This week’s theme is “peaked at 200,” meaning albums whose highest performing position on Billboard’s album chart was dead last. According to Luminate, the company behind the Billboard charts, you only need to sell around 6,000 to 8,000 copies in a week to reach number 200. Back in the past, it likely required more sales, but it was still a low enough bar that obscure releases could find their way onto the chart.

#7 K by Kula Shaker (1996)

As I’ve noted in the past, despite their being tremendous overlap in listening habits between Americans and Brits, there are also clear differences. Kula Shaker is one of those differences. Along with doing well across continental Europe, the group’s debut album K topped the charts in their home country. In America, it barely made the charts.

In one sense, K fits directly in the Britpop universe that defined the United Kingdom in the 1990s. Though it encompasses a large variety of styles, one unifying element was how groups drew heavily on music from the 1960s. Whereas some groups leant on the melodicism of The Beatles, others turned to the riffs of The Kinks. Kula Shaker was more drawn to the psychedelia of the 1960s, though.

Songs, like “Sleeping Jiva,” are solo instrumentals on the sarod, a popular Indian instrument. Others, like “Temple of Everlasting Light,” build much percussion around the tabla. Still, other songs, like “Godvinda,” are sung entirely in Sanskrit.

These sounds don’t dominate every moment of the album. You get very standard 1990s British rock fare on songs like “Knight on the Town.” But the Eastern influence is what stands out most across this record. While it works at times, sometimes it comes across as cartoonish and even fetishistic.

#6 No Sign of Weakness by Burna Boy (2025)

Just as Latin music found a larger audience in the US during the 2010s, African music has begun to find chart success in the US more recently. Burna Boy might illustrate the pinnacle of that success. The Nigerian singer-songwriter has charted two albums in the top 40, with 2022’s Love; Damini making it all the way to number 14. His latest album, No Sign of Weakness, did not perform as well.

No Sign of Weakness is an easy album to listen to. The beats go down smooth. The vocals are digestible. But the album struggles because of collaborations that seem forced, the strangest of which is a duet with Mick Jagger.

I know you’re not going to turn The Rolling Stones legend down if he wants to be on your album, but you’d hope he’d at least disappear into Burna Boy’s style a bit more. Much of the track is backed by the West African rhythms that power most of the album, but then Mick Jagger’s hook is sung over a more standard rock beat. The whole thing is very confused.

#5 The Boy Named If by Elvis Costello and the Imposters (2022)

Coming a week after listening to Shel Silverstein’s similarly named Boy Named Sue and Other Country Songs, this Elvis Costello effort felt fitting for our chart-bottoming theme. The Boy Named If is Costello at his most rocking, The Imposters cooking through old-time rock and roll beats (e.g., “The Death of Magic Thinking”) and punkier fare (e.g., “Farewell, OK”). The record only seems to fall flat when the Englishman is trying to be a bit too clever with his lyrics.

#4 Waterloo to Anywhere by Dirty Pretty Things (2006)

Before we talk about Dirty Pretty Things, we have to talk about The Libertines. Like Kula Shaker, The Libertines were a British rock band that emerged in the 1990s whose influences mostly lay in the distant past. Unlike Kula Shaker’s obsession with psychedelia, The Libertines took cues from the garage rock movement. When they broke up in 2004, guitarist Carl Barât put together a new group: Dirty Pretty Things.

Dirty Pretty Things—like Kula Shaker and The Libertines—are another example of a group that was much more popular in the UK than the US. But their lack of success in the US didn’t mean that the style of music they were making wasn’t popular in the US. It was. And it was being made to great effect by The Strokes. So, if you like the rough-and-tumble rock and rock and roll of The Strokes, then you will probably enjoy Dirty Pretty Things debut, Waterloo to Anywhere.

#3 A Possible Projection of the Future / Childhood’s End by Al Kooper (1972)

The title and release date of this record make it feel like you are about to listen to some prog-based, Genesis-adjacent concept record. As someone who doesn’t like prog-based, Genesis-adjacent concept records, I’m happy to report that that wasn’t the case.

Al Kooper originally conceived A Possible Projection of the Future / Childhood’s End as a concept-like record with a storyline. So, my gut reaction to the title was on point. But he abandoned that and largely crafted a soulful album with covers scattered throughout (e.g., “The Man in Me,” “The Monkey Time,” “Swept for You Baby”).

I loved this record. I loved every inch of it. From the decrepit album cover to the playful blues of “Let Your Love Shine” and the jaunty intensity of “Love Trap,” this was my favorite album of the week. So, why is it ranked at number three? Ken hated it! He said Mr. Kooper was lucky his album made it to number 200.

#2 Roger Miller 1970 by Roger Miller (1970)

If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, you’ll know that in each Thursday edition, I recommend a new song and an old song. In the first edition in October 2022, the new song I recommended was “Moss” by LKFFCT. The old song was “Engine Engine #9” by Roger Miller.

I’m glad that I kicked off this newsletter of with a Roger Miller recommendation. I love Roger Miller. He’s the rare artist whose voice could capture the simplicity of a nursery rhyme (e.g., “Chug-a-Lug”) or the heart-aching rhythms of the modern world (e.g., “Where Have All the Average People Gone”). After listening to his 1970 release, I love him all the same.

Roger Miller 1970 is a hodgepodge of covers, many of which were written by Dennis Linde. And you get the same balance of playfulness (e.g., “The Tom Green County Fair”) and depth (e.g., “Jody and the Kid”) that makes the best Roger Miller songs so memorable.

#1 Tell the Truth by Otis Redding (1970)

When I was growing up, the one artist gone too soon that I wished I could bring back was Jimi Hendrix. I would have loved to see what the guitar god could have done with drum machines and synthesizers and hip-hop beats. But in my age, I think I’d bring back someone different: Otis Redding.

Otis Redding died tragically in a plane crash at 26-years-old. His sole chart-topper, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” didn’t get to number one until after his death. Other posthumous releases have trickled out since then. Tell the Truth is one of those releases.

Largely culled from sessions in 1967, Tell the Truth captures Redding was at the top of his powers. What’s most astounding about this record is not just how good it sounds, but how in control Redding is.

It’s hard to overstate how much energy pours out of Otis Redding’s voice. For your average singer, that energy would quickly devolve into chaos. But Otis Redding is a military general, his band falling in line behind his commanding presence.

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When Radio Died

By Chris Dalla Riva

When I tell people that Sheriff’s “When I’m With You” is the strangest song to ever top the Billboard Hot 100, I’m often met with a confused look. Released in early 1983, “When I’m With You” sounds like a quintessential power ballad of the 1980s. It’s got the quiet keyboard intro, the slow building melody, the soaring chorus vocal, the gear shift key change, etc. It doesn’t seem like there’s much strange about “When I’m With You.”

Musically, there isn’t. It does indeed have the sound of a quintessential 1980s power ballad. But what it lacks in musical strangeness, it makes up for in the strange route it took to the top of the charts.

As noted, “When I’m With You” was released in early 1983. Later that year, it peaked at number 61 on the Billboard Hot 100. Sheriff didn’t last much longer than their small hit. They broke up in 1985 with some members continuing on as a duo called Frozen Ghost. Sheriff and “When I’m With You” were destined for musical obscurity.

Then something unexpected happened. In the fall of 1988, a DJ in Phoenix started spinning the five-year-old song as if it were new. Listeners liked it. Other DJs soon followed suit. By February, a song that had neither a group to promote it on the road nor a music video to do so on MTV was at number one—a near impossibility in the 1980s.

Of course, while the specific details of Sheriff’s journey to the top of the charts are unique, the general contours are not. For decades, radio would break hits. A station would start playing a local band. Listeners would call in to request to hear it again. Those requests would spread to other stations. Those additional radio spins would lead to sales. And, voilà, you were famous.

But this hit song trajectory seems to be from the distant past. I can name tons of songs from the last decade that first broke on TikTok. I can’t name one that did so on radio. Maybe Marconi’s miraculous invention is dead.

Can the Radio Still Make a Hit?

My main data source in this newsletter—and my first book, for that matter—is the Billboard Hot 100. The Hot 100’s goal is to aggregate every possible listening source in order to figure out what the true most popular song in America is. Back in the 1950s, that involved looking at physical sales, jukebox plays, and radio spins. These days, sales and radio still play a role, but streaming is also in the mix.

Along with this all-encompassing chart, Billboard also publishes component charts. For example, since the 1980s, they’ve had a Radio Songs chart, which ranks the songs getting played most on radio. Since the 2000s, they’ve had a digital downloads chart, which ranks the songs selling the most copies on internet music stores. And, of course, since the 2010s, they’ve had a streaming chart, which ranks the songs being played the most on Spotify, Apple Music, and the like. We can use these charts to understand where a hit first gains traction.

Let’s use “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down as an example. The song was originally released as a demo to the group’s local Mississippi radio station in late 1999. By May 2000, it had cracked into the top 50 of Billboard’s radio chart. There wasn’t enough sales interest to make it into the top half of the Hot 100 for another 7 weeks. In short, radio helped break “Kryptonite.”

By looking at how often a song is on Billboard’s radio chart before the Hot 100, we can gauge how often the airwaves are instrumental in making a song a hit. In the 1990s, 48.9% of songs made the radio chart at least a week before the Hot 100. Over the last three decades, that rate has fallen to 26.2%. In other words, radio is no longer setting trends. It is following them.

This is only part of the story, though. That last graph is looking at songs that charted on both the radio chart and the Hot 100. It’s possible to chart on one and not the other. For example, Madison Beer’s “Make You Mine” got to number 37 on the radio chart without ever cracking the Hot 100. Relatedly, Kanye West’s “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” got to number 41 on the Hot 100 without ever cracking the radio chart.

We are now seeing songs climb into the top half of the Hot 100 without even making the radio chart more frequently than ever before. In the 1990s, 32% of songs made the Hot 100 without charting on radio. In the 2020s, 64% of songs did.

Is Streaming Just the Radio?

If radio is a follower rather than a leader, then what really drives something up the charts? Is there a different early indicator? In one sense, it is streaming. During the 2020s, only 9% of songs have made the top half of the Hot 100 without charting on streaming.

But streaming isn’t an indicator in the same way that radio was. Streaming is all consuming. When something moves on streaming, it usually moves on the Hot 100. Streaming is just such a large component of that chart. In fact, so far this decade, 88.2% of songs that chart on streaming are on that Hot 100 in the same week.

If you want to find hits early, you’ve got to turn to social media. Billboard has tried this a few different times. In the 2010s, they tracked songs trending on Twitter. In the 2020s, they did the same for TikTok. These charts are usually short-lived, though. You’ve sadly got to have your nose in social apps rather than your ear to the radio if you want to find the next big thing.

Is TikTok Just the Radio?

It would be remiss not to mention that the reason that some songs charted on radio before the Hot 100 back in the day was because sometimes songs would be released only to radio first. The thinking was twofold. First, if a song got a good reception on radio, then it was worth a wide release, a much riskier proposition in the age of physical media. Second, if a song was already climbing the radio charts, then when the physical release came out, the pent up demand would push the song very high up the Hot 100 in its debut week.

This strategy doesn’t exist anymore. Now, Beyoncé—or your favorite pop star— pushes their music out everywhere at once. Radio stations, digital stores, and streaming services all have access together. The old world is dead.

@switchedonpop@sombr talks about how he usually doesn't have the song finished when he flashes it on TikTok, and uses it as a way to test audience feedback. Full interview on YT/Spotify/Apple.

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Kind of. Last year, sombr told the folks at Switched on Pop that he often doesn’t finish songs. He starts posting his ideas to TikTok and then chases whatever people respond to. If fans are begging for the full song, then it also bodes well for the song’s first-week chart performance.

In short, though we live in a very different world, the incentives remain the same. This makes it such that new tools are used in a similar way to how they were used decades ago. But it’s important to remember that all of this is secondary. You may get people to care about a song that isn’t good for a short time, but if you want to stick around, good music and lyrics are still the best way to go.

This week’s theme is “alliterative artists,” meaning albums by artists with a repeating consonant sounds at the beginning of at least two words in their name. If that description is confusing, let me give you a classic alliterative sentence: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” If that still don’t get it, just enjoy the music.

#7 Tomb of the Mutilated by Cannibal Corpse (1992)

Unless you are a metalhead, the only reason you likely have ever heard of Cannibal Corpse is because of Jim Carey. The comedian featured the group in his 1994 box office smash Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

The clip from Ace Venture is actually representative of the group’s sound. In fact, they are performing “Hammer Smashed Face,” probably the closest a death metal band has come to having a hit. Their music is brutal and ugly, gnarly riffs grinding away over endless double bass and blast beats.

I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like Tomb of the Mutilated. I’m just not that into anything much heavier than, say, Megadeth. Cannibal Corpse is a lot heavier than Megadeth. Their squealed, snorted, and screamed vocals are about as far outside my taste profile as you can get.

Despite my hate, I’m happy the vocals were like that. Cannibal Corpse lyrics are reprehensible. Even their song titles will make your most libertine friend grimace. The inability to understand what they were saying made the album slightly more listenable for me.

#6 Psychology by Pigeons Playing Ping Pong (2014)

I can imagine loving Psychology by Pigeons Playing Ping Pong in one of three situations:

1. Laying the grass very far away from the stage at a music festival

2. At your friend’s house, after smoking copious amounts of marijuana, and your friend’s older brother is controlling the stereo

3. In the audience at a college battle of the bands

I did not listen to this album in any of those situations. I listened while driving to the dentist for my biannual cleaning. (If you were curious, I had no cavities.)

To be clear, I did not hate this album. Psychology is a jam funk record with hints of reggae. Everyone in this alliterative band can play the hell out of their instruments and some of the songs are quite catchy (e.g., “Julia”).

Some jams going far too long aside, this album’s biggest problem is that the vocals are incredibly plain. It’s like everyone was so focused on perfecting their instrumental skills that they forgot they needed a singer with at least some personality.

#5 Totally Krossed Out by Kriss Kross (1992)

Kriss Kross—a rap duo composed of Chris “Mac Daddy” Kelly and Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith—first found success at 13-years-old with their Jermaine-Dupri-produced “Jump.” “Jump” is representative of the rest of their debut, Totally Krossed Out. It’s fun, light-hearted hip-hop made for children (e.g., “I Missed the Bus”) with more wiggity-wiggity-wiggity-whacks that you could possible imagine across 40 minutes.

#4 Christopher Cross by Christopher Cross (1979)

In 1970, Deep Purple was touring in the US when guitarist Ritchie Blackmore got sick before a gig in Texas. They decided to tap a local shredder to fill in: Christopher Cross.

If you’re familiar with the very, very soft music and crystalline vocal tone that made Christopher Cross famous on his self-titled debut, you’ll find this story hard to believe. The guy that wrote a radio friendly ballad about sailing can shred? Yes. Yes, he can.

Christopher Cross’s debut album is not where you should turn if you were looking for Eddie Van Halen-style guitar histrionics. But the album does have lots of tasteful lead guitar work from both Mr. Cross (e.g., “Ride Like the Wind”) and his friends, like Larry Carlton (e.g., “Say You’ll Be Mine”) and Eric Johnson (e.g., “Minstrel Gigolo”).

I do wish, as my friend Ken put it, that this album wasn’t very “one note.” Sonically, many of the songs blend together. And Cross’s vocals can get a bit a boring because there is little edge to his voice.

#3 It’s My Life by Talk Talk (1984)

Ken describes himself as “certified mid-1980s hater,” so it’s a miracle that he liked It’s My Life as much as he did. It’s easy to understand why he liked it, though. It’s My Life is a very melodic record. That doesn’t sound like much of a description. Nearly all popular music is melodic in some sense. And many songs on this album, like the title track, have memorable melodies.

But as you dig into the arrangements of many other tracks, like “Dum Dum Girl,” you will find great melodies lurking everywhere. Bass lines and synth progressions are as singable as the vocals. It’s in that melodicism that It’s My Life shines above many other similar albums from the 1980s.

#2 The Silver Tongued Devil and I by Kris Kristofferson (1971)

In Martin Scorsese’s classic Taxi Driver, antihero Travis Bickle is compared to a character from Kris Kristofferson’s “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33.” The fact that this happens provides a good way to understand Kristofferson’s sophomore album The Silver Tongued Devil and I. The characters Krisofferson can conjure and the stories he can tell are about as vivid as you will find in any song.

In terms of arrangements, most of this album employs simple country production with some horns and strings occasionally used to add color. But that simple production is vital to allow Kristofferson’s lyrics to transport you to another world.

#1 Boy Named Sue and Other Country Songs by Shel Silverstein (1969)

Though he is best known as a children’s author—writing such classics as The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and A Light in the Attic—Shel Silverstein was actually a prolific songwriter. Like his books, his songs were unique—humorous and idiosyncratic but oddly heartfelt.

His “Boy Named Sue” is the perfect illustration of this style. A man splits on his family not long after fathering a baby boy that he chooses to name Sue. All grown up, Sue runs into that “dirty, mangy dog that’s named [him] Sue” (i.e., his long-lost father) and gives him his comeuppance before the two make up.

Strange stories like these are all over Silverstein’s Boy Named Sue and Other Country Songs. But even stranger is the poet’s vocal delivery. Silverstein, in his odd rasp, is nearly yelling through many of these songs. Yet that delivery proves quite effective for these tongue-twisting tales.

Maybe even more effective is the deft, twangy production heard throughout this record. That was handled by Nashville legend and guitar god Chet Atkins. That production combined with clever songwriting and bizarre vocals makes for an album that is truly one of one.

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The Intergenerational Duet

By Chris Dalla Riva

Last month, Olivia Rodrigo released her latest record, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. While the album topped charts around the globe—the third time the young artist has done such—I think it was notable for a something unrelated to sales and critical accolades: “what’s wrong with me,” the tenth track on the album, featured Robert Smith, the frontman of The Cure.

Robert Smith isn’t foreign to collaboration. In 2003, for example, he sang on blink-182’s “All of This.” But he’s also not hopping on anybody’s song. It’s a special occasion to get Robert Smith in the studio. And that’s usually the case with most musical legends. You can’t just call Taylor Swift up and get her on your track because you have a good idea.

Or maybe you can. Over the last few years, it feels like more artists are collaborating across generations.

• Right around the same time that Olivia Rodrigo released her collaboration with Robert Smith, Sabrina Carpenter was on a song with Madonna

• Bruce Springsteen, not known for duets, has collaborated with Zach Bryan, Bleachers, The Killers, and The Gaslight Anthem over the last few years

• Elton John has been just as eager to join up with Britney Spears, Dua Lipa, and Ed Sheeran on a string of hits

These are all examples of what I have termed the “intergenerational duet,” a phenomenon that feels like it is becoming more prevalent by the day. I wanted to investigate (a) if this really is the case and (b) if so, where it came from.

Are the Young and the Old Singing Together More Often?

Let’s start by taking this somewhat fuzzy “intergenerational duet” concept and defining it specifically. To qualify, a song must be credited to two artists at least 15 years apart in age who don’t regularly perform together.

For example, in 1980 Olivia Newton-John and Andy Gibb had a hit with “I Can’t Help It.” While those two did not perform together regularly, this would not count as an intergenerational duet because Newton-John and Gibb were only born ten years apart. By contrast, Luther Vandross and Mariah Carey’s “Endless Love” would count because the two solo stars were born in 1951 and 1969, respectively. That’s an 18-year age gap.

