What's the Greatest Punk Album? Mailbag
This month we dive into questions about Casey Kasem, music gambling, silly 1960s hits, and so much more
Today’s newsletter is another mailbag edition of Can’t Get Much Higher, or the newsletter where I answer reader questions. We’ve got a bunch of juicy questions this time:
How long does it take a classic song to become worn out?
What’s the greatest punk album?
How could the Billboard charts have been more accurate in the 1960s?
Is Kalshi affecting the music industry yet?
What’s the most popular lyrical topic?
If you enjoy this newsletter, consider ordering a copy of my debut book, Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves. It’s a data-driven history of popular music covering 1958 to 2025.
In your book, you bring up your distaste for “Sugar Shack” by Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs and your love for “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes. While it looks wrong on paper, I’ve found myself preferring “Sugar Shack” over “Be My Baby” simply because I’ve heard the latter a billion times. Do you think there’s a way to measure the “longevity” of a song versus its “novelty”? Specifically, does data show a predictable “wear-out” point where a critically perfect masterpiece loses its emotional edge to a silly earworm? - Ethan
First, I’m glad to hear that someone out there likes “Sugar Shack.” I knew listeners like you must exist for the song given that the song was one of the biggest hits of 1963. I can also see your point. A forgotten song—even if you don’t think it’s great in some objective sense—could be more interesting than a ubiquitous hit purely because you haven’t heard it as much.
I don’t have a direct answer to your question, but I think I have something related to say. A few years ago, I worked on a piece with Chartmetric called “Decoding Perceptions of the Past With Spotify: What Makes a Song a Timeless Classic?” Our goal was to look at the canon of popular songs from each decade and see if those songs were popular upon release. For us, the “canon” was defined by inclusion on one of Spotify’s decade-focused playlists (e.g., All Out 80s, All Out 90s).
What we found was that far and away the songs in the canon were big hits in their day. 75% of songs on All Out 70s, for example, were top 40 hits when they came out. 27% were number one hits!
This doesn’t mean that a song can never reach classic status if it weren’t a hit. Despite never releasing anything remotely close to a hit, The Velvet Underground have multiple songs in the 1960s canon. That said, popular things often live on. This tells me that novelty isn’t that relevant to your average listener. Most people just want to hear the same thing again and again, even if it’s their 800th time dropping the needle on “Be My Baby.”
What’s the best punk album? - Randy
Each time somebody asks me to rank something, I know that Rolling Stone must have released a list about the topic. That was the case here. On May 18, Rolling Stone released a list of the 100 greatest punk albums in history.
In general, I like musical rankings. Even when you disagree with them, they force you to think critically about your musical opinions. Still, I am constantly astounded how many lists Rolling Stone is putting out. They have an entire section of their website dedicated to lists. They must be working on these things constantly.
Along with punk albums, they’ve ranked Harry Styles songs, alter egos, High School Musical songs, Prince songs, and guitar solos this year. I love Rob Sheffield. I’m worried that the Wenner family has this man trapped in room ranking every type of song against his will.
Regardless, let us return to punk. I want to say that I am not an expert on the genre. But I’ve played bass in my cousin’s punk band for the last few years, so maybe my credentials are a bit more respectable than I think.
So, what are my favorite punk albums of all time?
