Chris Molanphy

I’m older than her, too, but for a musician—any musician—scoring your biggest hits halfway through your forties is remarkable, and unusual.

Vindicated! Thank you. (cc: @juliaturner.bsky.social)

I’m back on the #CultureGabfest on @slate.com for our cherished annual hot-weather tradition, Summer Strut! Julia Turner, Dana Stevens & Steve Metcalf cull the list + I demystify the bops. This year we jam to Lola Young…Bad Bunny…Haim…Diana Ross & Del tha Funkee Homosapien. slate.com/podcasts/cul...

I love your HFStival memory.

To me the key lyric isn’t “Wah-hawww!” or “Ahh-hawoowoahh,” it’s how Griffin sings “HOWSE.” Because that ridiculous pronunciation sets up “Wah-hawww!”

P.S. When “Good” gets stuck in my head it cross-pollinates w/Liz Phair’s “Never Said.” They would make a great medley.

These F&#%ing Guys The latest B-side from Such Great Heights looks at Alex Warren, Benson Boone, and the power of negative polarization

I appreciate folks who call me “pop-chart maestro.” ☺️ But srsly @chrisdeville.bsky.social’s Substack on Alex Warren et al. is a good read. Back in June in my @slate.com piece on “Ordinary” I called the Swims/Boone/Warren wave ‘Guys Who Really Mean It, Man.” Chris is more succinct—These F&#%ing Guys.

And that’s not even really Drake’s song. I like that one, but if that’s the best he’s got this decade it’s kinda sad. As @tombreihan.bsky.social points out in his “Toosie” piece this is just further reminder of why Drake felt like such a worthy target of the K-dot beef. Colonizer? Try demoralizer.

I think I’ve heard “Toosie Slide” 4 or 5 times ever—at least 3 when I had to write about it in 2020—& the most damning thing about it is how utterly unmemorable it is. To me, this is when the parade of culturally irrelevant Drake Chart-Topping Product™ begins. Are any of his 2020 No1s enduring?

Thanks for the kind words. We couldn’t cover every LGBTQ+ great in that episode & as ever on #HitParadePod we lean toward hitmaking acts. That’s the thing re:Nyro—largely a hitmaker as a songwriter not an artist. Her highest-charter was a cover of the Goffin-King classic “Up on the Roof”—a No92 hit.

I believe I heard it once? (I’m in NYC.) The bombing was Apr ’95, right at the song's peak—so it's plausible the OKC mix gave the song more fuel. But as per Tom’s piece "LC" was issued as a radio single in fall ’94 & had a long, steady 6mo climb to No1—it was already huge by the time of the tragedy.

IIRC pop stations+maybe some rock stations had an edit of “LC” that swapped the dumb-but-not-gross “intentions fall to the floor” line for the “placenta falls…“ line. (Kinda like how the common radio edit of P.Gabriel’s “Games w/o Frontiers” repeats “kissing baboons”in place of “piss on the goons.”)

From Beatles to Biggie, Carly to Kendrick, Diss Records Are a Pop Fixture They weren’t always called diss tracks, but pop stars have been trading insults since Tin Pan Alley.

Also! While #HitParadePod —The Bridge episodes are only for Slate Plus members, non-Plus listeners can now hear Part 2 of our July episode on the history of disses+beef across chart history—before rap or even rock: from Eddie Cantor to Carly Simon, Kool Moe Dee to Kendrick Lamar. Parts 1&2 are here:

Before “Not Like Us,” There Was “Hit ‘Em Up” Kendrick may have mastered the forensic diss, but Tupac set the standard.

On a new #HitParadePod –The Bridge—now live on @slate.com —my guest @dancharnas.bsky.social says beef has always been part of rap’s culture of competition—& sometimes, grammar matters! (Shout-out Chino XL+2Pac.) Plus, trivia…and a next-episode preview that debuts at the toppermost of the poppermost.

Thank you! And re: Queen’s song, I actually did—it just wasn’t a hit, and we were running long so I cut it from the coverage list.

Thank you for throwing shade at that “Blinding Lights”–as-GHOAT business. I’ve long been skeptical of rankings that try to adjust for different #Hot100 eras—too many variables have changed (streaming, for starters). I’m heavily invested in the chart as our Dow Jones of pop but that only goes so far.

YouTube video by The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel Tom Lehrer - We Will All Go Together When We Go

#RIP #TomLehrer —Cold War comic+a formative building block of my sense of humor (alongside Python). Honestly my all-time TL jam is “Vatican Rag” followed closely by “Pollution,” “A Christmas Carol” &“Who’s Next?” But given this weekend’s sad news this is really the only selection to remember him by.

CCR Still Holds the Record for Most No. 2 Songs Without a No. 1 Their runners-up are all classics.

Great call. The main reason I didn’t include “Zanz/Vanz Can’t Dance” in the episode is I had already covered it in depth in our Creedence Clearwater Revival episode of #HitParadePod six years ago. slate.com/culture/2019...

