In 1964, Billboard magazine published a chart ranking the top-performing songs in the United States which were considered to be "middle of the road".
The chart has undergone various name changes and since 1996 has been published under the title Adult Contemporary.
[1] Until 1965, the listing was compiled simply by extracting from Billboard's pop music chart, the Hot 100, those songs which were deemed by the magazine's staff to be of an appropriate style and ranking them according to their positions on the Hot 100.
[1] The only artist to achieve more than one number one in 1964 was Dean Martin, who spent eight weeks in the top spot with "Everybody Loves Somebody" and one with "The Door Is Still Open to My Heart".
[2] A second song from a newly opened musical to top the chart was "People" from Funny Girl,[3][4] which gave Barbra Streisand her first Billboard chart-topper; she would go on to have one of the most successful careers in popular music history.