Dance Singles Sales

From October 26, 1974 until August 28, 1976, Billboard's Disco Action section published weekly single retail sales charts from various local regions along with Top Audience Response Records in their magazine. Billboard debuted its first national chart devoted exclusively to 12-inch Singles Sales in their issue dated March 16, 1985. This record type is most commonly used in disco and dance music genres where DJs use them to play in discos or dance clubs because of the exclusive extended remixes that are often only made available on this format, but Billboard's 12-inch Single Sales chart ranks releases by artists from all styles of music that release maxi-singles. The 50-position weekly ranking joined Billboard's established Dance/Disco Top 80 chart, reduced to the same 50 positions, both under the title Hot Dance/Disco, becoming two separate Top 50 charts: 12-Inch Singles Sales and Club Play. A coupling from MCA Records' Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack, Patti LaBelle's "New Attitude" and Harold Faltermeyer's "Axel F", held the No. 1 slot for the 12-inch Singles Sales chart's first week and was also No. 1 for the second consecutive week on the most played dance/disco chart. Madonna's "Angel" 12" vinyl single from 1985 contains one of the most famous B-sides in U.S. history: "Into the Groove," featured in the film Desperately Seeking Susan. While receiving a proper release in other countries, Warner Bros. Records relegated the song to 12-inch B-side status in America despite its enormous popularity on radio and MTV, thus making it ineligible to enter the Billboard U.S. Hot 100. The dance mix edit of "Angel" is the B-side of the 7-inch single that did chart the Hot 100. "Into The Groove" has been cited by multiple publications as Madonna's best single, but only charted Billboard in the Hot Dance/Disco section as a dual sided single peaking at #1 for 7 weeks on the 12-inch Single Sales survey & #1 for 1 week on the Club Play survey and on the Hot Black Singles chart as a single track peaking at #19. Only later remixes by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda are available on Madonna's albums. The word "disco" was removed from the title of the section of both charts beginning September 19, 1987. After being temporarily renamed Hot Dance 50, Billboard retitled the section Hot Dance Music on October 24, 1987. On the first Billboard Music Awards in 1990, Janet Jackson was awarded #1 Hot Dance 12-inch Singles Sales Artist. The 1991 winner for #1 Hot Dance 12" Singles Sales was C + C Music Factory featuring Freedom Williams' "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)". On June 20, 1992, Billboard began to also survey cassette tape and CD maxi-singles along with vinyl twelve-inch singles renaming the chart Maxi-Singles Sales. In 1993, the Billboard Music Award winner for #1 12" Dance Single was RuPaul's "Supermodel (You Better Work)". The Maxi-Singles Sales survey began using actual sales figures (SoundScan) to compile the chart on August 28, 1993.