Here’s an audiogram excerpt of my appearance on @thetonearm.com podcast—about why, after all these years, the #Hot100 is still our trusted flagship pop chart. And why a song’s chart peak is not always the last word on its legacy—from “Tiny Dancer” to “Running Up That Hill.”

A hint about that sad (but very wealthy) man, and the chart week that sealed his fate forever.

It’s a gas…it’s a hit: my new #HitParadePod on @slate.com is about Pink Floyd & the alltime album-chart record #TheDarkSideoftheMoon still holds. How does this LP keep seducing new generations of HS stoners+vinyl buyers? What competing LPs are creeping up on Floyd’s record? slate.com/podcasts/hit...

Fun w/charts: The news that Robert Smith (!) guests on the new Stones LP (!!) sent me back to fall ’89 to see if my suspicion was right that the Cure & Stones mixed it up on the #Hot100. Boy howdy, did they! One week after this, the Cure’s biggest-ever pop hit rose to its No2 peak; Stones held@ No5.

Wow—the #PoliticalGabfest hyped my show again this week! This time, it was promo for the #HitParadePod Power Ballads episode, and David Plotz got @jdickerson.bsky.social & Emily Bazelon to chime in. You haven't lived until you’ve heard David sing a bit of REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling.”

What can I say about the last days of @slate.com #CultureGabfest? It’s been my honor to help @juliaturner.bsky.social @thehighsign.bsky.social & Steve Metcalf curate Summer Strut—their annual collection of hot-time bops. I’m on this week to help them strut into the sunset. slate.com/podcasts/cul...

I am a longtime, diehard @slate.com #PoliticalGabfest fan—literally since week one, over 2 decades ago—so I was thrilled to hear Gabfest host David Plotz shout out my latest #HitParadePod toward the end of this week’s show! The full Gabfest episode can be heard here: slate.com/podcasts/pol...

Guess I can retire—an article I wrote for @slate.com 6 years ago became an answer in the semifinals of Netflix’s #PopCultureJeopardy! The article, from the start of the pandemic—my #WhyIsThisSongNo1? piece on The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights”: slate.com/culture/2020... “FLAILING…ARMS & LEGS” FTW.

This @billboard.com factoid should come w/10 asterisks. Sure…technically ‘Number Ones’ is “new” to the Billboard 200’s Top10 this week…but for over a month in 2009 it was America’s top-seller, excluded from the chart only cuz of a now-defunct rule that purged catalog titles. A dubious MJ chart feat.

Critics may not have mattered to its success but a certain earnest 23-year-old CMJ scribe gave the CD a near-rave in summer ’95. When it went platinum I was proud I called it right. I wish I liked “#1 Crush” better—such an odd track to be their only No1 hit. All of their ’95+’98 singles are better.

As part of Slate’s commemoration of my 100th episode of #HitParadePod, this week EIC Hillary Frey interviewed me for her weekly Friday email to Slate Plus members. It was fun reminiscing about how charts have changed, why Casey Kasem mattered, favorite HP episodes and my recent musical comfort food.

I joined @djlouiexiv.bsky.social on his #PopPantheon podcast along with pop critic @popsamcam.bsky.social to debate the past & current state of the #Hot100 and what a No1 hit means. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

I not only encourage you to read @radiomatt1.bsky.social’s chart analysis of Bad Bunny ahead of #SuperBowlHalftime. I urge you to read thru his recap of José Feliciano’s ’68 Detroit national-anthem controversy & its chart/career impact—the more things change… www.graphsaboutsongs.com/p/um-actuall...

I’m not even a metalhead & this is delightful—good for #Megadeth. This is 10yrs almost to the week after Bowie scored his only No1 LP ★. Of course I have Bowie on the brain cuz of my latest #HitParadePod, but turns out there’s a chart connection, as per the article: www.billboard.com/music/chart-...

When you noted Dishwalla’s used-bin-clogging CD I had to Google to remember its generic cover. I feel like we should coin a mini-genre for this alt-band era: Clip Art Rock—when a band was so nondescript the label’s art dept created a cut-n-paste CD cover for them. Even Radiohead briefly fell victim.

All my thanks to #HitParadePod listeners & subscribers for enjoying my labor of love in 2025 (+a special shoutout to the @slate.com Plus community). As always, we covered a lot—spanning genres and decades. Now’s a good time to catch up on any Hit Parade episodes you missed! slate.com/podcasts/hit...

Some buried news at the bottom of this week’s @billboard.com report on the new #Hot100 …yes the all-Xmas top 24 is a big deal but to me the bigger news is HUNTR/X’s “Golden” finally reaching No1 on the Radio chart—Kpop’s 1st time topping the all-format airplay list. www.billboard.com/lists/mariah...

Did you mean the original ’63 LP or the ’70s reissue? Because that has a far more insane cover… (I find the original w/all the Philles Records groups popping out of gift boxes charming in a kitschy way. Plus—no Phil S., which helps you focus on the great, great music & not the wackjob who made it.)

A correction (admittedly this is a small item in the story): Run-DMC did indeed score rap’s first platinum album—but it’s not ‘King of Rock,’ it’s ‘Raising Hell.’ Though KoR came out first, RH was certified platinum first, according to the RIAA.

Few directors brought me such pure joy. Notwithstanding the sad end of his life, that joy is how I will choose to remember Rob Reiner. R.I.P. Marty/Meathead—let’s boogie. 🎥 getyarn.io/yarn-clip/46...

First scene in his first movie, he parodies the self-regard of a hack director. And then in real life, he goes on this insane run: 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘐𝘴 𝘚𝘱𝘪𝘯̈𝘢𝘭 𝘛𝘢𝘱. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘔𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘦. 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘔𝘦𝘵 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺… 𝘔𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘺. 𝘈 𝘍𝘦𝘸 𝘎𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘔𝘦𝘯. In a row! To START his career! Not a dud in the bunch.

Yup—here’s the Top 5. And…well, it’s a very decent Top 2. As songs, I like Nos 3–5 to varying degrees (even the Swims single, before it wouldn’t die!) but that parade of reruns is, to quote a ’60s No1 hit, kind of a drag.

Y’all have a typo in this writeup—“Luther” debuted@ *No3* on Hot Rap Songs in Dec ’24, not No1 (“Squabble Up” was No1 that week). Just tagging this in case @augetoffmygold.bsky.social or someone else on staff wants to fix it…

The big #Hot100 news isn’t that Tay’s “Ophelia” is No1 a 2nd week—it’s at the end of the story where @billboard.com announces a big change to the chart’s recurrent rule that I expected. Bottom line, songs will pulled sooner & I say thank heaven—& bye “Lose Control” which shoulda been gone eons ago.

I must say, this latest chapter in their apparent cold war suggests that what Taylor did to Charli last summer on the UK charts was every bit as deliberate as fans surmised. www.theguardian.com/music/articl...

The guy best equipped to answer this is my friend, fellow chart columnist & famed übertall person @tombreihan.bsky.social. He has strong incentive to know…& in his @stereogum.bsky.social column #TheNumberOnes he guesstimates that Montell Jordan was indeed tallest: www.stereogum.com/2179979/the-...

🤣 No it was not! Congrats—you’ve discovered my Ron Burgundy moment, the most embarrassing thing in #HitParadePod history. There was a script typo, I read it like that & nobody caught it. It’s now HP podcast lore. Hope it amused you. 🤦🏽 (Pictured: me in the “meekrat” tee loved ones gave me to F w/me.)

I’m back on the #CultureGabfest on @slate.com for our cherished annual hot-weather tradition, Summer Strut! Julia Turner, Dana Stevens & Steve Metcalf cull the list + I demystify the bops. This year we jam to Lola Young…Bad Bunny…Haim…Diana Ross & Del tha Funkee Homosapien. slate.com/podcasts/cul...

My man. 👏🏼

#DriveByBodyPierce When “Loser” hit it signaled 1994 was gonna be the most ’90s year of the ’90s. IIRC ‘Mellow Gold’ was the newest album in the Top 100 Best Alternative Albums list published in this SPIN guide. It came out in ’95—if it’d come out a year or 2 later they’d could’ve ranked ‘Odelay.’