What makes a song a smash? Talent? Luck? Timing? All that—and more. Chris Molanphy, pop-chart analyst and author of Slate’s “Why Is This Song No. 1?” series, tells tales from a half-century of chart history. Through storytelling, trivia and song snippets, Chris dissects how that song you love—or hate—dominated the airwaves, made its way to the top of the charts and shaped your memories forever.
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What makes a song a smash? Talent? Luck? Timing? All that—and more. Chris Molanphy, pop-chart analyst and author of Slate’s “Why Is This Song No. 1?” series, tells tales from a half-century of chart history. Through storytelling, trivia and song snippets, Chris dissects how that song you love—or hate—dominated the airwaves, made its way to the top of the charts and shaped your memories forever.
Get more Hit Parade with Slate Plus! Join for monthly early-access episodes, bonus episodes of "The Bridge," and ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe directly from the Hit Parade show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/hitparadeplus to get access wherever you listen.
Walk into any store or flip on a radio, and you’ll probably hear the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” sooner or later. Thanks to that ubiquity, the swooning, menacing megahit’s songwriter—Sting—is a very wealthy man.
Now, his former bandmates, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, are suing Sting over who deserves to profit from “Breath” and other Police songs.. No matter how that dispute turns out, it’s a reminder of Sting’s uncanny songwriting skill and his charmed life of hitmaking.
For more than four decades, Sting seems to resurface every few years with a new earworm, from “Roxanne” to “Russians,” blending New Wave rock with another genre—reggae, jazz, classical, country, even rap and Raï—and in the process, getting sampled by new generations of Millennial and Zoomer hitmakers.
Join Chris Molanphy as he recounts the long, varied, sophisticated, but catchy career of the King of Pain. Whatever he tries, every little thing Sting does is magic.
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Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
What makes a song a smash? Talent? Luck? Timing? All that—and more. Chris Molanphy, pop-chart analyst and author of Slate’s “Why Is This Song No. 1?” series, tells tales from a half-century of chart history. Through storytelling, trivia and song snippets, Chris dissects how that song you love—or hate—dominated the airwaves, made its way to the top of the charts and shaped your memories forever.
Get more Hit Parade with Slate Plus! Join for monthly early-access episodes, bonus episodes of "The Bridge," and ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe directly from the Hit Parade show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/hitparadeplus to get access wherever you listen.
