Ask Billboard Column

[redsea]

Hi everyone! I was hoping you could help me answer a few questions regarding this column. :)

1. Is it still updated every Friday? I am having a tough time finding newer entries.

2.There are always so many interesting chart facts/musings, and I am curious as to how people "research" them. For instance, back in 2009, someone wrote in about all the songs before Fireflies by Owl City that hit number 1 with an Animal in their name. How did this person find the chart info for all the songs with animals in the title that hit number one? Is there a database somewhere that I don't know about where you can type key words to get stats?

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this!

[jebsib]

"Ask Billboard" used to be called "Chartbeat Chat" and was a weekly column on Billboard .com from 1997 until 2009.
It was modified after 17 year Chart beat columnist Fred Bronson was fired (in order to bring all of Billboard's chart facts under one editorial roof)

These days, Ask Billboard updates sporadically. In fact, some times several weeks go by between answered questions.

The Billboard staff have computer programs that cross reference data (such as animal names appearing on various charts);
We are lucky, because Gary Trust (the columnist) is a pop music trivia nut, and is well suited to that sort of thing, the same way Casey Kasem's staff used to be.

If you are referring to readers knowing this kind of stuff, maybe they googled it?
I know that pre internet, there were just a bunch of chart/ music enthusiasts who recalled trivia like this, and depended on their own memory.

[redsea]

Thanks very much. I really enjoy reading the column, all the stats are very interesting.