When we plot intergenerational duets as a percentage of total hits, we notice a few things. First, the intergenerational duet has never been that popular. At its peak during the 2010s, 2.2% of top 40 hits and 3.1% of top 10 hits were intergenerational duets. In other words, it’s not like every other hit song was Gen Z singing with a Baby Boomer.

But at the same time, that’s not nothing. 2.2% of top 40 hits qualifying as intergenerational duets in the 2010s is still 36 hit songs. And some of those hits were huge, like “Baby” by Justin Bieber and Ludacris (17-year age gap), “Magic” by B.o.B. and Rivers Cuomo (18-year age gap), and “I Love It” by Lil Pump and Kanye West (23-year age gap).

It’s also worth noting that the intergenerational duet really takes shape in the 1980s. Yes, there were some earlier examples, like “Somethin' Stupid” by Nancy Sinatra and Frank Sinatra (25-year age gap) and “Too Much, Too Little, Too Late” by Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams (16-year age gap), but those are curiosities. A clear trend emerges during the Reagan years.

• Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson (16-year age gap)

• Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton (21-year age gap)

• Bryan Adams and Tina Turner (20-year age gap)

• Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin (21-year age gap)

• Aretha Franklin and George Michael (21-year age gap)

• George Michael and Elton John (16-year age gap)

It felt like the young and the old were getting together for a song every couple of weeks between 1980 and 1989. But why?

Understanding the Intergenerational Duet

This should go without saying, but musical duets were not new to the 1980s. They probably go back as far as music itself. But the 1980s saw stars from different eras recording hits more regularly than ever before. I think we need to point to a few things in order to understand this trend.

Increasing Life Expectancy

It’s harder to collaborate with your heroes if none of them are alive. Growing life expectancy thus makes the intergenerational duet viable. According to the Social Security Administration, US life expectancy was 66 and 73 for men and women respectively in 1930. By 1980, it had increased to 78 and 82.

While many of those gains were driven by decreases in infant mortality, older cohorts also felt the effects of antibiotics, vaccinations, and general improvements to public health. An incidental effect of this trend was more years to make music.

Musical Availability & Fidelity

While I was trying to debunk claims of musical stagnation last year, I used three songs to make my point: “June in January” by Bing Crosby, “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac, and “Mood” by 24kGoldn and iann dior. “June in January” was the biggest hit of 1934. “Dreams” topped the charts in 1977 and then resurged in 2020 based on a TikTok trend. “Mood” was at number one during the “Dreams” resurgence.

I picked these songs to create a vivid historical comparison. “Dreams” finding new listeners when “Mood” was topping the charts in 2020 would be like “June in January” doing the same when “Dreams” was out in 1977. Of course, this did not happen. Despite how I’ve noted that nostalgia is not new, kids weren’t re-discovering Bing Crosby just before he died in the late 1970s.

Part of the reason for this is that the music of the 1930s was stylistically different from music of the 1970s. But an even bigger part is audio fidelity. As I argue in my previous piece:

Between 1934 and 1977, there were huge improvements in the fidelity of recorded music. The slight hiss in the background of “June in January” suggests that it might as well have been recorded in a different century when compared to the pristine sound of “Dreams.” That’s not to say that “June in January” is bad. But there is a notable difference in the quality of the recording.

Compare “Dreams” to “Mood,” the song that was at number one when “Dreams” resurged in 2020. While the song “Mood” is as different from “Dreams” as “Dreams” is from “June in January,” the actually fidelity of the audio hasn’t changed that much. Most hits since the expansion of multitrack recording are going to sound pretty pristine.

Because of this, the music from the stars of yesteryear—like the stars themselves—has a better chance to live on. The ability to live on is also enhanced by availability. Of course, in the streaming age you can get your hands on almost anything. But by the 1980s, older music was also more accessible and playable to a younger generation.

This might not have been case earlier. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, there were constant format changes that rendered some older recordings obsolete. It wasn’t until Columbia invented the LP in 1948 that consensus began to emerge.

Formats did continue to evolve with the advent of cassettes and CDs. But the LP was the bedrock of the industry for long enough that older music was much more available to younger generations.

A More Professionalized Music Industry

Finally, it is worth noting that between the 1950s and 1980s, the music industry not only became more corporatized, financialized, and professionalized but got much better at making, breaking, and managing stars. The intergenerational duet thus became a tool to introduce older stars, like Aretha Franklin, to a new generation of fans.

All of these factors have persisted into the 21st century. And the rise of hip-hop and streaming has only made the intergenerational duet more viable. Hip-hop has always been a collaborative genre, rappers regularly featuring on one another’s songs. As the genre has dominated the charts over the last 30 years, duets—and intergenerational duets—have grown more common.

Streaming, as I’ve noted previously, has also created tremendous upside for duets: “You want some more streams with minimal effort? Just mute your vocal in the second verse of a song you’ve already released. Email that version to a potential collaborator. Have them re-sing the verse. Put it out. You’ve got a ‘new’ song without even having to leave your couch.”

Not only does this require little effort, but it’s beneficial to all participants. Streaming services link to all artists involved in a duet. Post Malone dueting with Dolly Parton is likely beneficial for both parties. Fans of the former will be exposed to the latter and can easily go listen to more of her music. The same holds for fans of the latter.

None of these incentives and structures are likely changing in the short term. So, if you’ve been waiting for Drake to collaborate with Willie Nelson, the chances have never been higher.

This week’s theme is “hip-hop groups,” meaning albums by hip-hop acts with at least three members. Though hip-hop has been dominated by solo stars over the last two decades, it was largely shaped by duos and groups during the 20th century. We wanted to dive into some of those groups to better understand the genre’s foundations.

#7 We Can’t Be Stopped by Geto Boys (1991 - Willie D, Scarface, Bushwick Bill, Prince Johnny C, DJ Ready Red)

I became interested in Geto Boys after hearing their laid back “Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta” in the 1999 comedic masterpiece Office Space. When this theme arose, I thought it was the perfect time check out some more music from the Houston hip-hop outfit.

There were moments that I enjoyed on this record. “Mind Playing Tricks On Me,” the surprise hit from We Can’t Be Stopped, has the same relaxed groove that drew me to “Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta.” But those moments were overwhelmed by what I thought was largely redundant lyricism and forgettable beats.

#6 The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (1982 - Grandmaster Flash, Kidd Creole, Keef Cowboy, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Scorpio, Raheim)

In one sense, The Message is the blueprint. Its combination of socially conscious rhymes (i.e., “The Message”) with braggadocios party music (i.e., “It’s Nasty”) maps out two core themes that rappers would use for decades to come.

But The Message is also a relic. First, the group’s namesake is Grandmaster Flash, a DJ. At the dawn of hip-hop, DJs—like Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, and Kool Herc—were the stars. Rappers played a vital but more ancillary role. This would change throughout the 1980s, emcees taking centerstage.

Additionally, some of this album is very clearly not hip-hop. “Dreamin',” for example, is an R&B ode to Stevie Wonder. “Scorpio” is a electro composition that foreshadows Daft Punk over a decade before the French duo ever made a beat. These things combine to make The Message a strange record, vital to any hip-hop head for its influence but also slight for its forays into unrelated genres.

#5 Most Known Unknown by Three 6 Mafia (2005 - Juicy J, DJ Paul, Crunchy Black)

A few months ago when discussing Ja Rule’s Blood in My Eye, I argued that the rapper “has one of the most compelling voices in the history of hip-hop.” I would make a similar claim regarding the emcees in Three 6 Mafia. These are gruff voices hypnotizing you over grim, Southern beats. I’d go so far as to claim that a grunt from Juicy J is more entertaining than a multi-syllabic bar from his contemporaries.

Nevertheless, Most Known Unknown lost me because of its length. The hour-and-fifteen minute run-time felt excessive, especially when the trio retreads much of the same ground musically and lyrically. Lop off 20 minutes from this thing, and I would probably have ranked it higher.

#4 Criminal Minded by Boogie Down Productions (1987 - Scott La Rock, KRS-One, Ced-Gee)

In some ways, Criminal Minded picks up where “The Message” left off, KRS-One painting vivid imagery of a rough-and-tumble life in the South Bronx. But Criminal Minded stands apart for two reasons.

First, rather than just describing the violence of the streets, Criminal Minded participates in it. Tracks like “9mm Goes Bang” and “The Bridge is Over” are invitations to attack. In fact, much of this record narrates an early beef between Bronx and Queens natives about where hip-hop was birthed. Boogie Down Productions (rightfully) places the origin in their home borough, the Bronx. In fact, “South Bronx,” Criminal Minded’s second track, is a history lesson of sorts.

Second, the production on Criminal Minded is sparser than anything the Furious Five created. A track like “Elementary,” for example, isn’t much more than a simple, programmed beat. But when you have an emcee as compelling as KRS-One, that’s all you need. Beats and rhymes. Everything else is just details.

#3 SATURATION III by BROCKHAMPTON (2017 - Kevin Abstract, Matt Champion, Joba, Ameer Vann, Dom McLennon, Merlyn Wood, Bearface, Romil Hemnani, Jabari Manwa, Kiko Merley, Henock “HK” Sileshi, Ashlan Grey, Robert Ontenient)

To describe BROCKHAMPTON as a “hip-hop group” is a bit deceptive. Yes, they are composed of rappers and producers. But they also list web designers and app developers as members. Because of that, I think “collective” more accurately captures what they do. It’s in this less structured type of organization that they stand apart.

On SATURATION III, you find off-the-wall, party beats (e.g., “BOOGIE). You find jazzy, lackadaisical flows (e.g., “LIQUID”). You also find incisive, self-reflective rhymes (e.g., “JOHNNY”). With so many members and so many styles, you’d expect this record to feel like a mess. But it doesn’t. There is enough musical and lyrical cohesion to maintain the collective’s center of gravity.

#2 Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde by The Pharcyde (1992 - Imani, Slimkid3, FatLip, Bootie Brown, J-Swift)

Where much hip-hop of the 1990s was dominated by the imagery of the streets, The Pharcyde—a group hailing from South Central Los Angeles—chose a different path. Their beats were jazzy (e.g., “Otha Fish”). Their rhymes were off-kilter and humorous (e.g., “Oh Shit”).

This style, exemplified by their debut album, Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, came to be known as “alternative hip-hop.” While I like many of the gangsta rap albums that dominated the last decade of the 20th century, I am admittedly more drawn to this alternative, spacey strain of the genre.

#1 Money, Power & Respect by The LOX (1998 - Jadakiss, Styles P, Sheek Louch)

This week we got to listen so many different styles of hip-hop (e.g., Southern, gangsta, alternative). But the most interesting part of our listening was how we got to track the evolution of New York hip-hop during the 20th century.

We heard the inventive samples of Grandmaster Flash that defined the 1970s. We heard the city’s sparse, punchy beats programmed a decade later by the likes of Boogie Down Productions. And then we got to Money, Power & Respect by The LOX, one of the finest examples of the Bad Boy style that captured the five boroughs during the 1990s.

Some records we heard this week felt one dimensional, the same ideas being repackaged for an hour (e.g., We Can’t Be Stopped by Geto Boys). But Money, Power & Respect gives you everything and more.

You’ve got silly, party music, like “If You Think I’m Jiggy.” You’ve got the in-your-face, boastful title track brought to life with the help of DMX and Lil' Kim. You’ve got some of the richest storytelling you’ll ever hear on a rap song, like “Bitches of Eastwick.” You’ve also got diverse, inventive beats (e.g., “Get This $,” “Goin’ Be Some Sh*t”). This is hip-hop at its finest, birthed boasting in the streets with beats that punch you in the face and leave you lightheaded.

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Pop Stars are Disappearing

By Chris Dalla Riva

Earlier this year, my sister put on some music when we were hanging out. I was really vibing with one of the songs, so I asked her who the artist was. “I,” she paused, “I don’t know.” I don’t expect my sister to have encyclopedic knowledge, but this was a song she specifically saved on Apple Music. “What do you mean you don’t know?” I asked. “You’re the one that put it on.”

She quickly explained. She heard the song in the background of a TikTok. She clicked the song, and then pressed the button within the app to save the song on Apple Music. From that point forward, she only heard it when she was shuffling her saved songs. In other words, she wasn’t lying. She both enjoyed the song and had no idea who performed it.

Though this situation struck me as strange, I came to realize that my sister wasn’t really at fault. Many people engage with music like this. Anonymous pop stars are lurking among us.

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This week’s theme is “supergroups,” meaning albums by groups where at least 50% of the members were already well known for either a previous group or solo career. The term is largely associated with rock music—the Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce outfit Cream often denoted as the first group of this ilk—so we largely stuck with that genre. Let us know your favorites.

#7 The Firm by The Firm (1985 - Paul Rodgers, Jimmy Page, Chris Slade, and Tony Franklin)

When I selected this album, Ken had no idea who was in The Firm. And he didn’t look it up until after he finished listening. “I can’t get past that being Jimmy Page on guitar,” he texted me after doing some research. “You start a band. You get Jimmy Page. Then he gives you that. It must have been a let down.”

He’s not being dramatic. This album is not good. Like many stars of the 1970s, Jimmy Page sounds lost amid the 1980s production. The only highlight is one moment on “Radioactive,” the album’s lead single. Just after the chorus, Page arpeggiates a run of diminished chords that remind you how inventive he can be.

#6 The Three Tenors in Concert, 1994 by The Three Tenors (1994 - José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti)

In celebration of the 1990 World Cup final, three of the world’s best regarded opera singers performed an internationally televised concert to over 800 million viewers. A recording of the concert quickly became the best-selling classical album of all time. As a result, those singers—José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti—decided to continue performing together. Their 1994 live album, also recorded on the eve of a World Cup finale, sold just as well as their debut.

Looking back, this whole situation seems almost fantastical. I can’t imagine a situation in 2026 where classical music, especially opera, would crossover into the mainstream. But before the internet fragmented media, it was much easier for something like this to happen. Put something a bit outside the pop culture sphere in front of hundreds of millions of people, and it’s possible the audience would connect.

At the same, it’s not that hard to understand why people enjoyed this. First, The Three Tenors are incredible singers. It doesn’t require much of an explanation to connect with Pavarotti singing “Nessun dorma” from Puccini’s Turandot. Second, these three classical music giants were also singing well known compositions. Breakfast at Tiffany’s “Moon River.” The Phantom of the Opera’s “All I Ask of You.” West Side Story’s “America.” And the audience loves it. When the group breaks into “Singin' in the Rain,” you can actually hear the audience laugh with surprise and giddiness.

To be clear, I don’t think many of these operatic versions of popular songs work very well. That’s why this album isn’t ranked higher. But they are fun. The one outlier is the trio’s rendition of “My Way.” Their version almost makes you not want to listen to the Frank Sinatra version ever again.

#5 Audioslave by Audioslave (2002 - Chris Cornell and Rage Against the Machine w/o Zack de la Rocha)

After Zack de la Rocha split from Rage Against the Machine in 2000, the three remaining members of the group went on the hunt for a new vocalist. At the suggestion of Rick Rubin, they tapped Chris Cornell, the former frontman of Soundgarden, and got to work.

Critics were not pleased. Pitchfork described the group’s self-titled debut as “the worst kind of studio rock album.” AllMusic’s noted that “many of the songs sound like they’re just on the verge of achieving liftoff, never quite reaching their potential.”

I understand some of this perspective. But I think most people’s view of Audioslave is influenced by their view of the earlier groups it evolved from. I don’t know much about Rage Against the Machine or Soundgarden beyond their hits. To my fresh ears, this was a worthwhile record. In fact, I might prefer Chris Cornell’s voice over Tom Morello’s riffs more than Zack de la Rocha.

#4 Them Crooked Vultures by Them Crooked Vultures (2009 - Josh Homme, John Paul Jones, and Dave Grohl)

Across his long life, John Paul Jones has only released original music with two groups: Led Zeppelin and Them Crooked Vultures. The former needs no introduction. The latter is a bit more obscure.

As early as 2005, Dave Grohl was hinting at recording with Josh Homme and John Paul Jones. But the group wouldn’t take the stage for another four years. When they did, they played almost 90 minutes of original music. That was a bold decision. Even if they had written some new songs, they could have peppered the set with songs by Foo Fighters and Led Zeppelin and Queens of the Stone Age and nobody would have complained. In fact, it probably would have led to lots of ticket sales. Their commitment to fully original music was worth it, though.

I’m not going to claim that the trio’s studio collaboration equals the efforts of any of their earlier groups. But it is a ton of fun. The riffs run for days, and John Paul Jones’ multi-instrument mastery brings great texture to the record. If they ever decided to get together again, I’d certainly listen.

#3 Highwayman by The Highwaymen (1985 - Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson)

There’s one perspective that this record is slight, four legendary country outlaws leaning toward then contemporary production to cash in on a handful of covers (e.g., “Against the Wind”). But that undersells what is going on here.

First, it’s a miracle that this album works at all. As Willie Nelson noted in his 2015 autobiography, “You wouldn’t think our four uneven voices would blend. But they did. They fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.”

This “jigsaw puzzle” is best illustrated by the title track, “Highwayman.” Originally written and recorded by Jimmy Webb, “Highwayman” tells the story of a soul reincarnated four times. Its first life is as a highwayman. Then it returns as a sailor, a a dam-builder, and starship captain in a faraway future. One member of the quartet vividly embodies each of these incarnations: Nelson the highwayman, Kristofferson the sailor, Jennings the dam-builder, and Cash the starship captain. Johnny Cash’s vocal here is particularly miraculous, a man whose voice sounds like it was pulled from the earth convincingly telling you how he’s flying a spaceship.

“Highwayman” is not only illustrative of how these distinctive voices work together, but it is also the best track on this record. And while none of the other songs manage to equal its magic, ever other track is such a joy because it’s clear that these men are having a good time. They’re singing lost verses on songs they’ve cut before (e.g., “Big River”). They’re breathing life into compositions by their heroes (e.g., “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)”). They’re also shining a light on the music of their friends (e.g., “The Twentieth Century Is Almost Over”).

#2 The Record by boygenius (2023 - Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus)

A few years before boygenius released their debut album, Phoebe Bridgers got in a fight on Twitter with another supergroup aficionado, David Crosby. Crosby’s problem was Bridgers recent performance on Saturday Night Live where the singer-songwriter smashed her guitar. “[I]t’s what you do when you can’t write,” the former Byrd opined about Bridgers’ antics. At the time, Bridgers was already respected as a songwriter, but if there were any remaining doubts, The Record put those to bed.

Of course, The Record is not only by Phoebe Bridgers. She’s paired up with fellow singer-songwriters Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. And the trio prove that their vocal harmony and songwriting skills are on par with any other group, including many of David Crosby’s groups from the 1960s and 1970s. If “Emily I’m Sorry” is not considered grade-A songwriting, then I don’t know what is.

#1 The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 3 by Traveling Wilburys (1990 - Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynn, and George Harrison)

I thought somebody was pulling a fast one on me when I first found out The Traveling Wilburys existed. My favorite singer (i.e., Roy Orbison) was in a band with my favorite songwriter (i.e., Bob Dylan), a Beatle (i.e., George Harrison), and one of the most inventive producers of the 1970s (i.e., Jeff Lynn). Oh, yeah, Tom Petty is there too. This can’t be real.

After realizing that it was real, my next thought was that there is no way it could work. No band needs five frontmen who play the guitar. The best I assumed this could go was like one of those disastrous Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts where they have 15 guys playing guitar and 8 playing drums. The Traveling Wilburys proved me wrong, though. They are real, and they are glorious.

