![]() ![]() But was this enough to make a book? You bet it was! Breihan looks at 20 particularly influential songs and the artists that created them and offers original-to-this-book essays that dig even deeper than his column. What started as capsule summaries have now turned into essays that almost always have something interesting to say about pop music and popular culture in general. Here is Billboard Hot 100 enthusiast Daniel Goldin’s take on Breihan’s book: “I am completely obsessed with Tom Breihan’s ‘Number Ones’ column in Stereogum. ![]() ![]() 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 has written into the early aughts. The column, in which he has been writing about every #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 in chronological order, has taken on a life of its own, sparking online debate and occasional death threats. Breihan launched his Sterogum column, “The Number Ones,” figuring he’d post capsule-size reviews for each song, but discovered was so much more to uncover. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |