart and became the longest-running number-one song in history, until surpassed in 2019 by "Old Town Road".Janet Jackson earned six number-one songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the 1990s.Whitney Houston's cover of "I Will Always Love You" spent 14 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, which at the time was a record.[4][5]Lisa Loeb became the first artist to score a #1 hit before signing to any record label, with "Stay (I Missed You)".Michael Jackson became the first artist to debut at #1 with "You Are Not Alone". His song "Black or White" also spent seven weeks at number one during 1991 and 1992."Candle in the Wind 1997" by Elton John topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 weeks. It is the best-selling single in the chart's history.
The following artists achieved three or more number-one hits during the 1990s.[8] A number of artists had number-one singles on their own as well as part of a collaboration.
"Smooth" by Santana featuring Rob Thomas spent 12 consecutive weeks at number one, on the charts dated from October 23, 1999, to January 8, 2000. Its reign at the top of the Hot 100 extended into the 2000s by two weeks, so only 10 of its weeks occurred in the 1990s, making it fall short of the 10 longest running number-ones in the 1990s if going strictly by its weeks at number one during the decade.
^Mayfield, Geoff; Sandiford-Waller, Theda (December 5, 1998). "A New Hot 100 Reflects Changes in Music Business". Billboard. Vol. 110, no. 49. pp. 3, 129.
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