Confusingly, The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 3 is the transatlantic group’s second record. Their first, backed by singles like “Handle With Care” and “End of the Line,” was more successful than the second. But despite the tragic death of Roy Orbison, the second is just as much fun.

Every supergroup has a choice. They can either lean into contemporary production to try to make something with mass appeal or just do whatever they like because they’ve already found success. The Firm illustrates the perils of the former. The Traveling Wilburys—making a humorous, light-hearted record steeped in the rock tradition of the 1950s and 1960s—illustrate the joys of the latter.

Both “Cool Dry Place” and “Wilbury Twist” are exemplars of this joy. The former is three-minute meditation on how to properly store tons of musical gear, including “organs and trombones.” The latter is a group theme song of sorts that plays on the scores of twists that have been released. Their twist involves putting your hand on your head, foot in the air, and hopping around in your underwear.

If you are famous musician reading this and thinking about forming a supergroup, please put your ego aside and just have a good time. If Bob Dylan and George Harrison can do it, so can you.

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Olney gave me the choice to share a few of his upcoming newsletters. I decided to go with the edition chronicling “Rocky Raccoon,” one of my least favorite songs by the Fab Four. Why would I choose the discussion of a song I dislike? Because the best best music writers can transform your view of something you didn’t think was worth your time.

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Every Beatles Song: “Rocky Raccoon”

By Charles Olney

Is Paul McCartney cool?

At one time this would have seemed like a ridiculous question. In the winter of 1966, Paul McCartney was probably one of the five or ten coolest people on earth.

• He was the guy who wrote “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Yesterday” and “Eleanor Rigby.”

• The guy who could sing like Little Richard, croon like Bing Crosby, and scream like Roger Daltry.

• He was a pioneer in electronic music, contributing the tape loops to the otherwordly “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

• He attended happenings, listened to John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, made experimental films, and basically ran an “eighteenth-century European salon” from his apartment.

• He was dating a beautiful actress.

• And to top it off, he was funny, charming, and devilishly good-looking.

But by the summer of 1968, you could start to ask some reasonable questions. Everyone had some good fun with his schmaltzy “When I’m Sixty-Four” on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but he wasn’t going to start doing “granny music” full-time. Was he? And it was pretty wild when he described Apple Corps as “a beautiful place where you can buy beautiful things … a controlled weirdness … a kind of Western communism.”

But for all the lofty ideals, it seemed liked Paul was actually more interested in the logistics and finances than in the lark. Was he secretly just a suit? There was the Magical Mystery Tour film, which was not just the Beatles first real critical flop, it was also clearly Paul’s personal baby. He went on the David Frost show after it aired, and seemed rather hurt that people were so dismissive. Not very cool behavior.

Then came The Beatles (aka The White Album), a far-reaching excursion through musical styles, some of which were about as far away from cool as you could imagine. Most notably, songs like “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da” and “Honey Pie,” which are both classic examples of Paul’s tendency to dabble in genre pastiche—something that would become more and more of a punchline over the following decades. Now, I happen to like both those songs pretty well myself, but I’m not going to pretend they’re “cool.”

I will, however, make the argument for some of the other pastiche songs on the album. Specifically, “Rocky Raccoon.” Which is every bit as cool a song as it is strange.

The McCartney Pastiche

The White Album represents a moment when The Beatles were bursting at the seams with creativity and felt free to populate the record with all sorts of experiments. But while there’s a tendency to think about this experimentation as something undertaken by “The Beatles,” it was actually almost entirely a Paul McCartney phenomenon.

Sure, the most famous (and weirdest) track on the record was a John and Yoko led production (i.e., “Revolution 9”), but almost all the other genre-busting songs were Paul’s. In addition to schmaltzy reggae (i.e., “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da”) and music hall (i.e., “Honey Pie”), he also riffed on Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys (i.e., “Back in the USSR”), tape loops (i.e., “Wild Honey Pie”), proto-metal (i.e., “Helter Skelter”), piano-based chamber music (i.e., “Martha My Dear”), acoustic folk (i.e., “Blackbird” and “Mother Nature’s Son”), grimy R&B (i.e., “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road”), and even a bit of straightforward, riff-heavy rock and roll (i.e., “Birthday”). And, of course, a country-folk ballad about love and revenge: “Rocky Raccoon.”

It says something important about Paul that he was able to invest—genuinely and seriously—in making art across all of these different styles. Not by sending them up, but by actually trying to make something reasonably authentic. Like the kid who needs to take apart a toy so that she can learn to rebuild it, he is always looking to get inside what makes these genres work. And then reconstructing them from the ground up to make them his own. Because he’s not simply a collector or imitator; the end goal is always still to write a song that will sound totally and distinctly like the product of Paul McCartney.

Generations of beard-stroking rock critics have mocked Paul for his interest in such corny genres. But while there’s undoubtedly a superficial sort of “cool” that comes from ironic detachment or mockery, it’s far cooler to actually care about things enough to create something interesting out of them.

And “Rocky Raccoon” is a perfect example.

Rocky Raccoon: A Hero in Our Time

It starts with a “talking blues” introduction (“Now somewhere in the black mining hills of Dakota, there lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon”) that primes the listener to expect something old-fashioned. As he winds his way through the setup, we’re provided with the inciting incident (“his woman ran off with another guy”) and Rocky’s search for justice. A light harmonica hit from John ushers in the main section of the song, and Paul shifts from speak-singing to a more traditional, lilting singalong style.

As we enter the main verse, Paul supplies us with some classic McCartney lyrical meanderings—words that don’t necessarily mean anything exactly, but which convey a peculiar otherworldliness. You get the sense that many of these were placeholder lyrics that were initially used to work out the song’s rhythm, but which he never actually changed, because it turns out that they actually enhance the song’s off-kilter vibe. There’s the appearance of Gideon’s Bible in Rocky’s room, the confusing account of his lost paramour (“Her name was Magill, and she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy”), and Rocky’s somewhat misguided plan to “shoot off the legs of his rival.”

This slow reveal of the ascending action is built upon a circular chord progression that could in theory allow the song to extend out infinitely into the distance. Which is another perfect execution of pastiche—the song which is designed to give the storyteller the room to say all that needs to be said. In this respect, “Rocky Raccoon” is clearly inspired by Dylan and his own inspiration in those sort of folk traditions.

Then, as the action rises in the next verse, the harmonica takes on a more prominent role, pulling us toward the inevitable confrontation. The rhythm track, which started out quite sparse, and has been building slowly over the opening two minutes, finally reaches the tipping point. Rocky is shot, and the song enters its own hoedown break, accentuated by a great bit of honky-tonk piano from George Martin.

As the verse returns, Rocky is looked after by the drunken doctor, stumbles back to his room, and rediscovers Gideon’s Bible. And we are treated to one final rousing hoedown, before the fadeout into “Don’t Pass Me By.”

Earnestness and The Illusion of Cool

It’s a very silly song, and more than a bit shaggy. But it’s also utterly charming. And it’s quite an impressive achievement to produce something in a style so alien to the Beatles sound, and to have it come out so well.

Not only does it sound like a very effective bit of folk-country pastiche, the story itself has the delightful ring of loving parody: A small morality play about lost love, retribution, humiliation, and a tiny hint of redemption. Rocky is defeated, stitched back together by the doctor, and returns to his room. Where there’s perhaps some small chance he might also be stitched back together spiritually. So yes, it’s a fundamentally rather goofy song. But I think—like all the best McCartney pastiches—it has a real heart.

And that’s the whole thing with Paul. The indelible earnestness to his affect is a constant anchor to his cool quotient. But that earnestness is also a big part of what makes him so cool. Especially in the present era of the hard-working superstar (e.g., Taylor Swifts, Beyoncé), where Paul’s tryhardism plays a bit cooler than it might have in the 1980s or 1990s.

It’s also a surprisingly catchy song. That may not be clear the first time you listen, and I can understand the folks who might call it filler. But the more time I spend with it, the deeper it lodges itself. Of all the great songs in the history of music, there’s a tiny fraction that live regularly in my head. The songs that I find myself humming as I do laundry or wash dishes. The songs that I sing to my kids while we’re out for a walk. “Rocky Raccoon” is one of them.

I always felt a bit self-conscious about that. In my mind, it was correctly understood as a marginal Beatles track. A bit of fun, perhaps, but not something you could appreciate in a serious way. Fortunately, as the years passed and I grew a bit more comfortable in my own taste, I settled into an unabashed appreciation.

That has also been bolstered thanks to some covers and alternate versions, each of which provide a bit more insight into the construction and beauty of the song. The version from Anthology 3, for example, demonstrates a bit more dynamic range. That’s especially true in the back half of the track, largely thanks to Paul’s vocal flub (“sminking of gin”) which ruins the take and leaves him free to play around a bit.

You can also really grasp the song in a new way through the Richie Havens cover, which actually was a minor hit in 1969.

It’s so good! And really makes the line about Rocky’s revival hit a bit harder. This performance is a bit of musical revival.

There’s also a lovely Phoebe Bridgers cover, which feels like a lost alt-folk classic that highlights how beautiful the chord progression actually is.

One final bit of fun is that Andy Partridge of XTC was called “Rocky” when he was a kid because he always carried a guitar around but the only song he could play was “Rocky Raccoon.” And, as quite a few folks have noted over the years, “Dear God” (maybe my favorite XTC song) sounds quite a bit like Rocky Raccoon.

Want more deep analysis of Beatles songs? Subscribe to ’s Oh That Magic Feeling to follow along on his Beatles journey.

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This week’s theme is “punk ladies,” meaning punk albums released by bands where at least 50% of the members are women. This theme was inspired by , whose work over the years has made me realize that my knowledge of women in punk is severely lacking. Please note that we are defining “punk” very broadly here. We didn’t want to get in any arguments about categorization and semantics.

#7 Yo Fui Una Adolescente Terrosatánica by Ultrasonicas (1999)

Punk is known for its D.I.Y. aesthetics, cutting recordings with nothing more than a half-functioning tape machine and the right attitude. The Ultrasonicas, one of the most prominent Mexican punk bands, fit in that aesthetic lineage. But their attitude and their songs cannot compensate for the fact that these recordings do not sound good.

“Fuck the Mall” is probably the worst sounding recording we’ve heard this year, the drums reminiscent of someone trying to clap underwater and the guitars so squashed that you might think they were recorded by mistake.

Still, there are some decent moments on this album. The group’s Spanish language covers of Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf” (“Dulce Hoja”) and The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” (“Quiero Ser Tu Perra”) are enjoyable. But much of the rest feels redundant, surf riffs recycled a few too many times.

#6 The Raincoats by The Raincoats (1979)

When Rough Trade reissued The Raincoats first three records in 1992, Kurt Cobain wrote some liner notes:

I don’t really know anything about the Raincoats except that they recorded some music that has affected me so much that, whenever I hear it I’m reminded of a particular time in my life when I was (shall we say) extremely unhappy, lonely, and bored. If it weren’t for the luxury of putting that scratchy copy of the Raincoats’ first record, I would have had very few moments of peace. I suppose I could have researched a bit of history about the band but I feel it’s more important to delineate the way I feel and how they sound. When I listen to the Raincoats I feel as if I’m a stowaway in an attic, violating and in the dark. Rather than listening to them I feel like I’m listening in on them. We’re together in the same old house and I have to be completely still or they will hear me spying from above and, if I get caught—everything will be ruined because it’s their thing.

I can’t imagine writing a nicer thing about a band: Their music touches you so deeply that they neither require nor warrant any explanation. On the B-side of this record, I could see what Cobain was getting at. Songs like “The Void” and “You’re a Million” are trance-inducing, especially with their inventive use of violin, a punk rarity.

The A-side did less for me, though. I was surprised by this given that it contains the group’s three most streamed songs: “Fairytale in the Supermarket,” “No Side to Fall In,” and a cover of The Kinks’ “Lola.” While many records this week push your standard conception of pitch, rhythm, and tuning to their limits, some of these songs went a bit too far for my taste.

#5 Growing Up by The Linda Lindas (2022)

The Linda Lindas, a group of teen and pre-teen women Los Angelenos, splashed on the scene when a video of them performing their song “Racist, Sexist Boy” at their local library went viral in 2021. The virality is easy to understand. “Racist, Sexist Boy” is punk at its most visceral, stripped to its bare bones, its message encoded in the crunchy guitar tone and stomping rhythms as much as it is in the lyrics.

Though the rest of the group’s debut album, Growing Up, lacks the power of “Racist, Sexist Boy”—in fact, I think you’d best describe the collection as a “pop punk”—there are some skillful, catchy tunes. The descending riff on “Nino,” an ode to a “savage cat,” has great energy. The title track has a chorus that will bounce around in your head for days. “Oh!” might even give Paramore a run for their money.

#4 The 5.6.7.8’s by The 5.6.7.8’s (1994)

Is “Surfin' Bird” by The Trashmen a punk record? I know I said that “We didn’t want to get in any arguments about categorization and semantics,” but bear with me for a second.

“Surfin' Bird” was recorded in 1963 and is effectively an off-the-wall mash-up of two songs by the doo-wop group The Rivingtons: “Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow” and “The Bird’s the Word.” Given its name and release date, you’d probably assume that “Surfin' Bird” is a surf rock record. And it probably is. But given that it’s been covered by loads of punk bands, including the Ramones and The Cramps, you could at least call it “proto-punk” without anyone getting mad.

The reason I bring this up is because The 5.6.7.8’s self-titled record is very rocking and surfing. With song names like “Arkansas Twist,” “Rockin' Rochester,” and “Oriental Rock,” you might assume that this album came out in 1962. It did not it. It came out of Japan in 1994 and made its way to the West when Quentin Tarantino featured the group performing this album’s “I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield” in Kill Bill: Volume 1.

So, is it punk? A fuzzed-out cover of Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally” suggests that it might be. But that’s still a cover of a rock and roll song from 1956. So, maybe not. But just like “Surfin' Bird,” The 5.6.7.8’s is worth the price of admission no matter what you call it.

This piece tells the oft-misreported tale of the development of the concept album, or an album focused around a particular story or theme. Given that at the end of this piece, Deiboldt asks for people to submit their favorite concept records, I’ll submit an obscure one originally recommended to me by : Manhattan Transfer by Gordon Jenkins. That goes back to 1946, further in the past than you probably thought the concept album went. But I’ll let AJ Deiboldt tell you the full story.

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Who Really Invented The Concept Album?

By AJ Deiboldt

When The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on May 26, 1967, it was almost immediately hailed as an artistic watermark for popular culture. Seen as a soundtrack to the hippie movement, it was an advocation of psychedelia and the culture surrounding it. It was also a means to bridge older fans and new as well as the first shot in rock music being taken seriously as an art form. It was the first album to have printed lyrics, and its cover photo was innovative in many ways.

But the other thing Sgt. Pepper’s gets credit for is for allegedly being the first “concept album.” For those uninitiated, a concept album is a record where all the songs tell an overarching story or consciously relate to a particular theme. When rock critics, fans, and scholars talk about concept albums, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is often one of the first albums mentioned. But what’s interesting about this is that while The Beatles had talked about the possibility of it being a concept album, depending on who you ask, it either is or it isn’t. According to producer George Martin:

“Sergeant Pepper” itself didn’t appear until halfway through making the album. It was Paul’s song, just an ordinary rock number ... but when we had finished it, Paul said, “Why don’t we make the album as though the Pepper band really existed, as though Sergeant Pepper was making the record? We’ll dub in effects and things.” I loved the idea, and from that moment on it was as though Pepper had a life of its own.”

John Lennon however had a different take:

Sgt. Pepper is called the first concept album, but it doesn’t go anywhere. All my contributions to the album have nothing to do with this idea of Sgt. Pepper and his band; but it works cause we said it worked … But it was not as put together as it sounds, except for "Sgt. Pepper introducing Billy Shears and the so-called reprise. Every other song could have been on any other album.

Regardless of whether Sgt. Pepper is a concept album or not, it couldn’t have been the first because there were previously released concept albums that McCartney used as inspiration when he first conceived of the idea of a fictional band playing a show. Among them were Frank Zappa’s Freak Out! (1966) and Frank Sinatra’s Songs For Swinging Lovers! (1956.)

Ol’ Blue Eyes & His Concept Albums

When I started this piece, I’d intended to show that while the Beatles are the ones who get credited with inventing the concept album, the actual inventor was an unlikely one: Frank Sinatra. His excellent concept record In The Wee Small Hours from 1955 is the lovelorn flip side to his previous Songs For Swinging Lovers! with a moody cover painting to match.

Sinatra had a knack for creating thematic moods with his song choices and vocal performances, ones that often reflected the circumstances of his life, and these would be only two of several concept records Sinatra would release throughout his life.

But as much as I love the idea of something that helped shape rock n roll into a serious art form being invented by an artist that rock helped push to the cultural margins, in this case, even Sinatra himself was beaten to the punch by another contender in 1940.

Woody Guthrie and the Dust Bowl

Enter the OG working class hero Woody Guthrie. Influenced by things he’d seen growing up in Oklahoma, as well as John Steinbeck’s seminal The Grapes Of Wrath, Dust Bowl Ballads remains Guthrie’s most popular record. On it, Guthrie alternates between delivering almost news report style accounts of the events of the Great Depression-era conditions in the American Midwest and telling tales from the perspectives of the people who were victims of the Dust Bowl heading West for a better life.

What many of the characters on the album find, much like their real life counterparts, is that even after a hellish journey from the Dust Bowl back east, money, cultural differences, and health issues would still make their lives difficult even in the “promised land” that was California. It’s a heart wrenching listen from beginning to end, in part because Guthrie isn’t making it up. Even the somewhat comedic moments like “Talkin’ Dust Bowl Blues” and “Dust Pneumonia Blues” still have a dark undercurrent to them.

Originally released on RCA Victor Records in July of 1940, Dust Bowl Ballads was issued as two three-record sets of 78 rpm discs that contained a single song on each side. The exception to this was “Tom Joad,” which was too long to fit on a single side in its entirety and as such was broken up into two separate parts. As you can see from the picture above, this type of package is where the term “album” comes from.

Eventually it went out of print leaving Guthrie to unsuccessfully petition the label to reissue it as an LP. Upon their refusal, Guthrie permitted Folkways Records to reissue it as an 8 song LP with an altered track listing that was split into two parts, furthering the concept of the record: “Dust Bowl Ballads” and “Migrant Worker’s Songs.” Folkways decided to reissue the album again in 1964, a move which evoked a protest from the record’s original label, RCA Victor. The label eventually backed off after Guthrie gave Folkways his blessing to do the reissue.

Different from their previous offering, this reissue would recreate the original track sequence while combining “Tom Joad” into a single number. A final reissue in 2000 from Buddha Records would reshuffle the track sequence again and add a previously unissued take of “Talking Dust Bowl Blues.” I created a playlist that recreates the original track sequence from the RCA and 1964 Folkways releases while adding in songs that weren’t included on the original.

Non-Concept Record Concept Music

Even though Woody Guthrie made the first ever concept album, there were musicians thinking along those lines before him. The only problem was that technology wasn’t advanced enough in their time to be able to make albums out of their works. One of my personal favorites is Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, which follows a lovesick young man’s dream-become-a-nightmare following a non-fatal opium overdose.

