TOP JUKEBOX HITS 1935-1949

Between the mid-1930s and the 1960s the pop music industry relied primarily on two sources of consumer data for determining the most popular records in the country. The first of these, of course, was record sales. The second source of data consisted of jukebox play tabulations. The logic behind this was that the more times a record was played in jukeboxes, the more popular it was.

Billboard Magazine, a leading trade journal of the music industry, combined record sales with jukebox plays and other factors to generate weekly Hit Parade and Top 100 charts. These, in turn, became the basis for the top 40 charts used by radio stations throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

On the following pages we have reproduced the top ten jukebox hits lists for the years 1935 through 1949. While Cashbox Magazine (a vending industry trade journal) was given as the source of these lists, that magazine's dates of publication tell us it could not be the source. Wherever they came from, these charts are consistent with other verifiable indicators of record popularity from the era, so we present them here for your enjoyment.

We have also included a streaming mp3 file of the number one song from each year. These files do not play automatically, so you'll need to click the play button on the player application to hear them.