Pioneering pop music chart analyst Joel Whitburn dies at 82
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/06/2022 (1563 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
NEW YORK (AP) — Joel Whitburn, who turned his fascination with the Billboard charts into a career cataloging the history of charted music that kept gatekeepers honest about the performance of hits, has died. He was 82.
His Tuesday death at his home in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, was announced by Record Research, Whitburn’s publishing company. Employee Paul Haney posted on Facebook that he died “peacefully overnight.”
Whitburn published hundreds of books, including many in entries of series like “Top Pop Singles,” “Top 40 Hits,” “Top 40 Albums” and “Top 40 Country Hits,” helping the whole industry with reliable chart stats and records. His books were crucial to DJs, publicists and chart nerds.
“Joel Whitburn was a titan in our field,” wrote Chris Molanphy, a Slate chart analyst and host of the podcast “Hit Parade,” on Twitter. “If there is an afterworld, Joel is on top of a list at the pearly gates — No. 1 with a bullet and a star. R.I.P.”
When the Billboard Hot 100 make its bow in 1958, Whitburn made index cards cataloguing all the relevant information of the songs listed, tracking their movement on the chart from week to week.
He kept it up even after getting a job at RCA doing record distribution in the mid ’60 and then decided to devote himself full-time to his research, founding Record Research and publishing his findings in the company’s first release, “Top Pop Singles in 1970.”
Whitburn had a licensing agreement with Billboard to publish his work and paid the magazine a royalty. “Billboard could not have asked for a better representative to document the history of our charts than Joel Whitburn,” said Silvio Pietroluongo, Billboard‘s SVP of Charts & Data Development.
Whitburn also was a collector and kept 150,000 singles, albums and CDs, including every record ever listed in the Billboard Hot 100. He is survived by his wife, Fran, and their daughter, Kim Bloxdorf.
___
Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