After attempting unsuccessfully to poison himself due his feelings of love being unrequited, he dreams of meeting his love interest at a ball, jealously murdering her, being executed for his crime, and subsequently being condemned to Hell. It’s an example of what’s called “programmatic music,” or music that tells a story.

There’s also Richard Wagner’s The Ring Of Niebelung, which sees Wagner’s epic tale unfolding over the course of four separate operas that ideally would be performed over the course of multiple days. The entirety of this epic work took Wagner 26 years to write.

Lighter but no less compelling examples of concept music include Prokofiev’s Peter & The Wolf, Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote, and Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets.’

Epilogue

So there you have it! I was always curious about where the concept album came from, who originated it, and when, so if you’ve gotten this far, thanks for taking this epic journey with me. But do me a favor and let me know what your favorite concept albums!

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A self-described pop obsessive, Eric publishes a weekly column tracking what’s trending on the charts and why, as well as longer essays analyzing key moments from pop’s past and present, whether that’s Mariah Carey’s dominance of the 90’s or Chappell Roan’s unconventional release strategy. He recently wrapped up publishing a collection of guest essays called Resurrection which traces some of the biggest comeback moments in pop history and why they matter.

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Adapt or Die: How Country Took Rap’s Place Atop The Charts

By Eric of Track Ten

At first glance, Beyoncé and Post Malone may not seem to have much in common beyond their unexpected collaboration “LEVII’S JEANS.” Both artists, though, have the distinction of hitting number one on both Billboard’s Hot Rap Songs and its Hot Country Songs charts in the past decade.

Post Malone first topped the Rap chart with “Rockstar” featuring 21 Savage for 15 weeks in 2017, and Beyoncé spent three weeks at #1 in 2020 as the guest on Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage.” Jump forward to 2024, and both earned the top slot on the Country chart, Beyoncé with “Texas Hold ‘Em” for 10 weeks and Post Malone with “I Had Some Help” featuring Morgan Wallen for seven.

Why were artists who had success with rap suddenly pivoting to country? Well, all four of these songs also hit #1 on the all-genre Hot 100. What Bey and Posty seemed to realize was that the tide was turning in pop music, and rather than fight the current, they decided to swim with it. This wasn’t the only sign showing me that rap was no longer at the top of its game and that country was the genre usurping it. But two artists aren’t enough to prove a trend, so I set out to see if the data backs it up.

Billboard’s charts, including the all-genre Hot 100, Hot Country Songs, and Hot Rap Songs, all use a formula which incorporates streaming, radio, and sales to count down the most popular songs in America. I didn’t want to arbitrarily label songs on the Hot 100 as country or rap, but instead to see which hits among country and rap listeners were crossing over to the mainstream.

To do this, I catalogued all songs that went #1 on the Hot Country and Hot Rap Songs charts from 2010 through 2025. Then, I assessed their peak on the Hot 100 in the year they hit #1. Of these songs, I analyzed the data to see the percentage that hit the Hot 100’s top ten, top five, or #1 slot.

Is Rap Really Past Its Peak?

From 2010 to 2020, 86 songs went #1 on the Hot Rap songs chart and 79% of those songs became a Hot 100 top ten hit. These hits aren’t evenly distributed. The story of Rap #1s during the 2010s goes from underdog, to contender, to absolute domination. To illustrate this, let’s look at the most dominant rapper of this period, Drake.

In 2012, Drake’s “The Motto” managed to spend 14 weeks at #1 on Hot Rap songs without cracking the top ten of the Hot 100. By 2015, a song like “Hotline Bling”—tied for second most weeks at #1 on the Rap chart that decade with 18—was reaching a very comfortable top five peak of #2 on the Hot 100. From 2017-2020, though? Drake had four #1 hits on Hot Rap Songs, each hitting #1 on the Hot 100 for 30 total weeks.

Beyond Drake, across Rap #1s from 2017 to 2020, every one hit the Hot 100 top five, but that golden era wasn’t made to last forever. Since then, rap took a dip that it has never fully recovered from. Again, Drake proves illustrative, with his takeover of pop music beginning to wane in 2020 to 2022. His four Rap #1s of this period each hit #1 on the Hot 100, but for only one week, compared to the eight-plus weeks for earlier hits.

Then in 2022, the unthinkable happened: Drake’s “Rich Flex” with 21 Savage missed #1, peaking at #2 on the Hot 100. Beyond rap’s top performer, 2021 saw a massive drop in rap top fives from 100% down to 64%. Despite some uptick in between, 2025 left rap even worse off, with only 60% of #1s making the top five. This was matched in top tens, the lowest percentage to reach the tier since 2012.

Part of rap’s decline can be attributed to the timeless story of a sound or style becoming so dominant that it’s no longer cool. As Daniel Parris writes, one hypothesis for rap ceding the top spot is that like rock before it, rap became so commercially saturated that it lost its affiliation as the music of youth culture. But where Parris sees rap’s failure to keep innovating, I see rap failing to adapt to the sonic landscape of the 2020s in a way that goes beyond just cultural momentum.

Country’s Rise Is Part of a Sonic Shift in Pop

From 2010 to 2020, 79% of rap #1s went top ten while only 6% country #1s did the same. In the 2020s, though, trends began to change and country saw an uptick in popularity. There was only one country star who dominated the transitional moment the way Drake did in the late 2010s: Morgan Wallen.

In 2019, his first Country #1, “Whiskey Glasses,” only peaked at #17, but his next five #1s all went top ten on the Hot 100 from 2020 to 2022. The takeoff really accelerated in 2023, though, when “Last Night” hit #1 on the Hot 100, going on to spend a massive 16 weeks at #1.

With Wallen leading the charge, 2023 became the first year where every country #1 also hit the top ten on the Hot 100. Since then, he has topped the Hot 100 three more times, including six weeks alongside Post Malone on “I Had Some Help” for a total of 24 weeks at #1.

Beyond Wallen, every country #1 over the last three years has gone top ten on the Hot 100, showing just how strongly the genre is resonating with mainstream audiences. While artists like Beyoncé and Post Malone are following suit explicitly, it’s not as though every #1 on the Hot 100 is a country song. What we do see, though, is that on average, #1s sound a lot different than they did in the 2010s, and the trends line up well with country’s traditional sound.

In the late 2010s, the sonic elements that made rap songs of the era popular—like strong basslines, synth production, and danceability—were present across pop. Taylor Swift was topping the charts in 2015 with bombastic, bass-y pop songs like “Bad Blood,” which included a rap verse from Kendrick Lamar. Meanwhile in 2025, Swift’s #1-charting “The Fate of Ophelia” uses piano, hand claps, and live instrumentation.

The actual sound of popular music in 2025 is significantly different from that of the 2010s, and we can measure this using Spotify metadata. The streamer assigns scores out of 100 to every song in categories, like “acousticness” and “danceability,” that allow us to numerically track what sounds are trending. Weighted for total weeks spent at #1, the chart below shows danceability on the y-axis and acousticness on the x-axis for all the #1 hits of 2015 and 2025.

From 2015 to 2025, the average song dropped 10 points in danceability while becoming 15 points more acoustic. This means an outlier for 2015 like “Hello” by Adele (58 danceability, 33 acousticness), would be pretty close to the norm in 2025 (63 average danceability, 33 average acousticness). This includes tracks across genres, like “Ordinary” by Alex Warren and “Manchild” by Sabrina Carpenter, but has provided an opportunity for country music in particular to take over the charts because its sound is aligned with the broader trends.

Country’s traditional sound, leaning on acoustic-sounding live instruments and without the sort of percussion and bass styles that make a song “danceable,” is particularly well-suited to the sonic moment. But that doesn’t explain why rap as a genre isn’t adapting to the moment.

Is It Too Late For Rap to Stage a Comeback?

Rap of the 2010s relied on rhythmic basslines and synthesizers (or samples) rather than live instrumentation, sounds that are no longer topping the Hot 100. But rap originated as “rhythm and poetry,” in reality a style of vocal delivery more than a specific production sound. There’s no reason that rappers couldn’t adapt to the rising acousticness while retaining the core identity of Rap.

In fact, Kendrick Lamar provides us with a great example of what happens when rappers do adapt. He had two shorter-running Hot 100 #1s in 2024 with “Squabble Up” (1 week) and “Not Like Us” (3 weeks) built around more typical 2010s Rap sounds: synths, 808s, and drum programming. However, follow-up single “Luther” featuring SZA opens with guitars and is built around a serene Luther Vandross sample and orchestral elements. “Luther” went on to spend 13 weeks at #1, more than three times the total of the previous two singles combined.

In general, though, rappers are not taking this route and are seeing fewer rap hits on the Hot 100 as a result. Compare “Luther” to fellow 2024 Rap #1 “Sticky” by Tyler, the Creator. While the latter always hits hard on my gym playlist, the production just isn’t suited to the sounds of the moment. Where Kendrick hit #1, Tyler only reached #10.

Rap is coming out of a period where the songs that were most popular among rap fans were also the most popular songs in America. While that’s not the case today, music fans love a comeback (in fact, I’ve published a whole series about “resurrection” in pop music). Rap’s late 2010s streak was actually a comeback: in 2003, five Rap #1s went #1 on the Hot 100, then in 2012 not a single one did, before Drake eventually led a rebound for the genre. Country has gone through ebbs and flows of popularity, too, as Chris has previously written about.

Rappers will need to decide whether they want to lean into what’s popular, or double down on making the sort of songs that were hits in the late 2010s. Kendrick shows us that rap can still hit #1, but leaning into the mellower sound of the moment makes it more likely to connect with wider audiences.

In 2026, Country has ascended to the top and Rap is just doing its best to stay afloat on the charts. The thing about pop music, though, is that as soon as we adapt to the new normal, you can be sure another trend is coming to take its place. By 2030, if not sooner, you can expect the takes on the death of country music to start piling up. Maybe then I’ll be writing a follow up on the emerging dominance of polka.

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This week’s theme is “short and sweet,” meaning albums that run for 25 minutes or less. Inspired by last week’s “long closers” theme, it’s actually harder than you think to find albums below the 25-minute mark. There are lots of albums shorter than 30 minutes. There aren’t as many shorter than 25, especially when you’re looking for records with at least eight tracks.

#8 to hell with it by PinkPanthress (2021 - 10 songs, 18 min. 36 sec.)

PinkPanthress is one of those artists you know even if you don’t think you do. Many of her songs have gone viral on TikTok, like “Illegal,” whose opening lines have soundtracked nearly 12 million videos.

Sonically, “Illegal” is similar to the songs on PinkPanthress’s debut album, to hell with it. Soft, near-spoken vocals over nostalgia-soaked synths and a tornado of dance beats. That said, the two-and-a-half minute runtime of “Illegal” is longer than basically everything on to hell with it.

“I just get kind of tired of hearing the same melodies too much over and over,” PinkPanthress told NPR in 2021. “It feels awkward for me to write any more than I feel like I have to.” I actually found that attitude to be a problem on this record. The warmest moments on “Pain” and nicest melodies on “Just for Me” had no time to breathe. There’s a reason people turn to the three-minute, verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus song form again and again.

#7 Some Rap Songs by Earl Sweatshirt (2018 - 15 songs, 24 min. 47 sec.)

Though I enjoy Earl Sweatshirt’s laid back, woozy flows on Some Rap Songs, he felt like he was out of ideas about half way through. That’s a bad sign when your record’s runtime is just shy of 25 minutes. It’s also a bad sign on a rap record, especially one defined by lyricism, that my favorite song was the “Riot!,” the instrumental closer that’s a simple flip of Hugh Masekela’s 1968 number one hit, “Grazing in the Grass.”

#6 1000 gecs by 100 gecs (2019 - 10 songs, 23 min. 5 sec.)

100 gecs emerged in the 2010s as one of the quintessential artists in a new style: hyperpop. “Hyperpop” is the perfect name for that style. It takes every trope of 21st century (electronic) pop, ratchets it up to 11, and smashes it together with weird, digital noises. It is pop music fed back on itself ad infinitum.

With that in mind, 1000 gecs is probably unlike most things you have heard. It’s got silly songs, like “stupid horse,” that bring a reggae skank to the digital age. It’s got whiplash-inducing pieces, like “800 db cloud,” that start off with gentle melodies before devolving into heavy metal-style groans over a cacophony of distortion. The track list is also filled with strange track titles, like “xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_üXXx.”

But amid all this madness, there is genuine beauty. A song, like “ringtone,” opening with the repeated lines, “My boy’s got his own ringtone / It’s the only one I know, it’s the only one I know,” is as heartwarming as a simple love song out of Tin Pan Alley.

#5 Loose Jewels by Diarrhea Planet (2011 - 11 songs, 18 min. 45 sec.)

When I reviewed Butthole Surfers’ Independent Worm Saloon last week, I noted, “[T]here are certain [band] names that I find so off-putting that they almost prevent me from ever wanting to take a listen. The two that come to mind are Diarrhea Planet and the Butthole Surfers.” Because I said something snarky to Ken the other day, he decided to make us listen to a short and sweet record by Diarrhea Planet. The joke is on him, though. I really liked this album.

Loose Jewels is a fun, punchy punk record with more gang vocals than some groups utilize over their entire career. While those gang vocals might get tired on a 45-minute LP, the brisk 18 minutes here almost leave you asking for just one more as the record fades out.

#4 The Punch Line by Minutemen (1981 - 18 songs, 15 min. 6 sec.)

If Loose Jewels is a “punchy punk record,” then The Punch Line is the punchiest punk record. Cranking through 18 songs in 15 minutes—naturally all recorded in a single late-night session—the aptly named Minutemen waste no time on this record. What’s most astounding is that, in the words of Ken, “No song felt like it cut short.” Sometimes 52 seconds is all you need.

#3 Whack World by Tierra Whack (2018 - 15 songs, 14 min. 56 sec.)

In 2018, The New Yorker noted, Tierra Whack gave herself a challenge: “[W]rite fifteen songs, none longer than sixty seconds.” Part of this challenge was artistic. The Philadelphia singer-songwriter wanted to see what she could create on such a small canvas. But another part was technological. At the time, Instagram limited video clips to one minute. The brevity of her songs allowed Whack to debut each song in totality on the social media platform.

But this does not leave Whack World as a vestige of an earlier social media era. These minute-long creations are bold and expansive, the listener being transported to a fully formed scenes, no setup needed. “Flea Market” is sultry R&B. “Fuck Off” is country send-up months before Lil Nas X tried to do the same with the equally brief “Old Town Road.” “Silly Sam” is a waltzing ballad over simple guitar arpeggio. There’s not much more you can do in a minute.

#2 That Stubborn Kinda' Fellow by Marvin Gaye (1963 - 10 songs, 25 min. 6 sec.)

When people talk about Marvin Gaye’s greatest works, they often point to his masterful 1970s albums What’s Going On, Let’s Get It On, and Here My Dear, along with a smattering of 1960s singles, including “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” But I think Gaye might have been at his best when he was still firmly within the Motown machine, his voice giving Sam Cooke a run for his money on some of the most tightly written pop songs yet imagined.

Three stray observations about this record. First, “Soldier’s Plea” is a clear response to The Shirelles then recent number one hit “Soldier Boy.” This pair, along with other songs like Bobby Vinton’s “Mr. Lonely,” illustrates an under-discussed subset of pop songs about soldiers before the escalation of the Vietnam War.

Second, songwriters Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong would reuse the titular phrase from track five on this record—“Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)”—on their 1972 masterpiece for The Temptations, “Papa Was a Rollin' Stone.” That 7+ minutes of psychedelic soul would not have worked during this week’s theme.

Third, Ken broke his own rule with this selection. That Stubborn Kinda' Fellow is technically 6 seconds too long for this theme. Between this and the Diarrhea Planet selection, I’m still trying to forgive him.

#1 Jolene by Dolly Parton (1974 - 10 songs, 25 min. 0 sec.)

You would think after hearing “Jolene” hundreds of times that the sub-three-minute song would lose some of its gusto. But 50 years later, it remains a heart-wrenching heater, no other song capturing pleading with as much vividness.

“Jolene” is also a thematic statement about this album. From “When Someone Wants to Leave” and “Living On Memories of You” to “Lonely Comin' Down” to “I Will Always Love You,” lost love runs deep on this record. You get moments of reprieve, like the chipper “Highlight of My Life,” but this is the soundtrack of a relationship on the rocks and likely doomed. Press play at risk of heartbreak.

It’s also worth noting that Dolly Parton claims to have written “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” in the same afternoon. If she’s telling the truth, that is more musical accomplishment in a day than most people have in a lifetime.

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A week ago, we featured a piece from about British superstars who never crossed over in the US. I thought this paired well with Alex Walker’s piece about how British music seems to be crossing over less than ever before in America. If you enjoy his analysis, subscribe to his newsletter.

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What’s Behind the Declining Chart Performance of British Music in America

By Alex Walker

In 2024, for the first time in 2 decades, the IFPI’s worldwide year-end sales charts lacked any British representation in its top 10 best-sellers. This was true for both singles and albums. So, was this a one off, or does it speak to a broader decline in British music on the global stage? Until Harry Styles rode in with “Aperture” only a few months ago, the last time a British act hit number one on the Billboard charts was when Sam Smith and Kim Petras topped the charts in October 2022.

Between 2010 and 2026, 23 songs released by or featuring British artists hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100. That might sound like a lot, but that number was closer to 70 in only 10 years. As a matter of fact, in the summer of 1985 alone, the UK produced more number ones on the Billboard Hot 100 than in the entire 2000s. Over the past several decades, Britain has slowly tumbled off the American charts.

Why? It’s not like the British record industry is somehow languishing. There’s certainly popular and critically acclaimed work being released. Charli XCX’s Brat didn’t generate a number one, but it was about as close to a monocultural blockbuster album as anything comes in the 2020s.

Olivia Dean took home the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2025 and Lola Young claimed Best Pop Solo Performance for Messy at the same show. It’s clearly not supply that’s the issue. Tut for whatever reason, commercial breakthrough for UK acts at the top of the US charts isn’t as pervasive as it was in the middle part of the 20th century.

To untangle the reason behind the UK’s declining performance at the top of American charts, the natural place to start looking is the history of the transatlantic music industry, and the periods when Britannia ruled the airwaves.

The History of British Music in America

In 1962, the English band The Tornados released the single “Telstar,” a track named after the satellite of the same name. Despite lacking vocals, “Telstar” would go to number one in both the UK and the US.

“Telstar” wasn’t the first British composition to go to number one in the US—that honour was claimed a decade earlier by Vera Lynn’s “Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart.” No, “Telstar” wasn’t even the first British single to reach number one on the US charts that year. Mr. Acker Bilk, an old-school jazz vocalist and clarinetist, had achieved that feat, becoming only the second artist to do so after Vera Lynn’s early 1950s crossover success.

But despite this, “Telstar” marks the beginning of something as strange and new as the space-age telecommunications computer it was named after. “Telstar” was the first English rock record to go number one, and by that measure, it was the first foot-soldier in what would come to be known as the British Invasion.

Because after The Tornadoes closed out 1962 with the last number one of the year, the remainder of the 1960s would put Vera Lynn and Mr. Acker Bilk completely in the rearview mirror as a new generation of British acts racked up a total of over 30 number ones.

The Beatles alone represented 55 weeks of chart dominance between 1964, when “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” first hit number one, and the end of the decade. But they were simply the beachhead for acts like The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Herman’s Hermits, Peter and Gordon, Manfred Mann, Petula Clark, Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders, Dave Clark Five, Donovan, The New Vaudeville Band, and Lulu. And that’s just the artists that hit number one.

