Data gathered from wikipedia.org, discogs.com and allmusic.com.
Where multiple release dates existed the earliest was used.
Genre was determined by the first style listed for the track’s artist at allmusic.com.
Billboard Magazine’s Top Hot 100 Songs of 2008 can be found here.
Corrections are welcome.
The Date of Release chart is interesting (esp. the songs that came out way earlier than the start of the chart year) — but easily explicable. Given Billboard’s chart year, naturally, songs that come out in the winter will be the year’s biggest: they have the most time to amass chart points and enjoy a full chart run before the year runs out. A big hit that comes out in, say, July, has a built-in disadvantage — its chart run will likely be divided over two chart years.
Oh, and: love the font!
It raises interesting questions to see hip hop listed as a apart from east coast rap, gansta rap, etc, since one would assume that those sub-genres are simply categories under the larger umbrella of hip hop culture. However, at the same time, this could indicate that perhaps Dirty South is NOT hip hop, since it is a different genre. This would piss off the dirty south hip hop artists, but might make a purist kinda chuckle. One might also go as far as to say that chances are: if appeared on any mainstream list of best songs, there’s a very good chance it’s pop with a hip hop flavor. But that begs an entire discussion on what constitutes hip hop music which requires a definition of what constitutes hip hop culture.