Our survey now takes us once again to the year in which my mother was born (and she should know), and it feels like I should at this point elaborate a little on how the Year-End Hot 100 works.
Billboard publishes its year-end charts every year in the issue dated for the third Saturday of December, which, due to the traditional lead time and advance dating of magazines, means it usually hits the shelves on Thursday of the second week of December. The year-end Hot 100 tracks the top singles of the year over the 52 weeks immediately prior to when the list was compiled; due to its early publication date, Billboard’s “year” usually ends on the third Saturday of November.
From its inception until 1991, the year-end Hot 100 used a points system wherein any given song received points each week based inversely upon its position in the weekly Hot 100; i.e., the #1 song got 100 points, the #2 song got 99 points, the #3 song got 98 points, and so on. After 1991, this system was abandoned and the year-end formula became identical to the formula used to calculate the weekly charts, using data from 52 weeks instead of just one.
That being said, these are the 27 songs from 1961’s year-end Hot 100 that never made it to #1. What’s your favorite?
Previous polls: 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960
Best #1 single polls: 1955-56 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s All-time