The broader invasion phenomenon included such names as The Yardbirds, The Who, the Kinks, The Pretty Things, Dusty Springfield, Chad and Jeremy, The Hollies, The Spencer Davis Group, The Moody Blues, Van Morrison, The Zombies, and many other groups. This was a flourishing of British culture on such a scale that were future paleoanthropologists to study this era divorced from context and first hand accounts, they would be forgiven for thinking that the US had in fact been actually invaded and occupied by a massive migrating horde of Brits.

The background to all of this revolutionary music back in the UK was the Swinging Sixties, a time of innovation, exuberance and experimentation from fashion to music. The Sixties established the nation as the global capital of a new era of culture.

And while WWII may have ended in 1945, for most Brits, the country would spend another 14 years shaking off the experience of the war across the economy and civil society.

• Rationing, for instance, largely considered a wartime phenomenon in the US, lasted in the UK until 1954.

• Conscription to the armed forces continued until the very last years of the 1950s and wasn’t completely unwound until 1963.

• Inflation had spiked in the early part of the decade, but collapsed down to below 2% around 1960 and wouldn’t hit its 1950s highs again until the late 1960s.

Combine the end of rationing, Britain’s late 1950s economic boom, and the end of conscription with the fact that the UK baby-boom statistically peaked in 1946, and you had an unprecedentedly large population of young men and women entering adulthood, all at the same time as the economy was exploding, the responsibilities of war and reconstruction were falling away, and world markets were once again able to provide the levels of consumer goods they had before the second world war, and more.

The rock and roll and blues of the 1950s was making its mark in the UK as well as America. In the US, the genre was thriving, though notably held back by racism. Although there had been a Black presence on the charts during that decade, with artists like Fats Domino going to number one, their performance on the pop chart was still minor in comparison to their outsized cultural influence. In the UK, it merged with the local skiffle movement to create a new style of rock music which was then able to sell those sounds back to the US, this time performed chiefly by White musicians.

If the 1960s invasion was defined by post-war exuberance, then the 1980s wave was a similar reaction to the drudgery and austerity of 1970s Britain. The country was still in an economic funk brought on by early Thatcherite experiments in monetarist policy. However, by the time new British pop arrived in the US in 1982, the British economy had reached an inflection point at which Thatcher’s maniacal binge of privatization was starting to yield some tentative, if short term, economic gains. The deluge of British pop records was a sustained phenomenon which didn’t peak until well into 1986, at which point Britain’s economy had decisively turned around.

Whereas the Swinging Sixties had fused blues and rock and roll with skiffle, this time the musical import was the American disco of the late 1970s, which then combined with what was left of punk in Britain. All told, 70 songs from Britain would end up hitting the top of the Hot 100 that decade, with New Romantic groups like Spandau Ballet defining the sound of Top 40 radio, alongside hits like “Rio,” “Don’t You Want Me,” “Come On Eileen,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” and “Karma Chameleon.” Defining and shared traits of these second invasion groups was an ostentatiousness and an embrace of electronic sounds.

One commonly cited reason for the breakthrough of British artists in this period is also the rise of MTV. Famously, the very first video played on the channel was “Video Killed the Radio Star,” by the British group The Buggles, and indeed the relative lack of music videos from American bands compared to British bands meant that British acts were played far more frequently on this new channel.

In fact, of the first 10 videos played on MTV, which at the time was still only broadcast to an American audience, six were by UK acts.

A Pattern in Invasions

So, what can we take away from this history? Amazingly, this phenomenon of a new musical style pioneered by Black Americans, being reinterpreted through a British local music scene, thriving during a time of economic turnaround and then being sold back to the US, is true of both the invasions.

The turn away from music videos in American music can be read as a rejection of artifice more broadly and anything considered to be too glossy or pop-y, an extension of the anti-disco movement. Just as racial segregation had tried to stem the tide of blues and rock and roll, events like Disco Demolition Night showed the popular disdain for disco, which still faced heavy structural obstacles in the US.

Contemporary industry professionals have been quite frank about the degree to which US radio stations pivoted away from disco following the event, during which tens of thousands of angry baseball fans demonstrated their displeasure at the rising influence of the genre. This downturn in US radio’s willingness to serve audiences this style of music in 1979 and 1980 mirrored the unwillingness of musical institutions in the late 1950s to platform African-American musicians to white audiences.

Meanwhile, the bands that made up much of the second British invasion were bands whose presentation and musical stylings alike embraced newness and androgyny, colourful makeup and hairstyles, outre fashion and synths. And if one half of this music’s heritage was post-punk, then the other was disco. Similar to how Howlin’ Wolf’s tour of the UK in 1958 had introduced electric blues to a young British skiffle audience who had already embraced the spirit of rebellion and wanted to produce their own vernacular music, disco entered the UK in the aftermath of punk, the Winter of Discontent and a different sort of rebelliousness.

The UK faced its own racial struggles at the time, but there seems to have been less of a resistance among British popular musicians to embrace the electric innovations and bold styles associated with this new trend. Racism was a structural problem in both the UK, which experienced race riots in the 1970s and was reckoning with the social exclusion of the Windrush Generation, and the US. Whether Britain simply lacked the particular institutions to exclude this type of music, or whether the physical distance somehow allowed for disco to be understood as something less racially coded in the UK, I’m neither sure nor qualified to speak on. But, regardless of the reason, it seems clear that while the industry in America retreated from disco, the British music industry embraced it and iterated on it.

Why Didn’t The British Keep Invading?

Alright, so it would seem to me that there’s something vaguely resembling a pattern. The youthful spirit of rebellion brought on by changing times, the transition from austerity to relative prosperity, a repressed and innovative musical export from America meets a thriving local music scene and boom … British invasion. But if this dynamic explains why the 1960s and 1980s invasions happened, can we use it to understand why there were no invasions in the 1990s, 2000s, or 2010s?

Taking our established model, let’s try and plug in some new variables. British economy. While it’s in an absolute state now, it’s easy to forget that both the late 1990s and the early 2010s were actually periods of genuine popular enthusiasm about the prospects of the damp little island.

In the 1990s, Tony Blair’s rise to power after a period of conservative government coincided with a strong economy. While an exciting surge of new tech adoption would end up becoming the Dot Com Bubble, they didn’t know that in 1998 and the nation was riding high.

What about the domestic music scene? British music in the 1990s was a phenomenon, one that burned so hot and bright that its halcyon glow still lingers when “Don’t Look Back in Anger” comes on in the AM at a house-party full of Millennial Brits. This song stimulates a sort of Manchurian Candidate programming in English people. You watch as the weight of the cost of living crisis, five prime ministers in eight years, Brexit, the 2008 financial crisis, and New Labour all start melting away and they congregate in the the living room of some semi-detached new-build, channeling the tribal ebullience of some long-gone Brythonic society.

But unlike in the 1960s and 1080s, the sub-culture du jour in America did not need a British vessel this time around. Perhaps in a different version of history, CD’s make their way from the PNW—where the burgeoning DIY rock scene was producing acts like Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Bikini Kill—to London, where it would fuse with the ancestor species that would later become Britpop and develop a UK version of grunge, which, when unleashed on the unwitting suburban population of the United States would have an impact comparable to that of The Beatles 30 years earlier. But this didn’t happen. Grunge blew up on its own in the US.

The same problem might be said to be the reason behind the absence of a genuine 2010s invasion. Recovering from the 2008 recession, the UK in the early 2010s was actually in a pretty successful spot with regards to exporting pop-culture more broadly. You’ll remember this as the era of Sherlock and the Matt Smith version of Doctor Who, along with early Adele and One Direction. But while Adele and One Direction certainly did make it big in the US, their success was more of a one-off.

Rap was the dominant music genre, and I would argue the dominant cultural force of the 2010s. Its complete takeover of the charts, both in its own right and by reimagining the sonic palette of its adjacent genres, was truly a phenomenon and one whose influence is still pervasive. In 2016, rap and hip-hop and Southern hip-hop were the 3rd, 7th, most popular genres on Spotify, respectively. In 2023, rap was 2nd, beaten only by pop; hip-hop was 5th.

From the outset, rap has been a transatlantic phenomenon, traveling from the Bronx to London very early in its history. But with the exception of a few outliers like Monie Love or Slick Rick, Britain has never quite produced a rap act capable of sustaining the hold on audiences across the Atlantic. What the UK does have, instead, is a more insular but nevertheless thriving rap scene. Acts like Dave, Skepta, Stormzy, and Central Cee have more than reached a saturation point of fame in their homeland, one that you would expect could provide a platform for overseas expansion.

But none of them have managed to quite establish a foothold on the US charts. It’s not that UK rap is fundamentally different. Though it is distinct and has its own history, it would be hard to argue that the difference between London and New York sounds is more notable than between New York and one of the many other regional sounds of the US. The American mainstream has room enough for drill, g-funk, trap, screw tapes, and Bay Area but not, it would seem, grime, UK drill or UK rap.

And while rap had originally been a hyper-regional genre, by the time it truly took over American popular music, the idea that these regional styles could be adopted across the country, hybridized, mixed or coexist within single artists had long since been demonstrated by the likes of Jay-Z and Drake.

So, the pattern that seemed to be emerging when considering the 1960s and 1980s invasions breaks down as time goes on. In the 1990s, this is possibly attributable to British rock getting crowded out and forced into embracing its own difference, thus becoming Britpop.

In the 2010s the explanation is more unclear. My original thought was that while the UK did produce big rappers in this era, they may have come along slightly too late to capitalise off of the surge in rap listenership, and the market was already saturated with Americans. British artists, like Tinie Tempah and Dizzee Rascal could thus be popular in the UK without any noticeable presence in the US.

The Language Premium

It’s possible that, in addition to the historical contingencies discussed above, there’s another explanation. Namely, the expansion of the English language and the globalization of popular culture.

In the middle of the 20th century, English artists enjoyed a certain competitive advantage in capturing audiences in America, that being their shared language. The fact that the two countries are both made up predominantly of native English speakers made cultural diffusion simpler.

In the 21st century, however, this competitive advantage was lessened in two separate but related ways.

First, the comparative advantage of language decreased in a world that’s increasingly fluent in English. If we take K-pop as an example, we can see that non-Anglophone countries are more than capable of producing English language hits. Of the 10 number ones by K-pop artists in the 2020s, all of them incorporated English language lyrics.

The UK no longer enjoys privileged access to US markets via language. But it goes beyond the language that the music is produced in. Much of the reggaeton music that is popular in the US is still performed in Spanish. But its stylings and forms are heavily inspired by hip-hop. The increased proliferation of American culture, which accompanies an increased fluency in the English language abroad, makes it easier for foreign audiences to internalize that culture and iterate or even revolutionize it in much the same way that the UK did in previous invasions.

Second, as the audience base becomes more international, that advantage is worth less, with a smaller percentage of the global audience being native English speakers. It’s no longer just American and European audiences who are buying and streaming music. The relative decline in European and North American listenership fell from 74% to 49% in that period.

At the same time, new genres became increasingly visible and popular on streaming platforms. Genres that did not crack the top 25 most popular genres in 2016 but did in 2023, include urbano latino, trap latino, reggaeton, and filmi. Genres that were once consigned to the margins are now able to compete on a more level playing field.

But if we’re talking about American chart performance, why does it matter that other countries make up a larger share of Spotify listenership? Well, since Spotify and other major streamers are the primary vehicle for music distribution, recommendation, and platforming in this era, and because their interfaces and algorithms reinforce popular music by serving it to other users, this non-Anglophone music is discovered and shared across borders. The massive rise in users outside the US brings with it increased visibility of those audience’s preferred music to US listeners.

K-pop and reggaeton are in a sense doing what British acts did very successfully in the 1960s and 1980s, repackaging American music and selling it back to them. But the UK failed to capitalize on this trend with rap in the same way that they had managed with blues and disco. The same crowding out that we noted with grunge in the 1990s could be said to also have affected British rap in the 2010s and 2020s.

K-pop and reggaeton are in a sense doing what British acts did very successfully in the 60s and 80s repackaging American music and selling it back to them. But the UK failed to really capitalize on this trend with rap in the same way that they had managed with blues and disco.

Taken together, these factors—mismatch of American appetites and British production in 1990s rock and 2010s rap, the rise of competing non-Anglo-American genres, and the decreased value of a shared native language—explain the relative decline of British music on the American charts. But, as we said from the outset, this has not been accompanied by a commensurate decline in the output of amazing British music.

Making it in America has long been a yardstick of success for musicians globally, due to the perceived cultural prestige and the sheer monetary reward. As music writer David Rimmer wrote in his book on the second British Invasion Like Punk Never Happened: The Culture Club and the New Pop:

Breaking America was what everyone wanted to do, not just for the money, though that was most of it, but also because if you made it in America then you … made it.

Still, it seems rather like the consistent ability of British acts to do so in the previous century had less to do with the inherent quality of the music than a well-timed confluence of structural, material, and cultural factors. As long as Britain is able to continue to produce music of quality, I think that obsession over chart performance in America is ultimately not a particularly useful way of gauging Britain’s cultural vibrancy.

Is there a takeaway? If there is one, and if this discussion on British music in America is in fact valid in its assumptions, it’s probably that while so many of the factors that led to the invasions were coincidental, there was always a substrate of incredible boundary pushing artistry active to seize its opportunity when the time came. And this artistry won big commercially and aesthetically when it found a way to be both rooted and curious about the world abroad.

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This piece is a story about a weird trend that he had noticed. There are lots of brothers scattered throughout the history of country music. Oddly, many of those “brothers” aren’t real brothers. He dives into how this ended up happening. If you enjoy what you read, subscribe to his newsletter Bayesian Barn Dance.

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Brothers From Other Mothers: The Curious Geography of Fake Country Siblings

By Bayesian Barn Dance

Part I: The Puzzle

In the discography of early country music, brothers abound. The Allen Brothers, the Dixon Brothers, the Delmore Brothers, the Monroe Brothers. The family harmony duo was one of the defining sounds of the era, and it makes sense. Siblings who had sung together since childhood often possessed an intuitive vocal blend that unrelated performers struggled to replicate. The “brother act” wasn’t merely a marketing gimmick; it was often an acoustic reality. Indeed, the modern genre itself was largely founded on an act (i.e., the Carter Family) specifically billed as a familial unit.

But scattered among the genuine fraternal pairings is a peculiar category of imposters: duos who adopted a shared surname and the “Brothers” designation despite having no familial connection whatsoever. Frank Luther and Carson Robison, two of the most prolific recording artists of the era, appeared on various labels as the Black Brothers, the Harper Brothers, the Jones Brothers, the Luther Brothers, and the Turney Brothers. John McGhee and Frank Welling were variously the Hutchens Brothers, the Markham Brothers, and the Martin Brothers. Lester McFarland and Robert Gardner became the Harper Brothers (a title they shared with Luther and Robison) and the Miller Brothers.

The practice raises an obvious question: Why? What commercial or artistic logic compelled performers and labels to fabricate these fraternal fictions?

But a second, related question, perhaps even more interesting, emerges when one examines the data more closely. These fake brothers were not uniformly distributed across the recording landscape. They clustered, with remarkable intensity, in just two places: New York City and . . . Richmond, Indiana.

New York’s prominence requires no explanation. It was the center of the American recording industry, home to the major labels and their proliferating subsidiaries. But Richmond, Indiana, a small city in the east-central part of the state, population barely thirty thousand, presents a prima facie puzzle. How did this modest Midwestern town become the second-greatest generator of fake Brothers acts in country music history?

The explanation ends up illuminating something important about how early country records were actually made, sold, and, ultimately, renamed.

Part II: The Data

Before venturing an explanation, it is worth examining the evidence in full. A comprehensive survey of the standard discography of country music from 1921 to 1942 reveals thirty-six distinct “Brothers” acts that were either entirely fictitious (i.e., unrelated performers adopting a shared surname) or real brothers recording under a fabricated surname. When mapped by recording location, the distribution is striking:

• New York accounts for twenty-three instances, representing thirteen distinct pairings of performers (with the remainder being alternate “Brothers” pseudonyms for groups already counted).

• Richmond, Indiana, accounts for nine instances, representing seven distinct pairings.

• Chicago produced two instances, both alternate names for a single duo.

• Charlotte and Memphis contributed one instance each.

And that’s it. The concentration is stark. Two cities account for nearly ninety percent of the phenomenon. And while New York’s dominance is proportional to its overall importance in the recording industry, Richmond’s presence is wildly disproportionate to its size, its population, and its place in the broader narrative of American music.

Fake Brothers seemed like one of the little city’s leading industries. Something weird was happening there.

Part III: The Budget Label Ecosystem

The first key to the puzzle lies not in geography but in corporate structure.

The geography of the fake brothers phenomenon turns out to correlate closely with the budget label ecosystem of the 1920s and early 1930s. During this era, a handful of parent companies pressed records for a bewildering array of subsidiary imprints, store brands, and licensed labels. The American Record Corporation alone supplied masters to Banner, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect, Romeo, Conqueror, and numerous others. A single recording session might yield pressings sold under half a dozen different label names, marketed through department stores, mail-order catalogs, and five-and-dime shops.

This commercial structure created a peculiar problem. If Sears customers could recognize that the “Hutchens Brothers” on their Conqueror label were the same performers as the “Martin Brothers” on the Broadway label at the local store, the value of each imprint would be diminished. The budget label ecosystem thus required a steady supply of pseudonyms. Not to deceive consumers, exactly, but to maintain the useful fiction that each label offered its own distinct catalog. So yeah, maybe to deceive the consumers just a little.

The practice of using pseudonyms extended to all genres, but “Brothers” designations supplied a particularly obvious solution to the problem with respect to duos in the country music genre. A couple guys already performing together could easily be rechristened with nothing more than a new shared surname. Much like in a moment of religious conversion, the performers became brothers simply by virtue of the act.

The New York recordings scattered across the ARC family (Broadway, Melotone, Velvet Tone, Crown), alongside OKeh, Brunswick, Paramount, and others. The major labels that prioritized artist development and brand-building, Victor and Columbia, are nearly absent from the data. Victor appears only twice, and in both cases the recordings were also issued on Montgomery Ward, a mail-order catalog client rather than a true Victor imprint. Columbia does not appear at all. The fake brothers, in short, were not a marketing strategy for building stars. They were an accounting necessity for filling catalogs.

Even the two southern recordings in the dataset, the Brown Brothers in Charlotte (1936) and the Andrews Brothers in Memphis (1939), conform to the basic pattern. The Charlotte session was released on Montgomery Ward and Bluebird, the latter being RCA Victor’s budget imprint. The Memphis session appeared on Vocalion and OKeh, both by then ARC/Columbia properties.

In each case, the southern session was feeding into the northern corporate structure that generated pseudonyms. The recordings were made in the south, but the naming conventions were dictated by the same budget label logic that governed New York and Richmond. The brothers were not born in the recording studio. They were born in the home office, when a catalog needed to be filled and a new name needed to be invented.

Part IV: The Gennett Factor

That’s a big part of the story, but it can’t be the whole thing. It pays to take a closer look at Gennett in Richmond.

Gennett Records, operated by the Starr Piano Company, was indeed a budget-oriented operation with an extraordinary proliferation of subsidiary imprints. Its studio in Richmond fed masters not just to Champion, but also to Supertone, Superior, Challenge, Silvertone, and various store brands. The need for pseudonyms was acute.