I not only enjoyed but empathized w/this @lindaholmes.bsky.social piece reflecting on the HBO Billy Joel doc & how it reflects our uncool childhood fandom. As an outerborough New Yorker in the ’70s–’80s, I grew up w/Joel’s music unquestioningly & I related to Holmes’s take on why this doc hits hard.

America’s No. 1 Song Is Basically This Generation’s “Cotton Eye Joe” “Timber,” the single currently topping Billboard’s authoritative Hot 100 chart, is America’s second consecutive No. 1 hit to mine the...

This is the closest I came to writing about stomp-clap, and it was still too recent at the time (early 2014) for me to assess why it was going away: slate.com/culture/2014...

I like “WICA” a lot but when it was blanketing the radio in early ’95 I recall thinking,“Weren’t these guys supposed to be punk?” I had no interest in punk litmus tests—it’s just that I liked Green Day as a proof point for the idea that punk is a genre & if you play fast w/a snotty accent it’s punk.

Your point about Roddy Ricch’s inability to translate his peak 2020 moment into a long, Kendrick-level career is, to me, emblematic of how hip-hop really hasn’t nurtured its ’20s stars (Lil Baby, Youngboy NBA, etc.). Here it is 2025 & we’re still sweating K-dot, Drake & Travis like it’s still 2019.

From Beatles to Biggie, Carly to Kendrick, Diss Records Are a Pop Fixture They weren’t always called diss tracks, but pop stars have been trading insults since Tin Pan Alley.

You probably think this pod is about you—my new #HitParadePod from @slate.com is a history of diss records, which predate hip-hop+even rock. From Eddie Cantor bitching about “Bananas” to Carly Simon puncturing vanity…an army of Roxanne,Roxannes or K-dot ethering Drake…beef on wax has served up hits.

How Billy Joel Became a 20th-Century Pop Zelig, Celebrating His Heroes by Imitating Them He earned fame as the “Piano Man”—but none of Joel’s No. 1s are really piano songs, and his hits ranged more widely than any artist of his era and stature.

Thx for the shout-out for my Joel episode of #HitParadePod. I recall you liking it & was flattered because I knew you didn’t like Joel & I deliberately designed the episode to try to decode his music for both detractors & worshippers. slate.com/podcasts/hit...

I’ll probably watch the doc anyway. 🤷🏽‍♂️

The rhythm section are the stars here—Mills's bassline, Berry's pounding beat. Watch the video—Buck is playing v. little (not a complaint). And you quoted Stipe's best lyrical moments—the "kiss & tell" line +the “on me” vamp toward the end. An odd record that gets by on vibes but they're good vibes.

Glad my Slate chart-minutiae explainer was helpful. “Sick of it but still a 10” is about right.

Since 2019 I’ve basically come to the conclusion Mariah is turning into the female/turn-of–21st-c. Bing Crosby—a cultural titan whose estimable work is reduced to one holiday hit. The Zeitgeist is cruel.

One of your best. Five stars, no notes. And I cosign virtually everything, incl. the mixed feelings about loving Nirvana ‘Unplugged’ that much.

(I still give the edge to ‘Nevermind,’ but over the years I’ve probably played ‘Unplugged’ more, for exactly the reasons you cite—it works in any context.)

Thx for the shout-out. “Heartless” never much grew on me—it’s OK background music but other Weeknd joints are better at that (eg, “Starboy”). It also now feels like an amuse-bouche for “Blinding Lights.” Abel doesn’t get the SuperBowl off “Heartless.” It’s his “Nothin’ on You,” a forgettable warmup.

Bringing in chillwave is smart. That never would have occurred to me in real time when I wrote about “Circles” in 2019, but you’re right. It’s his Tame Impala–manqué jam. Hell, it might even be faux vaporwave.

LGBTQ Music Has Long Been Coded and Even Denied, Yet Never Absent From the Pop Charts for Long. Queer artists have continually redefined pop even when the culture wouldn't let them do so openly.

Also! While #HitParadePod —The Bridge episodes are only for Slate Plus members, non-Plus listeners can now hear Part 2 of our June episode celebrating #LGBTQ+ hitmakers who navigated the charts while coming out—from Little Richard to Sylvester, Dusty Springfield to Chappell Roan. Pts 1&2 are here:

Throughout Pop History, the Closet Was Never Binary. LGBTQ pop stars often lived publicly ambiguous lives—while making music that was unmistakably queer.

On a new #HitParadePod —The Bridge, my guest @barrywalters.bsky.social says LGBTQ hitmakers have long expressed queerness through their art & on the dancefloor, whether or not they were nominally “out.” Plus, trivia…and a next-episode preview that’s trying to strike a chord & it’s probably D-minor.

Strange Currency: One Staff Writer's Seven Year Journey to Sell the Most Toxic Used CD of All Time » PopMatters In 2002, I did some record store browsing with some fellow copy reporter interns-to-be in Austin. While I was fishing through the 'R's, one girl next to me

Still like this song a lot despite ‘Monster's’ retroactive reputation as expendable R.E.M., the king of the used-CD bin (cf link). It was arguably their Imperial peak—the music wasn't bad at all, but its sales were heavily frontloaded (further proven by “Kenneth’s” No1 debut) then quickly regretted.