Breihan illuminates what makes indelible ear candy across the decades-including dance crazes, recording innovations, television phenomena, disco, AOR, MTV, rap, compact discs, mp3s, social media, memes, and much more-leaving readers to wonder what could possibly happen next. Breihan also ponders great artists who have never hit the top spot, like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and James Brown. The Numbers Ones features the greatest pop artists of all time, from the Brill Building songwriters to the Beatles and the Beach Boys from Motown to Michael Jackson, Prince, and Mariah Carey and from the digital revolution to the K-pop system. In The Number Ones, Breihan writes about twenty pivotal #1s throughout chart history, revealing a remarkably fluid and connected story of music that is as entertaining as it is enlightening. But readers no longer have to wait for his brilliant synthesis of what the history of #1s has meant to music and our culture.

The Billboard Hot 100 began in 1958, and after four years of posting the column, Breihan is still in the early aughts. The column has taken on a life of its own, sparking online debate and occasional death threats.

(Nov.When Tom Breihan launched his Stereogum column in early 2018, “The Number Ones”-a space in which he has been writing about every #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, in chronological order-he figured he’d post capsule-size reviews for each song. Music lovers will find this universally appealing. Breihan makes a persuasive case for the broader power of a #1 hit, spotlighting music’s ability to connect on a deep level in the most unexpected ways. Breihan starts with Chubby Checker’s “The Twist,” noting the dance sensation it caused, and goes on to correlate hit songs with changes in the musical landscape: Brian Wilson used different studios and musicians to record the Beach Boys’ 1966 song “Good Vibrations,” making it the most expensive single of its time 2007’s “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” harnessed the power of the internet to rise to fame and Michael Jackson’s 1983 hit “Billie Jean” was a “marvel of engineering” that melded different styles into one “layered psychological portrait.” Breihan also addresses how the music business was reflected in songs and the performance of them, whether via Dick Clark’s strict onstage dress code, Motown’s upsurge from a small label to an empire (triggered by the Supremes), or the role MTV played in moving heavy metal into the mainstream. Music critic Breihan debuts with a rich analysis of chart-topping hits from the Billboard Hot100 charts from 1960 to 2020, contending that each song marks a moment in history when pop culture pivoted in a new direction. When Tom Breihan launched his Stereogum column in early 2018, The Number Ones-a space in which he has been writing about every 1 hit in the history of. A Pitchfork Best Music Book of 2022Beloved music critic Tom Breihans fascinating narrative of the history of popular music through the lens of game-chang.

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