Billboard unveils the new Hot 100

aaronk wrote: Personally, I've always thought of the "45 version" as the hit version that everyone knows. And for the most part, radio stations always played the 45 versions of songs, and the videos usually matched the 45 versions, at least in the 1980s and prior. But what about hits from the 1990s and 2000s? 45s have hardly existed since 1990. We're still using the term "45 version," but are we referring to the version that was available on the commercial singles (cassette or CD)?

This is an excellent question, Aaron, and I've wondered the very same thing. Should the "45 version" comment be used specifically to describe a song as it appeared on the actual commercial vinyl 45, or should it be used generically to denote any single version? I'm not sure what Pat's policy is on this, but it does seem to make more sense to list "single version" instead of "45 version" in cases where no commercial vinyl 45 is available.

Then there's the whole separate issue of when a Top 40 song is released commercially on two different formats (say, cassette single and CD single), but each features a different version or mix of the song. Which of the two versions should be regarded as the "true" single version?

There are several ways to sift through this and come up with a "definitive" single version. I personally favor referring to a commercial single's catalog number as it was listed on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart as the chief determining factor. Others may argue that the most popular commercial single configuration of the particular point and time a song is released, whether its vinyl 45, cassingle, CD single, or maxi-CD single, should be considered the single version. Yet others may contend that anything appearing on a vinyl 45 should be the determining factor because for decades how a song appeared on vinyl 45 made it the undisputed single version. I'd be interested to hear Pat's or anyone else's take on this.

I was flipping through my copy of Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-1999 and, in the introduction on page "x", he states his policy for determining the "official" single version of a hit song. This should help answer some of the questions posed in this thread. I've reprinted the following passage verbatim:

The standard configuration for the pop singles chart from 1955-1989 was the 7-inch 45 rpm vinyl single, referred to hereafter as the "45". All singles within these three and one-half decades were released commercially as "45s" unless otherwise indicated. We do not show a "(v)" symbol after the label and numbers of titles during those years, as it would accompany nearly every one of those titles.

On July 28, 1990, the cassette single replaced the "45" as the standard configuration on the Hot 100. For our research, 1990 is the first year that the label and number of all singles refer to the cassette singles, unless otherwise indicated.

On June 27, 1998, the CD single replaced the cassette single as the standard configuration on the Hot 100. Our starting point for the CD single as the configuration referred to in the label and number column is December 5, 1998, the date that Billboard indtroduced it most revised Hot 100 ever. From this point on, the label and number refer to the CD single. If the song is not commercially available, then the label and number are taken from the promotional CD unless otherwise indicated. Record companies occasionally release several promo CD singles of one song with each featuring different mixes of that song. In such cases the label and number of the promo CD single featuring the song's popular radio mix appears in the label and number column and the label and number of the other promo CD singles appear in the song's title notes.