So acute, in fact, that a Gennett employee of the period named Clayton Jackson reported resorting to the phone book, the city directory, and even the names of friends or relatives as sources for pseudonyms. The renaming practice was so profligate there that the performers themselves were sometimes not even informed of the new names.

But while Gennett had to supply a particularly large number of imprints, it was not unique in this regard. The American Record Corporation’s New York operation had a comparable stable of imprints to supply. Paramount, based in Wisconsin, participated in a smaller but similar ecosystem of sister labels and store brand distribution. And the major labels conducted extensive field recording throughout the South, in places like Atlanta, Dallas, San Antonio, and New Orleans, that fed into their own budget subsidiaries.

Yet Atlanta, arguably the most important Southern recording center for early country music, produced not a single fake brothers act in the entire discography. Ralph Peer and Frank Walker conducted landmark sessions there. The masters from those sessions eventually appeared on budget imprints. But the practice of fabricating brother acts apparently did not travel south with the recording equipment.

The phenomenon was thus not merely a function of budget labels; it was a function of specific budget labels, operating in specific ways. Several factors may account for Gennett’s disproportionate contribution. The sheer number of imprints requiring distinct artist names may have exceeded even ARC’s substantial appetite. As noted, Gennett was an operation that literally had to peruse phone books to keep up with the need for its pseudonyms.

Gennett’s market position, unable to compete with Victor or Columbia for exclusive contracts with major artists, may have oriented the company toward volume rather than star-building, making pseudonyms more necessary. And the specific practices of Gennett’s A&R personnel, or the relationships between the Richmond staff and their regular performers, may have normalized the pseudonym game in ways that differed from its competitors.

Perhaps the Atlanta sessions drew on a different pool of performers, less amenable to pseudonymous rebranding. Perhaps the A&R personnel working those sessions had different instincts or instructions. Perhaps it was simple path dependence: Once a practice becomes entrenched in one location, it perpetuates itself, while locations that never adopted it see no reason to start.

The Atlanta silence stands as a reminder that corporate structure alone need not dictate cultural practice. The fake brothers required both the business incentive and the institutional habit. Richmond had both. Atlanta, it seems, had only the former.

Coda: The Accidental Brothers

When I started pulling together a list of these fake Brothers acts, I expected to tell a different story.

The Brothers convention was one of the defining features of early country music, and for good reason. Audiences responded to the image of family harmony, the suggestion of voices blended since childhood, the wholesome resonance of kin singing together. I assumed that unrelated performers, recognizing this commercial appeal, would sometimes have adopted fraternal branding as a deliberate artistic choice; a marketing persona, akin to the “rambling” or “lonesome” appellations that sometimes signaled genre authenticity for solo acts. I anticipated a story about aesthetics and genre conventions, about duos crafting a family facade to participate in the themes and tropes of a family-focused tradition.

That story does not appear in the data.

If performers had been independently adopting fake brother names for artistic reasons, the phenomenon should have been scattered across the recording landscape: some duos in Atlanta over here, a handful over there in Dallas, a sample wherever performers were trying to position themselves in the market. Instead, the fake brothers cluster almost exclusively in two cities associated with budget label reissue practices. The Southern field recording centers, where performers had every incentive to adopt marketable personas, produce virtually nothing.

At the end of the day, the fake brothers were not trying to be brothers. They were simply being renamed, their identities swapped out by catalog editors in New York or Richmond who needed to fill a slot on a different imprint. The fraternal fiction was not art. It was paperwork.

Appendix: The Fake Brothers in Country Music, 1921-1942

A comprehensive list of fake “Brothers” acts assembled from Tony Russell, Country Music Records: A Discography, 1922-1942 (Oxford University Press, 2004). The list includes “Brothers” acts that were either entirely fictitious (unrelated performers) or real brothers recording under a fabricated surname. It excludes “mixed” acts (i.e., those including any pair of real brothers along with non-family members.)

• Andrews Brothers (James Andrews & Joshua Floyd Bucy): Memphis, 1939. Released on Vocalion and OKeh.

• Arnold Brothers (pseudonym for the Kessinger Brothers, actual brothers): New York, 1929. Released on Aurora.

• Austin Brothers (pseudonym for Frank & James McCravy, actual brothers): New York, 1930. Released on ARC-Broadway.

• Black Brothers (Frank Luther & Carson Robison): New York, 1928. Released on OKeh.

• Brothers Bertini (pseudonym for Len & Joe Higgins, actual brothers): New York, 1928. Released on Japanese Columbia, Australian Regal, Regal Zonophone, English Regal.

• Brown Brothers (Boyce Brown & Everett Eckerd): Charlotte, 1936. Released on Montgomery Ward and Bluebird.

• Burnett Brothers (Bob Miller & Barney Burnett): New York, 1932. Released on Victor and Montgomery Ward.

• Caldwell Brothers (pseudonym for the Sweet Brothers, actual brothers): Richmond, Indiana, 1928. Released on Supertone.

• Charles Brothers (Phil Reeve & Ernest Moody): Chicago, 1928. Released on Paramount.

• Clark Brothers (pseudonym for the Sweet Brothers, actual brothers): Richmond, Indiana, 1928. Released on Champion.

• Collins Brothers (pseudonym for the Gentry Brothers, themselves a pseudonym for Lester McFarland & George Reneau): New York, 1927. Released on Paramount.

• Colt Brothers (Arthur Fields & Fred Hall): New York, 1931. Released on Velvet Tone.

• Cramer Brothers (pseudonym for the Gentry Brothers / McFarland & Reneau): New York, 1927. Released on Broadway.

• Cruthers Brothers (Smith Ballew & Saxie Dowell): New York, 1929. Released on OKeh.

• Gentry Brothers (Lester McFarland & George Reneau): New York, 1927. Released on multiple labels.

• Greene Brothers (Arthur Fields & Fred Hall): New York, 1930. Released on OKeh and Parlophone.

• Halliday Brothers (pseudonym for the Gentry Brothers / McFarland & Reneau): New York, 1927. Released on Homestead, Jewel, and Oriole.

• Harper Brothers (pseudonym for both Frank Luther & Carson Robison on Brunswick, and Lester McFarland & Robert Gardner on Supertone): New York, 1930. Released on Supertone.

• Hawkins Brothers (Bert Hirsch & Tony Colucci): New York, 1928.

• Herman Brothers (pseudonym for the Hobbs Brothers): New York, 1928. Released on Broadway.

• Herman Brothers (Bert Hirsch & Tony Colucci): New York, 1928. Released on Broadway.

• Hutchens Brothers (pseudonym for John McGhee & Frank Welling): Richmond, Indiana, 1927. Released on Champion, Decca, Montgomery Ward.

• Jennings Brothers (pseudonym for the Tweedy Brothers, actual brothers): Richmond, Indiana, 1928. Released on Champion.

• Jones Brothers (pseudonym for Vernon Dalhart & Carson Robison, or Carson Robison & Frank Luther): New York, 1926. Released on Melotone, Polk, Panachord.

• Keawe Brothers (James Brown & Ken Landon, pseudonym for the Two Islanders): Richmond, Indiana, 1931. Released on Superior.

• Luther Brothers (pseudonym for Carson Robison & Frank Luther): New York, 1931. Released on Crown.

• Mack Brothers (pseudonym for Frank & James McCravy, actual brothers): New York, 1935. Released on Decca.

• Markham Brothers (John McGhee & Frank Welling): Richmond, Indiana, 1927. Released on Challenge.

• Martin Brothers (John McGhee & Frank Welling): New York, 1929. Released on Paramount and Broadway.

• Miller Brothers (Lester McFarland & Robert Gardner): New York, 1926. Released on Aurora.

• Norris Brothers (Walter Smith & Norman Woodlief): Richmond, Indiana, 1929. Released on Supertone.

• Phillips Brothers (pseudonym for the Charles Brothers / Phil Reeve & Ernest Moody): Chicago, 1928. Released on Broadway.

• Rankin Brothers (Leonard Rutherford & John Foster): Richmond, Indiana, 1929. Released on Conqueror.

• Saxton Brothers (Gwen Foster & David Fletcher): Richmond, Indiana, 1930. Released on Superior.

• Turney Brothers (Frank Luther & Carson Robison): New York, 1928. Released on Victor and Montgomery Ward.

• Wiggins Brothers (Al Bernard & James O’Keefe): New York, 1928. Released on Brunswick.

• Wright Brothers (pseudonym for the Kessinger Brothers, actual brothers): New York, 1929. Released on Melotone, Minerva, Polk, and Vocalion.

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This week’s theme is “long closers,” meaning albums that end with a song that is at least 7 minutes in length. This was inspired by my love of the 9-minute epics that close two of Bruce Springsteen’s first three albums (i.e., “New York City Serenade,” “Jungleland”). Please note that after the album name and release year, I list the long closer and its length. We also include a short discussion on if the long closer is worth its length. Let us know what other albums with long closers you like.

#7 Independent Worm Saloon by Butthole Surfers (1993: “Clean It Up” - 8:39)

Though has made the claim that “Every band name is dumb if you think about it long enough,” there are certain names that I find so off-putting that they almost prevent me from ever wanting to take a listen. The two that come to mind are Diarrhea Planet and the Butthole Surfers. I still haven’t been able to get past the name of the former, but the latter broke through when I heard their mid-1990s, psyche-slacker jam “Pepper.” So, when Ken suggested Independent Worm Saloon I was excited. That excitement didn’t last long. Ken and I hated this album.

Independent Worm Saloon is chaotic. You’ve got heavy metal riffs (e.g., “Goofy’s Concern”). You’ve got weird, folksy numbers (e.g., “The Ballad of Naked Man”). You’ve got raging punk tempos (e.g., “Dust Devil”). This is not an issue in the abstract. I like a lot of albums that traverse many styles. But the Butthole Surfers feel like they’re trying to make a joke that (a) is largely unpleasant and (b) I’m not in on. Childish jokes are fine, but I need some seriousness.

#6 Music of the Spheres by Coldplay (2021: “Coloratura” - 10:17)

We don’t accept Coldplay hate in this newsletter. And I say that as someone who isn’t a big Coldplay fan. But for a massive band that has historically been the butt of the joke from musical snobs, everyone likes at least one Coldplay song. Maybe it’s “Yellow” or “The Scientist” or “Clocks” or “Viva La Vida” or “Fix You” or even “Paradise,” but there’s probably one piece across their discography that you enjoy. One of those songs probably isn’t on Music of the Spheres, though.

Music of the Spheres is an about face from the British quartet’s previous LP, Everyday Life. Where Everyday Life was their most experimental work in a decade, Music of the Spheres sees them return to the place they are most comfortable: the stadium. Cowritten with pop savant Max Martin and featuring stars like BTS and Selena Gomez, Music of the Spheres is big chorus after big chorus.

And it mostly works. Many of those choruses are memorable. The problem is that outside of those choruses, the record feels pointless. What do big stadium choruses amount to when you are already filling stadiums? The whole thing feels like an unnecessary exercise, especially when it’s clear the group wanted to make some grand, pan-humanist statement (i.e., see various songs just titled emojis).

#5 Meddle by Pink Floyd (1971: “Echoes” - 23:33)

Meddle is similar to the Butthole Surfers’ Independent Worm Saloon in that the record covers a tremendous amount of sonic ground. You’ve got weird, undulating instrumentals (e.g., “One of These Days”). You’ve got somber, acoustic ballads (e.g., “A Pillow of Winds”). You’ve also got jazzy musical hall-ish numbers (e.g., “San Tropez”).

But this comparison is really just a structural similarity. Meddle is a much stronger record because, despite their weirdness, Pink Floyd knows how to write a memorable melody (e.g., “Fearless”) and have fun in a way that the listener can enjoy (e.g., “Seamus”).

#4 And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out by Yo La Tengo (2000: “Night Falls on Hoboken” - 17:42)

Most of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out is reminiscent of a lullaby, its vocals nearly whispered over dreamy guitarscapes (e.g., “Last Days of Disco”). Because of that, this record feels cozy, like a warm hug you never want to be released from.

Still, that hug might get tiresome if it were uninterrupted. Amid those sleepy lullabies, Yo La Tengo slip in noisier numbers, like “Cherry Chapstick,” that make sure you stay awake, your mind drifting in a dreamy but conscious haze.

#3 Blur by Blur (1997: “Essex Dogs” - 8:10)

Ken made it clear that if these rankings were just based on his taste, then Blur’s self-titled record would have led the pack this week. But my tastes also matter for this weekly exercise. So, the record containing the English quartet’s most famous song (i.e., “Song 2”) had to come in at number three.

I did enjoy Blur, though. In fact, I enjoy much of the music that is lumped under the “Britpop” moniker. I like this record specifically because it pairs digestible melodies with lyrical imagery that can border on depressive and macabre (e.g., “You’re So Great”)

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I’ve always been fascinated with how tastes in popular music differ across country borders. I think the differences are especially interesting between the US and the UK given that those two countries share so much culture. Taylor decided to do a deep dive into this phenomenon. If you enjoy this piece, subscribe to his newsletter.

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Big in the UK, Not So Much in the US

By John Taylor

Let’s start with an easy one. Well, easy if you live in the UK, perhaps. Which artist played the very first note at Live Aid back in 1985? It’s easily one of the most popular British bands of all time with 50—count ‘em 50— visits to the Top 40. They had the place of pride at the biggest music festival the world had seen, and it was well deserved.

So, who was it? It was the mascot for “Big in the UK, Not So Much in the US” … Status Quo.

Status Quo is a great band—legendary in some circles—but not many of those circles can be found in the US. “Classic Rock” stations play “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Hotel California” 20 times a day, but they’ve probably never played “Rockin’ All Over the World” (the song that opened Live Aid) or even their huge hit “Down Down.”

I’ve been spending the past couple of weeks going down a rabbit hole looking at artists and songs that were extremely popular in the UK in the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond but were—for a number of reasons I will soon present—somewhat of an afterthought here in the U.S.

NEVER HEARD OF YA, MATE

As I went through this exercise, there were more than a few bands I have never heard of:

• Alvin Stardust

• Blue Mink

• Brotherhood of Man

• C.C.S.

• Chicory Tip

• Darts

• Dollar

• Mr. Bloe

• Mud

• Demis Roussos

• Showaddywaddy

• Smokie

• The Wombles

Each one of these artists were at least semi-regulars on the UK charts for several years—Mud and Showaddywaddy were absolutely HUGE—but they are, for all intents, complete mysteries in the US. So, why is that?

Today, popular music is (excuse the obvious reference) a worldwide web of interconnections. If you like a particular genre of music, a particular song or an artist, the algorithms will quickly jump in and guide you to other music that’s just like it … no matter where in the world you are, or where in the world the music comes from.

In the past, though, there were a lot of walls that stopped music from flowing across oceans. Most everything was local, if not parochial. The news was whatever your local TV news or newspaper said it was. The only “influencer” was your favorite deejay, or, at the very least, Casey Kasem.

So it’s not surprising some music never made it off the shores on which it was originally created.

Let’s start by looking at a few bands you probably have heard of. You might not be able to name many of their songs, but they’ve seeped into American popular culture over the years.

BIGGER THERE THAN HERE.

Of course, you know Mungo Jerry. For goodness sake, they had one of the biggest hit singles of all-time with “In the Summertime”—big in the US and across the globe. It remains, nearly 60 years after it was recorded, one of the ultimate vibes songs. It’s sold in excess of 15 million singles. But Mungo were no one-hit wonders in their home country and across Europe as they were in the US.

We know Hot Chocolate from “You Sexy Thing” but not a lot else. And, as successful as The Real Thing were in the UK, they never broke through in the States. Boney M were the biggest European hitmakers this side of ABBA. In the US, you maybe, maybe heard “Rivers of Babylon.”

And, if an American knows Suzi Quatro, it probably for her epic performance as Leather Tuscadero on the TV show Happy Days, not for her hit-after-hit across the pond.

If you take out “Merry Christmas Everybody” which re-charts pretty much every year, Slade had another 25 Top 40 hits, including 6 Number Ones. Slade is mostly known in the US via the Quiet Riot cover of their “Cum On Feel The Noize”— but gems like “Take Me Bak ‘ome” and “Mama Were All Crazee Now” are largely a mystery to U.S. audiences.

The British public loved a good teenage heartthrob. So David Soul, the man who played Hutch—a one-hit wonder stateside (“Don’t Give Up On Us”)— had 2 UK Number Ones and 4 top 20 hits overall. David Cassidy has been in the UK charts 10 times, twice as many times as he hit stateside (where he never hit #1). The Osmonds were so big, even 9 year-old Little Jimmy Osmond had a #1 (“Long Haired Lover from Liverpool”) and their Donny-less attempt to rock out, “Crazy Horses” went to #2.

Here’s the part where I pompously present a few of the reasons I think certain songs and artists never hit as hard in America as the did in England.

GLAM DIDN’T TRAVEL

With a few isolated exceptions, glam didn’t land in the US. Sure, folks were quite aware of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust persona. One of the greatest and most influential American bands ever, the New York Dolls, paid very close attention. Some American glam-adjacent bands tickled the fringes of the Top 40, but, for the most part, glam and glitter seemed to lose something in translation. In the UK, though, glam ruled defiantly.

T. Rex were the pacesetters, with every single they released between October 1970 and December 1972 hitting #1 or #2. US fans are certainly aware of “Get it On,” but what about #1 hits “Telegram Sam” or “Metal Guru”?

David Essex, had over 20 UK chart hits over nearly 15 years. In the US, he’s known only for the execrable “Rock On.”

Sweet were said to have created the template for the glam/glitter hit. They had some nibbles in the US, most notably “Little Willie” and “The Ballroom” Blitz.” But they never hit like they did in the UK charts where they had 15 Top 40 songs which spanned a decade. Sweet helped light the path for bands such as Wizzard, and, some might argue, the aforementioned Slade.

One thing we might be thankful for is that the contagion known as Gary Glitter was largely isolated to the UK. No need to sully this article with a retelling of Glitter’s horrendous crimes. Before he was caught, Glitter had 12 Top 10 hits. His sound was so popular that his backing band, The Glitter Band, had another 7 top 40 hits on their own.

THE WEST INDIAN INFLUENCE

With travel between the Caribbean and Britain becoming more prevalent following WWII, West Indian music began to influence British popular music in ways that would not reach the U.S. until years later. Although Harry Belafonte and his calypso were extremely popular in America beginning in the 1950s, there was a greater diversity of Caribbean sounds heard in Great Britain, particularly following Jamaican independence in 1962.

Millie Small had a huge hit with “My Boy Lollipop”, but that was considered a novelty, a one-off. As the 1960s rolled into the 1970s, reggae- and ska-tinged songs started to become hits. The movement really gained steam in April of 1969, when Desmond Dekker and the Aces took “Isrealites” to #1.

In 1970, the duo Bob & Marcia put their spin on Nina Simone’s anthem “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”, which peaked at #5 in March of 1970. Here are a few other Carribean-flavored hits that remained unknown in the US:

• “Montego Bay” Bobby Bloom

• “Return of Django” The Upsetters

• “Johnny Reggae” The Piglets

• “Double Barrel” Dave and Ansell Collins

• “Uptown Top Ranking” Althea & Donna

By the time Clapton’s snoozy, milk-mild take on “I Shot The Sheriff” gained attention in the US, the UK had been giving rapt attention for almost a decade.

