Again…why I enjoy yr column—you know the future so you complete the story arc from when I covered these hits in the moment. I made no predix re:Golden/Dior when they went to No1—you’re right that the whole wavelet feels like a blip now. Also 8wks@No1 was overkill but I still ain’t mad at that hook.

P.S. For me the 10 is “Cherub Rock.” Still pumps me up—what a build.
P.P.S. Don’t forget their VMAs VotY win w/"Tonight”—their Panic! at the Disco moment. If you skipped it cuz ‘1979” is the better Dayton/Faris video, I agree.
P.P.P.S. That Why Don’t We song has no chorus! Should’ve bitten that too.

I know it’s tough to pack the history of a totemic band into a single No1 song but you captured well Corgan’s skill/aspiration/insecurity/obnoxiousness.

BTW having seen SP headline the ’94 Lolla I can confirm you didn't miss much. One of my 3 worst concerts, even before BC began berating the crowd.

That's basically where I came out when I wrote about this for #WhyIsThisSongNo1? back in 2020—it’s better as a meme than a song, but it’s a charming/globally unifying phenomenon. It hasn’t aged well 5yrs later—honestly it’s all but disappeared—but as very online phenomena go it was rather wholesome.

Also! While #HitParadePod –The Bridge episodes are only for Slate Plus members, non-Plus listeners can now hear Pt2 of our October episode on Sting, the hook machine trying everything from punk to funk…swing to symphonies…reggae to Raï. Every little tune he wrote was chart magic. Parts 1&2 are here:

To me the cheekiest thing is how the “Wonderwall” video is having its Beatle cake and eating it, too. It’s clearly styled after ‘Help!’ the movie—specifically that video-like sequence in the film: the B&W cinematography, the tight closeups, the shag hair. This is not a complaint—steal from the best.

This FTW: “It sounds like something that would soundtrack a party scene in a movie where the producers didn’t want to pay to license the song that would really be playing at that party.” 😂 DING.

In a world where Chris Brown is still scoring hits Travis’s penalty-box time was always gonna be brief.

Much as I love M.I.A.’s early work, can’t we agree that the crazy was always laying dormant there, waiting to pop off with the right heel-turn moment? A lot like Ye, come to think of it.

P.S. re:Baby Animals—a US label tried to make them happen here in ’92 & it didn’t take: “Painless” hit No29 Album Rock + a followup whiffed. At the time I didn’t comprehend how big they were in Australia until this movie scene a couple years later where Muriel’s shitty friends liken them to Nirvana.

To me the great lyric in this dopey song is “I’m never alone/I’m alone all the time” which I’ve always related to. I also love lyrics that knowingly contradict themselves a la ODB’s "Got Your Money” line “I don't have no trouble with you fuckin me/But I have a little problem with you not fuckin me.”

Details here…also not sorry to see “Beautiful Things”/“Die w/a Smile” yanked. It’s cosmically appropriate this happens in a week w/a dozen Taylor hits cuz when they landed last week I was hoping they’d push “Lose Control” below the old recurrent threshold & hence off the chart. Not an issue anymore.

P.S. Thank you for not devoting that last chapter of your book to “Old Town Road.” 😉😅

I’m biased, but I do think you chose well and were onto something.

Thing is…“Dynamite” is absurd, but it’s probably their most deserving No1 (that hook’s so sticky I never have trouble recalling it). To me it’s a lower-tier Jackson 5—no way as good as “I Want You Back” (the vocals, for starters) but like that song the machine made it & it’s better than the machine.

You mean Apple Podcasts? It’s there in my Hit Parade Plus feed. I see it in the general Slate Plus feed, too. 🤷🏽‍♂️

Review is spot-on, your rating generous. The song just lies there—maybe the least memorable ’90s RHCP hit. The only way I recall it today is, I’m a huge stan for Weird Al’s perennial state-of-current-music polka medleys & he made the odd choice of including “My Friends” on ’96’s “Alternative Polka.”

A correction: Not sure where y’all got the idea that the 2nd movie opened in 2015, but for the record ‘Tron: Legacy’ opened in 2010. So it took 28 years to produce the first sequel, not 33.

After reading your piece I went back & reread my own column to see if I overplayed the women’s-agency angle. Sure, it was a hook for me—the 100th anniversary of Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues”—but mostly I was dissecting how dirty songs get over on the charts/radio. Pretty sure I conveyed the fun.🤷🏽‍♂️

This coming Friday. In months with 5 Fridays, it's always the middle one.

Knew you’d put the Weird Al version in Bonus Beats—thank you. Normally I get annoyed when an act’s legacy is reduced to an Al parody (e.g. too many Greg Kihn obits last year put Al in the headline) but I confess to this day, in my head, the PUSA song ends w/“And that’s all/I have to say/ABOUT THAT.”