The pop-chart analyst and 'Hit Parade' host joins us to discuss what better data revealed about hit songs, the slow end of the monoculture, and the cultural rules that keep outsiders off country radio.
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This week we're putting The Tonearm's needle on pop-chart analyst Chris Molanphy.
For almost a decade, Chris has hosted Hit Parade, Slate's monthly show on the history behind the Billboard charts. He also writes Slate's long-running Why Is This Song No. 1? column, and wrote a book on Lil Nas X's Old Town Road for Duke University Press.
We talk about how a Netflix episode can send a forty-year-old song back onto the charts, why he refuses to believe in a guilty pleasure, and what changes in an artist's career when they keep reinventing instead of repeating a formula.
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00:00 Intro
00:57 Artists who defy genre
03:23 Why chart impact matters
05:43 Why the American charts
06:21 Active fandom and passive fandom
07:58 Legacy hits and the songs that missed
08:56 When a screen revives a song
11:00 The strangest number one hits
12:36 Queen at Live Aid
13:56 Billy Idol can't be put in a box
16:55 Payola, bundling, and what's legal
19:16 SoundScan and the Tone Lōc problem
21:20 What streaming revealed
22:49 Albums open like movies
24:57 The end of the monoculture
26:31 Country music's own world
27:30 Casey Kasem, the original poptimist
29:47 What American Top 40 lost
32:32 No such thing as a guilty pleasure
34:21 Trap beats and country radio's gate
36:49 "Old Town Road" and Nashville
38:37 Journey, Toto, and Nickelback
40:19 James Taylor and Bon Jovi
44:12 Inventing the chart analyst beat
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Visit Chris Molanphy at https://chris.molanphy.com
and follow him on Bluesky → https://bsky.app/profile/cmolanphy.bsky.social
Listen to Hit Parade on Slate → https://slate.com/podcasts/hit-parade
and read the "Why Is This Song No. 1?" series → https://slate.com/tag/why-is-this-songno1
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For extensive show notes, links, and podcast information, go to https://podcast.thetonearm.com
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The Tonearm on Bluesky → https://bsky.app/profile/thetonearm.com
The Tonearm on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-tonearm
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