IT’S JUST SO BRITISH

Before worldwide mass media and the internet began to homogenize popular culture across the English-speaking world, there were hit songs—novelties mostly—that never left the shores of England. The Barron Knights, for example, had 8 top 40 hits. Ever heard of them? Me neither. Looks like they were a British comedy troupe.

Comedians did pretty well on the British charts; and, even if we’re familiar with the comics, we probably don’t know their hit “songs”

• “Ernie, Fastest Milkman in the West” Benny Hill

• “D.I.V.O.R.C.E” Billy Connolly

• “A Taste of Aggro” The Barron Knights

My favorite “it’s just so British” hit has got to be “Moldy Old Dough” by Lieutenant Pigeon, which also happens to be the only UK #1 hit performed by a mother and son. It’s just so weird it could have, just maybe, been a hit if anyone in the US had heard it.

I SAW IT ON TELLY!

Americans had no idea what was going on with televised extravaganzas like Eurovision and Opportunity Knocks.

Folks would see songs performed on their televisions, right in their living rooms and want to capture the moment (and support their country when it came to Eurovision) by purchasing the 45. The best and most famous case of this is ABBA and “Waterloo.”

But there were a number of other artists who owed their success to the TV programs. The Real Thing got their start on Opportunity Knocks, for example, and we’ve seen how popular they became.

The Real Thing notwithstanding, what played best on British TV, it seems, was overly sentimental, often treacly songs. If they were performed by a child, or children, even better. The ultimate example is “Mother of Mine” which shot to Number One after being performed on Opportunity Knocks by 9 year-old Neil Reid.

IN A BRITISH DISCO

Like every other county on the globe, Britain, Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland had a disco boom. If anything, it was bigger in the UK and across Europe, where the discotheque was the center of teen and young adult life in big cities and small towns alike.

Here we find our old friends Boney M, who righteously ruled UK and European dance clubs and the pop charts. A couple of family acts found their way from the TV shows to the charts, including The Dooleys, and The Nolans, a sister act that hit the charts 8 times. Speaking of sisters, there was also Bacarra, whose mega hit “Yes Sir I Can Boogie” was, lets just say EXTREMELY influenced by Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way”.

Okay, okay. I can hear you saying “will you wrap this up already?” I will. But let me leave you with a wonderful UK disco hit, one that is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face. Now tell me why THIS song was never a hit in the US!

Ian actually reached out to me a few weeks back to comment on a new series he was working on about how to make epic pop music. After weighing in on his questions, I thought to myself, “Hey! I’m about to be very busy getting hitched. I should reprint one of the articles in this series. Thankfully, Ian obliged. If you enjoy today’s piece, you should check out the rest of the series and subscribe to his newsletter.

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On Pop Music Breaking the Mold

By Ian Temple

Can pop music be epic?

To most people, the answer to this question is probably obvious: “Mamma mia, mamma mia, mamma mia, let me go!”

Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” hit number 9 in the charts in 1976 and then number 2 in 1992 after the release of the film Wayne’s World, categorically proving the answer is “Yes!” That was certainly Chris Dalla Riva’s answer when I asked him:

 The quintessential example would have to be “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. That’s like quintessential epicness. It’s longer. It has a tremendous amount of dynamic range. There’s the whole operatic section in the middle. You got the big old guitar solo. You got the ballad. If I’m thinking just epicness, especially in the pop sphere, that would be the song I would go to immediately.

So, yes. The answer is yes. There is nothing more needed here. There is definitely no need to call up experts, to chat about it with everyone I know, or to spend a couple dozen hours listening to every pop hit since 1965 just to make sure.

Right? Riiiiight?

OK, here’s the thing: I wasn’t convinced.

My background lies more in epic music than pop. My idea of a good time is listening to an Icelandic band bowing a distorted guitar behind a wailing falsetto, ideally with an orchestra behind them. Give me 24 hours straight of drone music or an opera with a counter-tenor wailing over an ostinato for four hours. I want hard-won emotional peaks that crack you wide open, and to experience the results of human endeavor taken far beyond what’s reasonable.

From this vantage point, pop music seems a little anti-epic. At the risk of oversimplifying things:

• Epic music is long. Pop music is short.

• Epic music often complex. Pop music is often simple.

• Epic music often has slow builds and rewards patience. Pop music needs to grab your attention in the first couple seconds.

• Epic music often isn’t commercially viable. Pop is all about the money.

• Epic music offers a grand sweeping narrative arc. Pop music often has slightly nonsensical lyrics, like five good-looking dudes singing “I want it that way” without anyone anywhere including themselves or the person who wrote the song having any idea which way they’re talking about.

But … is any of that actually true?

Welcome to Episode 3 of How to Make Epic Music, my series exploring artists and music that take things too far. In episode one, we talked about the insistence focus of Chopin. In episode two, we dissected the surprising discipline of the jam band Phish. And today, we’re talking about pop music, at least the epic parts of it. Let’s dive in.

Once again, I bit off more than I can chew so this will be a two-parter. This is Part 1: the grand sweep of epic pop music through history. Part 2 will follow.

Is Pop Music Anti-Epic?

Pop is such a difficult word to define, right? Because at any one moment it can be a genre or sound. It can be the thing which is at the top of the charts. It can be just in the popular zeitgeist.  There are a lot of songs that are enormous in conversation and culture that actually don’t achieve huge commercial success.

That’s Charlie Harding, the co-host of the amazing, long-running podcast Switched on Pop and also a professor of songwriting at NYU and Berklee. I needed help with this topic, and Charlie has literally written the book on pop music. At the start of our conversation, he did validate my question a bit:

 Harding: I like to think about pop music going back to one of the great songwriters of pop music Irving Berlin.

Irving Berlin, one of the great American songwriters of all time. Wrote some 1,250 songs in the first half of the 20th century, including dozens of hits, standards, and classics, like “God Bless America,” “Cheek to Cheek,” and “White Christmas.”

Harding: He had a set of rules for songwriting published in a magazine, and he basically says to write a great pop song you have to write something that everybody can sing. Part of pop music is an intention more than it is a genre. It is: Do you want this song to be sung by many people?

Irving Berlin says, in order for it to be sung by many people, there are some particular rules to follow, like the words have to be sonorous. Some words don’t sing well. My favorite example is a 30 Rock episode in which Jenna Maroney’s character is in a film called The Rural Juror. The joke of the episode is nobody can understand what she’s saying “cause rural is a mouthy word and doesn’t sing well.”

Some of the other rules in Berlin’s list:

• The melody should be within the range of an average singer.

• The title should appear frequently in the lyrics so it’s more memorable.

• Songs should be sexless, available to men or women, and should deal with ideas, emotions, or objects familiar to everyone.

• They also need to contain “heart interest,” should be simple, and should endeavor to be original.

Basically, make songs that are singable, accessible, and marketable.

Harding: If you think about the rules of Irving Berlin, in some ways they are kind of anti-epic. They’re very populist, and I think they very much still apply to songs by Max Martin and all the great Swedish pop songwriters. There’s a preference for singable words, even over the intelligibility of the lyric, repeatable melodies that people can sing, not too many giant leaps, etc. If your song is too acrobatic, people can’t sing along with you.

So pop music is meant to be sung by the populace. In that way, its epicness might be more about its reach than in every part of its melodic structure.

This is an important anchoring thought: Perhaps more than anything else, pop music is an intention—the intention to be popular, to reach what Irving Berlin calls “the crowd.”

And this often dictates the choices that go into the music. It pushes certain aspects of the songwriting away from anything too weird or surprising that could turn people off and toward things that most people will find accessible. An anti-epic pressure, if you will.

But Berlin also hints at competing pressures, like the pressure to stand out, to be memorable, and to move people emotionally. If we focus on that side of the equation, I expect that’s where we might find the more epic pop music.

After all, can’t epic music also be popular?

Digging For Pop Epics

The logical next step was to go to the archives, to go panning for epic music among the pop pantheon greats. Luckily, the website The Pudding has created this great visualizer of every top 5 pop song on the US Billboard charts from the 1950s to 2015. That seemed like a good subset to start with. If there are epic songs among the hits, then that could help us learn more.

Using The Pudding’s data, I began listening to as many songs as I could, mostly number ones, gathering the ones I thought were epic-ish, and rating them according to a rubric I made up. Specifically, I graded every song I listened to according to how it performed along five parameters on a scale from 1 to 5:

• Scale: Does it feel big and expansive?

• Journey: Does it give the sense of a grand narrative with a massive build, strong contrasts, or multiple movements?

• Stakes: Does it feel like it matters, like something important is happening or being expressed?

• Commitment: Does the artist go all in, further than expected?

• Pay Off: Does it drive compellingly toward a big resolution and nail the landing?

I then averaged out the scores for each category to give each song an epic grade. A song with a 5 on each parameter is a perfect 5 in epicness. Here are the results.

In the first hour of listening, this seemed like a great idea. By hour 10, I was convinced every pop song was in fact epic. By hour 30, I decided none of them were. And by hour 60, my corporeal form had dissipated and slipped out of space and time.

What I Learned about Epic Pop

The most obvious conclusion is that there has in fact been a lot of epic pop music at the top of the charts. I included almost 300 songs on my list, and I’m sure there are lots of others that slipped through my fingers.

Of those, 231 reached number one on the charts. If we estimate that there were around 900 total number one hits in that time frame, then we can say that about a quarter of all number one songs are at least somewhat epic. This is fairly subjective—but that’s not a bad haul!

There are so many undeniably epic moments in here. The chord punches that kick off “Eye of the Tiger.” The driving, desperate intensity of “Lose Yourself.” The orchestral intro to K-Ci and JoJo’s “All My Life.” Are those actual cannon shots in Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”? (Sadly, no, but not for lack of trying from the songwriter Jim Steinman). How did I even question this?

Then, there are the divas. In almost any era, there’s one epic music formula that finds its way onto the charts: a diva with an orchestra singing a power ballad. Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Barbra Streisand, Adele, Diana Ross, Alicia Keys, Taylor Swift, etc. Almost 20% of the songs on the list could be categorized as some version of this.

This formula produced so many number ones it made me wonder if epic songs aren’t actually the most successful type of pop song in history.

American Idol clearly seemed to think so. When the show first aired in 2002, tasked with finding and launching new chart-topping pop stars, what did the big money producers bet on? What did the audiences vote for? You guessed it. Divas singing over orchestras. Kelly Clarkson, Fantasia, Carrie Underwood, even Clay Aiken and Taylor Hicks—all had hits with power ballads and orchestras.

Another thing that jumped out to me was how many of the epic hits were tied to films in some way. About 13% of the songs on my list were tied to a movie or TV show in some way—themes like the “Chariots of Fire” or a bizarre disco version of the “Star Wars Theme” that somehow hit number one in 1977, as well as soundtrack songs, like “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” from Armageddon. It makes sense: Movie music tends to be more dramatic by default, and being in a movie or TV show is a great way for a song to filter through the culture.

A great example of this happening recently is Kate Bush’s epic tune “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” which peaked at number 30 when it was first released, but hit number 3 a couple years ago when it was used in the TV series Stranger Things.

So we’ve got some good rules of thumb to start with: If you want to make an epic song and have it be a hit, get yourself a diva, an orchestra, and a hit film.

Where the “Epicness” Comes From

While listening, I tried my best to figure out where in each song the “epicness” was coming from. For instance, if a song swells to a massive orchestral build, then I’d give it a mark for having an epic arrangement. If it lasted 8 minutes with multiple distinct movements, I gave it a mark for having an epic structure. That sort of thing. Here’s what I found:

Basically, it’s more common to make a song sound epic through the arrangement, the production, and the performance than through the harmony, structure, and lyrics. That makes sense, since the arrangement, production, and performance are all elements that can be made epic within common pop structures and chord progressions.

Let’s talk more about the arrangements for a second. There are a few ways we see epicness play out in arrangements: big dynamic contrasts between highs and lows, lots of voices, melodies, or complexity, and of course the use of orchestras and choirs to expand the sense of scale and depth.

Take Diana Ross’s version of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” The verse is so quiet that she’s practically whispering it in your ear, but the chorus is absolutely soaring, especially at the end with the punchy rhythms, howling vocals, and orchestral climax. She basically took a nice, mellow R&B number and made it something you roar at your enemies as you trample them underfoot. I gave it a 5.

Or “All You Need Is Love” by the Beatles (4.8 rating), a seemingly simple song with the weirdest arrangement imaginable. Why are there so many horns playing fanfares? And why is everyone playing a different song underneath the actual song at the end? How many people are actually on this song? (Apparently, around 35, including a 13-piece orchestra, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, and a few others).

It’s notable that almost a third of the epic songs on the charts that I tracked had an orchestra in them. A choir is arguably even more epic. A good example might be Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” (4.8), one of my favorite epic songs on the list.

• Fun fact #1: The choir for “Like a Prayer” was arranged and conducted by Andraé Crouch, who also did the choir on Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror,” another song on the list (4.6).

• Fun fact #2: The guitar intro to “Like a Prayer” was played by Prince. Who knew?

• Fun fact #3: My sister-in-law just told me that her college friends have a tradition of taking off their shirts whenever this song comes on, which I think undisputedly proves its epic pedigree.

Different Eras, Different Types of Epic

In general, I’ve come to believe you can learn a lot about an era by exclusively looking at its most epic songs.

• In the 1960s, the epic songs were psychedelic and explored epic song structures.

• The 1970s liked long, multi-movement songs influenced by prog rock, schmaltzy ballads, and disco tunes with endless beats.

• The 1980s saw samples, effects, synths, and massive-sounding drums come to the fore, at least until the end of the era when hair metal-fuelled arena rock took over for a few years.

• The 1990s is the heyday of diva-driven power ballads.

• The ‘00s saw a proliferation of anthemic club hits designed to get fists pumping on the dance floor.

Here’s a list of the top five epic songs in each era, according to my ratings:

Interestingly, there are a couple specific producers and songwriters who appear on this list a few times: Giorgio Moroder, the synth and disco pioneer; Jim Steinman, the theatrical songwriter for people like Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler; David Foster, the dramatic producer of fanfares and power ballads; and of course Dr. Luke, the anthemic pop producer in the ‘00s. These are clearly people specifically interested in a certain epic sound, and their efforts are part of the reason that epic music keeps coming back on the charts.

The Rise of Epic-Style Production

Starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, you begin to hear a lot more epic production. Partly, that’s because you no longer needed to hire an orchestra and choir to create a massive sense of scale. You could get a similar effect through a huge synth sound and reverb, and artists absolutely did.

Take “Flashdance… What a Feeling” by Irene Cara. Listen to the layers of synth textures and melodies. There are pads that sound very similar to a string section and melodies that sound like horns, all washed in reverb and given stereo width for an extra big feel.

But that’s not all. The 1980s is also famous for its massive drum sounds, most prominently the gated reverb used on tracks like Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” Producers started dialing up the compression and reverb to the limit but then adding what’s called a gate so that the effects are only heard above a certain threshold of sound, creating this massive booming sound that then cuts off abruptly. Like it’s recorded in a cathedral but the door keeps closing after each hit.

Chris Dalla Riva agreed that the 1980s feels like an inflection point in epic pop music:

I think there’s another way that pop music can lean into epicness and that’s through melodrama. The big melodramatic ballad became very popular in the 1980s. Pop singles got a little longer throughout the 1970s and I believe they topped out in the 1980s, so I think that by the 1980s, you have a combination of these very dramatic production techniques along with slightly longer pop songs that make it possible to have these big, epic ballads.

After the 1980s, production became one of the dominant ways to add a dash of epic to a pop song. This is even more true in the 2000s when anthemic pop came to the fore, influenced by EDM and dance music. The charts start to feature a lot of songs with big synth textures, driving beats, and choruses designed for pumping your fist on the dance floor. I think of Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger” with its driving, rhythmic synths and soaring chorus, Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” with its driving, rhythmic synths and soaring chorus, or Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” with its driving, rhythmic synths and soaring chorus.

What about Structure?

There aren’t a ton of structurally epic pop hits on the list. There are definitely some exceptions, like Paul & Linda McCartney’s slapdash ditty “Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey” or The Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” which is built on one long unchanging bassline for 7 minutes. But to a large degree, most of the songs on our list adhere to the generally accepted pop music formula of verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, etc. The interesting thing is how much epicness you can still generate within that structure.

I put this to Charlie Harding, and he made a very good point: Maybe there’s actually something inherently epic about the structure of pop music.

Most pop songs follow a sort of epic-like structure. They often begin small, with an intro that will grab your attention. They build through the verse and pre-chorus, indicating change. The chorus is a moment of catharsis. And then you go through that entire process all over again, except the next chorus is going to be even bigger than it was before.

Then, you’ll go through the development phase. A great bridge or even a down chorus in the sort of final act of a song, its job is to say: “Whoa, things have changed. Things are different. You’re gonna see the chorus in a new perspective.” And when you arrive at the final chorus, it’s the most epic moment of the song.

So you have gone through this journey from a very small insular world in the intro to the third chorus, by which time you should be experiencing the most overwhelming emotions and catharsis and joy or sadness, or whatever emotion you’re supposed to be feeling in its biggest way.

So, maybe in some ways pop music is inherently epic, at least in the way it allows us to experience an emotional journey in the most concise and affecting way.

Epic Music Stays With Us

Let’s end with a pop saga, an epic pop story if you will about how epic music can echo down the decades.

The year was 1967. The Summer of Love. Hundreds of thousands of people descended on San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury. The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s, Hendrix lit a guitar on fire on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival, and a sunshine pop band with a few number one hits called the Association needed a new song.

The Association was a little bit of an unusual pop band, the sort you can only find in the 1960s. Eccentric, counter-culture, a little psychedelic, with ornate vocal harmonies and somewhat baroque-ish arrangements. They have a “Requiem for the Masses” that I’d classify as cathedral pop. Their hit song “Windy” from 1967 is a great early example of an epic pop song (I gave it a 4 on my scale). It’s happy but also psychedelic, with a harpsichord, flute, and intricate backing vocals.

Their new producer asked a budding songwriter named Jimmy Webb to write them a pop song with classical elements in it, a reliable path to epicness. Webb wrote a “cantata,” an operatic multi-movement piece sung over symphonic orchestration and choir, called “MacArthur Park.” The Association declined it, so it was instead recorded by a prestigious actor named Richard Harris, fresh off his epic musical film Camelot and looking to kickstart his singing career.

Released in 1968, this 7-minute piece of puffed up baroque melodrama actually hit number 2 in the charts at a time when most radio hits were 3 minutes long. It was a weird pop hit. It’s dramatic and through-composed, more like a film score. It feels romantic, conservative, and saccharine, at a time when that was not the hip thing to do. Discordantly, the song below it on the charts in June 1968 contained the lyrics “Yummy, yummy, yummy / I got love in my tummy.”

“MacArthur Park” was mostly forgotten about, an epic little footnote in the history of pop, until a synth-obsessed producer also interested in making epic music named Giorgio Moroder heard it while driving in Los Angeles and thought it would make the perfect cover for a new disco artist he was working with named Donna Summer.

Moroder and Summer decided this long, slightly absurd ballad could be longer, more absurd, and a dance hit. They took the slow intro and slowed it down even more. They added a choir to the beginning, except it’s actually just Moroder’s voice recorded to tape, layered, and pitched. They added a maniacal cackle as Summer breaks out into a fast-paced disco beat.

