Feet on the Ground, Reaching for the Stars Edition Part 1

Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia

Slate Podcasts

Music, Music History,

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

To mark Hit Parade’s 100th episode, host Chris Molanphy is doing something he’s never done: He’s going to talk about himself—and just how nerdy you have to be to host a show like Hit Parade. Chris reflects on the origins and depth of his chart fandom, and ponders existential questions like: What makes a person want to track these rankings? Why do we care about what, or who, is No. 1?

Join Chris for this exploration of how the charts have informed, inspired and infiltrated his life—and yours, too.

Coming up in Part 2: Chris pays tribute to one of his heroes and a huge influence on Hit Parade: the chart king who counted down the hits every week ... from coast to coast. Available on March 27, but Slate Plus members can listen right now!

Not a Slate Plus member? Get early access, 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.

Podcast production by Kevin Bendis.

Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, Hit Parade listeners. What you're about to hear is part one of this episode. Part two will
0:07.0	arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear this episode all at
0:11.9	once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's
0:18.7	acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go to slate.com
0:23.5	slash hit parade plus. You'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full the day it arrives.
0:30.9	Plus, hit parade The Bridge, our bonus episodes, with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia.
0:40.3	Once again, to join, that's slate.com slash hit parade plus.
0:45.4	Thanks, and now please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode. Welcome to Hit Parade Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine,
1:10.5	about the hits from coast to coast.
1:13.0	I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song Number One series?
1:19.5	On today's show, speaking of why is this song number one, this is the current number one song in America, the country song Chosen, Texas, by
1:30.8	Ella Langley. I just wrote about this for my Slate series a couple of weeks ago, and I'm playing it
1:37.9	not just because it's an excellent song, but as a reminder that we still get some great
1:44.0	chart-topping hits today, even in
1:46.8	26.
1:50.3	It doesn't take a crystal ball to see. A cowboy always finds a way to leave drinking jack all by myself.
2:03.2	The charts have always been our focus on hit parade.
2:11.8	Over 100 episodes and nine years, this podcast has covered a lot of artists, genres, producers, pop trends,
2:20.9	and weird chart phenomena, from Songs of the Summer to Holiday Perennials, Legacy Hits, to One-Hit wonders.
2:40.0	But one thing we haven't explored in depth is chart fandom itself. What makes a person want to track these rankings?
2:44.0	Why do we care about what or who is number one?
2:49.0	You can stand under my umbrella.
	...

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