It retains all the orchestral lushness, but adds some weird synths, congas, a pulsing bass, stuttered horns, and a catchy synth lead. Then they released the whole thing as a 17-minute medley, with a shorter single version that hit number one on the charts.

In my survey of epic pop music, there are only a couple songs that get a 5—the perfect epic score. “MacArthur Park” is one of them. But then twenty years later there’s another.

The story of this song starts in the late 1980s with an over-the-top songwriter named Jim Steinman and a larger-than-life artist named Meatloaf, whose theatrical album Bat Out of Hell from 1977 had remained on the UK best-selling album charts for almost a decade. In the late 1980s, they were working on the follow up album Bat Out of Hell II.

But there was one song that Steinman had written that he was adamant Meatloaf couldn’t have, a song inspired by Emily Brontë’s gothic romance novel Wuthering Heights. In fact, Steinman was so determined he sued Meatloaf to stop him using it.

That’s because Steinman wanted this song to have a female lead. A few years later, he found that female singer, the French-Canadian mega-diva Celine Dion.

And so Celine recorded and released “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” in 1996. More than 7 minutes long, it’s dazzlingly overwrought. It starts out with haunting wind and thunder sound effects behind pretty piano and verbed out electric guitar. It builds from there, tumbling in and out of multiple romance-drenched movements, through sleighbells, choir voices, and what sounds like more cannon shots. And then, of course, there’s this moment:

Remember what Irving Berlin said at the beginning? A good pop song needs to be singable by anyone?

I’m not sure anyone’s able to do what Celine does here. And yet, that hasn’t stopped us from trying. A pop song is for the populace, and that includes me occasionally mangling Celine in the shower. Haven’t we all?

I’m telling this story both because I think it’s a good insight into a few of the most epic songs on my list—and also there’s a way in which epic music echoes down the years, maybe even more than other songs, inspiring us to ever greater heights. The drama, the theatricality, the exuberance.

“MacArthur Park” recently made a bit of a comeback when the Donna Summer version was used by Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu for her gold medal performance. It was also performed live in 2011 by Donna Summer at a concert arranged and produced by David Foster, the legendary producer behind another 5 on epic pop scale: Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” And so the tradition continues.

Epic music makes us feel big things. So does pop music.

One of the reasons I struggled to get my head around epic pop music at the outset of this project is because there’s a way in which epic music self-consciously breaks the mold, while I assumed pop music was the opposite.

And yet, it’s more complex than that. Pop music is in dialogue with the mold, playing with an audience’s expectations to reach people and move them. I can’t imagine two songs that demonstrate that more clearly and ambitiously than “MacArthur Park” and “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” in every way.

 Pop music is just a matter of: Where do you want it to be heard? Do you want it to be heard on the radio or do you want it to be heard in a rarefied institution, in a museum?

Charlie Harding again. He points out that modern pop music isn’t usually intended to promote nationalism and grandeur, like Wagner or Tchaikovsky. Instead, it’s a reflection of our times, where the journey is personal, where artists are sharing what they’re going through in ways that the rest of us can relate to.

Pop music can make us feel big, epic feelings. Or it can make us feel quiet, small plaintive feelings. When I look at a great work that is considered epic, there’s a feeling of awe, and I think awe can be experienced in a enormous vista with the most beautiful sunset or staring into a raindrop on a leaf. Musically, I think we can experience the feeling of epicness in all kinds of modes of expression.

Pop songs give us the ability to experience those emotions as individuals in a fuller way.

Ultimately, epic music is just music that makes us feel part of something bigger than ourselves, like our emotions are tied into the endless tide of history and humanity before and after us.

Sometimes the music that does that goes under the radar. But other times, it’s exactly the song that everyone else is also listening to right now.

And when we all feel connected like that, it’s a beautiful, and I’d argue epic, thing.

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This week’s theme is “this year,” meaning albums that were released in 2026. Ken (rightfully) thought that this would be a good theme since we are almost half way through 2026. Let us know what other new albums you’ve been enjoying over the last few months.

#7 WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA by Slayyyter

Slayyyter’s third studio album has been getting rave reviews. Pitchfork gave it a “Best New Music” tag and scored it an 8.2 out of 10. Stereogum even called it the best record of the year so far. Ken and I weren’t really into it.

WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA is pop music as a genre turned up to 11. Tom Breihan from Stereogum said it “hits like the end-times blackout party night of our most euphoric nightmares.” Though the hedonistic production was interesting, I wasn’t in the mood for the apocalyptic black out party. Maybe next year.

#6 The Boys of Dungeon Lane by Paul McCartney

The Boys of Dungeon Lane is Paul McCartney’s ode to his childhood. As an octogenarian, that ode moves between wistful, somber, and somewhat saccharine (e.g., “Days We Left Behind”). But that’s who Paul McCartney is. The man has made some of the greatest songs in history while tapping into those feelings.

Musically, The Boys of Dungeon Lane is inventive. McCartney is still willing to mess with song structure and odd harmonies. The weird dissonance of the album’s opening chord gave me hope that we were in for a late-career masterpiece. That wasn’t the case. I don’t think McCartney tapped into being an old man as well as some other efforts we’ve listened to over the last few months, like Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker and David Bowie’s Blackstar.

That’s okay, though. Paul McCartney could spend the next decade making 8-minute, atonal songs on the tin whistle and nobody would have the right to complain. The man has earned the privilege to do whatever he likes.

#5 Wendy Eisenberg by Wendy Eisenberg

Before I started writing up recaps of every album Ken and I had listened to, we did a week of 1970s singer-songwriters. That week included Nilsson Schmilsson by Harry Nilsson, For Everyman by Jackson Browne, Pink Moon by Nick Drake, Sundown by Gordon Lightfoot, Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell, Tea for the Tillerman by Cat Stevens, and Parallelograms by Linda Perhacs.

Even if you’re well acquainted with 1970s singer-songwriters, you might not had heard of Linda Perhacs. Perhacs recorded her debut album Parallelograms in 1970. The mystical set of tracks received almost no notice until the 1990s when Perhacs was rediscovered, eventually prompting a follow-up in 2017. Wendy Eisenberg, whether she knows it or not, seems to be descended from Linda Perhacs.

Though Eisenberg’s self-titled recorded doesn’t lean as heavily into psychedelia as Perhacs’, its deep musical and lyrical introspection point to back to the layered, acoustic world of Parallelograms.

#4 Little Wide Open by Kevin Morby

If Wendy Eisenberg’s folksy compositions fell from the heavens inhabited by Linda Perhacs, then Kevin Morby’s are more likely to have been pulled the earth that Lucinda Williams has been digging in for years.

That’s a point that I would make even if Williams were not featured on Little Wide Open’s fifth track. Morby, who’s lived all over the United States, turned to the midwest for inspiration while he built this album. It’s a place that I hope he goes again. His lyrics on Little Wide Open paint vivid images not just of the region but of the way that the landscape in that region shapes the psyches of people that live there (e.g., “Junebug”).

#3 I Used to Go to This Bar by Joyce Manor

Joyce Manor doesn’t want to waste your time. Like all of their previous efforts, I Used to Go to This Bar doesn’t even run for 20 minutes. But that network-sitcom length of music is filled with so much energy that it feels like more than enough time for the punk outfit to properly convey their tales about being lost, confused, and in pursuit of meaning at a neighborhood watering hole.

#2 Be Good to Me by Violet Grohl

A few weeks back, Ken and I listened to albums by “artist heirs,” or artists whose parents were famous musicians. Violet Grohl was on our shortlist. The progeny of Nirvana-Foo Fighters rock legend Dave Grohl, Violet had made a splash when singing lead vocals on “All Apologies” at a 2025 Nirvana reunion. The problem for us was that her debut album wasn’t out. That problem is now solved.

Be Good to Me is a strong first effort, especially from someone you know had an easier time getting a record deal than almost anyone else. The vocals—traversing the universe of rock styles—are very powerful. The songs are well-crafted too. Not to draw too many comparisons from the world in which Violet Grohl was birthed, but some of the best songs feel like they could have come from Courtney Love at the height of her powers.

#1 Masquerade by Cardinals

If you were getting in the weeds about the songs of Kevin Morby and Joyce Manor and Paul McCartney and Violet Grohl, you would likely say they all make different styles of music. Joyce Manor, for example, is firmly in the punk world. Kevin Morby, on the other hand, draws more influence from folksy singer-songwriters.

Even so, if you were to zoom out enough, we’d like agree that all of those people make some variant of rock music. Rock music usually deals with guitars. The rhythms are often focused on a four-beat count. The chords are usually diatonic. And the compositions rely heavily on the verse-chorus form. Outside of Slayyyter, every artist we listened to this week fits that mould, including the Cardinals. That said, the Irish quintet’s debut album stands apart.

Yes, they use distorted guitars, but they also create mysterious atmospheres with the accordion (e.g., “As I Breathe”). And while they too make use of four-beat rhythms, they also turn to waltz time to add some emotional flavor (e.g., “St. Agnes”). These combinations make Masquerade feel familiar enough to make most rockers happy but distinct enough to stand apart.

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This week’s theme is “Grammy Losers and Winners,” meaning we pick a year, listen to whatever won Grammy for Album of the Year in that year, and then listen to one of the albums that album beat (i.e., Grammy loser). Rather than ranking from least to most liked, we are ranking by quality disparity this week, meaning the how much better the loser was than the winner. As an added bonus, we listed our favorite albums from each year, whether they were nominated for a Grammy or not.

#7 2014: Random Access Memories by Daft Punk (Winner) and good kid, m.A.A.d city by Kendrick Lamar (Loser)

2014 is the notorious year where The Heist by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis won the Grammy for Best Rap Album over Magna Carta... Holy Grail by Jay-Z, Nothing Was the Same by Drake, Yeezus by Kanye West, and good kid, m.A.A.d city by Kendrick Lamar. good kid, m.A.A.d city suffered a similar fate that night when nominated for Album of the Year, the biggest award of the night.

While I would have preferred good kid, m.A.A.d city take the trophy over Random Access Memories, its loss is not as egregious as its loss to the appropriately name The Heist. I don’t think Random Access Memories is Daft Punk at the height of their powers, but it is a great dance record, summarizing the history of the genre with features from Nile Rodgers and Giorgio Moroder, among others.

good kid, m.A.A.d city is just filled with such rich storytelling. I’d go so far as to say that nearly half the track list is made up of hip-hop classics: “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe,” “Backseat Freestyle,” “Money Trees,” “Poetic Justice,” “m.A.A.d city,” and “Swimming Pools (Drank).”

Who were all the nominees? Random Access Memories by Daft Punk, The Blessed Unrest by Sara Bareilles, good kid, m.A.A.d city by Kendrick Lamar, The Heist by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Red by Taylor Swift

Did the Grammys get it right? Random Access Memories is not an egregious pick, but I would much rather have seen Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city or Taylor Swift’s Red take home the gramophone trophy.

#6 1980: 52nd Street by Billy Joel (Winner) and Breakfast in America by Supertramp (Loser)

Is 52nd Street my favorite Billy Joel album? No. I’d put Turnstiles, The Stranger, and Glass Houses above it on most days. (If we’re counting live records, then Songs In the Attic would also be ushered in front of it.) But is 52nd Street still a great record? Yes. And Billy Joel is a great songwriter. In fact, beyond his occasional cheesiness (e.g., “Pressure”), intermittent bad sound effects (e.g., “You May Be Right”), and periodic condescension toward his songwriting subjects (e.g., “James”), we accept no Billy Joel hate in this newsletter.

52nd Street is packed with strong writing across a range of styles. “Honesty” is Billy Joel at the peak of his balladeering power. “Big Shot” brings more edge than almost any other song in the Billy Joel catalog. “Zanzibar” sees the Piano Man pair up with Freddie Hubbard for a jazz-infused jam.

Despite all of that, Supertramp mostly matches Joel and his band on Breakfast in America. The album combines great playing with (e.g., “Child Of Vision”) and tight vocal harmonies (e.g., “Breakfast in America”) with pop instincts (e.g., “Goodbye Stranger”).

Who were all the nominees? 52nd Street by Billy Joel, Minute by Minute by The Doobie Brothers, The Gambler by Kenny Rogers, Bad Girls by Donna Summer, Breakfast in America by Supertramp

Did the Grammys get it right? 52nd Street is a quality selection, but I think I would have given the nod to Bad Girls by Donna Summer, arguably the finest album of the disco era.

#5 1989: Faith by George Michael (Winner) and Tracy Chapman by Tracy Chapman (Loser)

“Faith” by George Michael is a generational track, the Bo Diddley beat for the electronic age. But some of the rest of the album it shares a name with drags, even on the hits. “I Want Your Sex” runs for 9 minutes. “One More Try” feels like it goes on just as long.

The heights of Tracy Chapman’s self-titled record (e.g., “Fast Car,” “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution”) are just as high as George Michael’s. While nothing drags as much on Tracy Chapman as on Faith, certain tracks feel a bit redundant at the end (e.g., “For You”).

Who were all the nominees? Faith by George Michael, Tracy Chapman by Tracy Chapman, Simple Pleasures by Bobby McFerrin, ...Nothing Like the Sun by Sting, Roll with It by Steve Winwood

Did the Grammys get it right? I’m fine with the selection of Faith. I also wouldn’t have been mad if Tracy Chapman won. The best songs on those records are better than entire albums.

#4 1964: The Barbra Streisand Album by Barbra Streisand (Winner) and Honey in the Horn by Al Hirt (Loser)

The Grammys love Barbra Streisand. Chris and Ken do not. Don’t get us wrong. Streisand can sing circles around nearly anybody else (e.g., “Cry Me a River”). But her voice is something I appreciate rather than enjoy. Like I could have died having lived a completely fulfilled life having never heard Streisand snap her way through “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”

I don’t think I could say something about Al Hirt’s Honey in the Horn. While it’s not groundbreaking, it is an easy, enjoyable listen, Hirt fully living up to his nickname “The Round Mound of Sound.” I mean if you don’t smile listening to “Java,” you have never felt joy.

Who were all the nominees? The Barbra Streisand Album by Barbra Streisand, Bach’s Greatest Hits by Ward Swingle & The Swingle Singers, Days of Wine and Roses and Other TV Requests by Andy Williams, Honey in the Horn by Al Hirt, The Singing Nun by Soeur Sourire

Did the Grammys get it right? I’d give the nod to Al Hirt, despite the fact that none of my favorites from this year were nominated. To be fair, Album of the Year was much less focused on albums popular with young people when the awards first kicked off in 1958.

#3 1969: By the Time I Get to Phoenix by Glen Campbell (Winner) and Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel (Loser)

Glen Campbell’s By the Time I Get to Phoenix is a serviceable orchestral country record, the title track a prime example of songwriter Jimmy Webb’s ability to pull at your heartstrings with the smallest details. But even Jimmy Webb and the other songwriters on this album could not equal Paul Simon at the height of his powers.

Bookends is a strange record. Side A begins and ends with two instrumentals, the journey from childhood to old age chronicled in between. These compositions are some of Paul Simon’s strongest (e.g., “America”). Garfunkel is no slouch, though. Not only are his harmonies divine, but his sound collage “Voices of Old People” ties the entire concept together.

That concept does not continue on Side B. Side B is mostly songs from the previous few years that didn’t make the duo’s other releases. “Punky’s Dilemma” aside, they’re quite good, though (e.g., “Mrs. Robinson”).

Who were all the nominees? By the Time I Get to Phoenix by Glen Campbell, Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel, Feliciano! by José Feliciano, Magical Mystery Tour by The Beatles, A Tramp Shining by Richard Harris

Did the Grammys get it right? The two best nominees are The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour and Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends. Those albums are oddly similar in that their Side A’s are built around a theme and Side B’s are assorted singles. As a Beatles freak, I’d still give the nod to Simon & Garfunkel.

#2 2006: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb by U2 (Winner) and The Emancipation of Mimi by Mariah Carey (Loser)

From Bono shouting “Uno, Dos, Tres, Catorce” on the opening track of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, I knew we were in for a disaster. This is rock music that was meant to played on one iTunes commercial and then never heard again, overdone musical platitudes aiming for the grandeur of The Joshua Tree and falling flat.

The opening of The Emancipation of Mimi could not be more different. The album kicks off with an off-kilter beat from Jermaine Dupri and Manuel Seal that sucks you in from the first clap. That opener is followed by the one-two punch of “We Belong Together” and “Shake It Off,” Carey running circles around every other R&B singer of the 2000s.

Unlike Daydream, the other Mariah Carey we listened to this year, The Emancipation of Mimi is much more indebted to hip-hop. Part of that is heard in the features (e.g., Snoop Dogg, Twista). Part of that is heard in the beats. The Emancipation of Mimi is also less bogged down by melodramatic ballads than many of Carey’s efforts from the previous decade.

Who were all the nominees? How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb by U2, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard by Paul McCartney, The Emancipation of Mimi by Mariah Carey, Late Registration by Kanye West, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. by Gwen Stefani

Did the Grammys get it right? You could make the case that the Grammys never got it more wrong this year, especially when Kanye West, at the peak of his powers, was nominated for Late Registration.

#1 1997: Falling Into You by Céline Dion (Winner) and Odelay by Beck (Loser)

If you made a Venn diagram of people who had listened to Céline Dion’s Falling Into You and Beck’s Odelay, I would guess that the intersection contains vanishingly few people outside of me and Ken. Frankly, I can’t even imagine people listening to both of these albums the year they came out.

Falling Into You is an hour of the biggest, most melodramatic ballads you’ve ever heard. Odelay is a mishmash of 1990s signifiers: the alternative White rocker half-talking, half-rapping over unexpected samples and weird guitars.

Between Barbra Streisand and Mariah Carey, we listened to lots of big vocalists this week. But even they would have trouble matching the power of Céline Dion’s voice. Yet outside of the Jim Steinman-composed “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” that voice does very little for me.

Part of that isn’t Dion’s fault. The plastic-y production makes most of these songs feel dead inside. Compare her rendition of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” to the original by Aretha Franklin for an example.

Odelay feels like it was made to stand in contrast to Céline Dion and the entire industry set up around her. It’s strange and inventive and bizarre. It’s what you put on in your bedroom to drown out your mother blasting Céline Dion’s “All By Myself.”

Who were all the nominees? Falling Into You by Céline Dion, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins, Odelay by Beck, The Score by The Fugees, Waiting to Exhale: Original Soundtrack Album by Various Artists

Did the Grammys get it right? If you give the trophy to The Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, or The Fugees, I wouldn’t complain. Frankly, Céline Dion’s win is hard to comprehend.

Shout out to the paid subscribers who allow this newsletter to exist. Along with getting access to our entire archive, subscribers unlock biweekly interviews with people driving the music industry, monthly round-ups of the most important stories in music, and priority when submitting questions for our mailbag. Consider becoming a paid subscriber today!

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Recent Paid Subscriber Interviews: Pitchfork’s Editor-in-Chief • Vinyl Specialist • Spotify’s Former Data Guru • Hall of Fame Songwriter• John Legend Collaborator • Broadway Arranger • Indie Label Founder• Fender Exec

Recent Album a Day Themes: Artists You Hate • Girl Groups • Actors Who Play • Ones You Missed • Switch-Ups • Comebacks • Swan Songs • Artist Heirs • Released Before 1950 • First Album, Second Act • Diss Albums • US One Hit Wonders

Want more from Chris Dalla Riva? Get a copy of his book Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves wherever books are sold.

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