Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia - Chestnut Roasters, Part 1
Slate Culture Feed
Slate Podcasts
4.2 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2021
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bing. Nat. Dean. John and Paul. Darlene. Mariah. Ariana. Musicians so famous, with so many classic hits, you don’t even need their last names. Now here are a few more, with fewer hits: Vince Guaraldi. José Feliciano. Donny Hathaway. The Waitresses. What do all of these acts have in common? Years from now, each of them may be known primarily for a single holiday chestnut. In fact, in the streaming era, some of them already are consumed largely in December.
In this holiday episode of Hit Parade, Chris Molanphy dives deep into radio, streaming and Billboard chart data to compare these acts’ long hitmaking histories to the majority-merry ways they are consumed today. And none has been more condensed by Christmas than another artist who was once famous enough to go by her first name: Brenda. A ’60s chart dominator and double–Hall of Famer, Brenda Lee is now mostly known for that tune about Christmas tree rockin’. How did the legendary “Little Miss Dynamite” become Santa’s little helper? And will she ever pass Mariah and go back to No. 1?
Podcast production by Asha Saluja.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening ad-free on Amazon Music. |
| 0:03.4 | Hey there, hit parade listeners. |
| 0:05.9 | What you're about to hear is part one of this episode. |
| 0:09.8 | Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. |
| 0:13.8 | Would you like to hear this episode all at once the day it drops? |
| 0:17.8 | Sign up for Slate Plus. |
| 0:20.0 | You can try it for a month for just one dollar, |
| 0:23.1 | and it supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. |
| 0:29.6 | Just go to slate.com slash hit parade plus. You'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full |
| 0:36.6 | the day it arrives, plus Hit Parade |
| 0:39.5 | The Bridge, our bonus episodes, with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, |
| 0:46.1 | and pop chart trivia. Once again, to join, that's slate.com slash hit parade plus. |
| 0:52.9 | Thanks. And now, please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode. |
| 0:58.8 | This podcast contains seasonal Wham content. Whamageddon players' discretion is advised. |
| 1:09.7 | Would you like to swing on a star carry moonbeams home in a jar and be better off than you are. |
| 1:20.6 | Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris |
| 1:28.7 | Melanthe, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song Number One series? |
| 1:34.6 | On today's show, if by some chance you don't recognize this vocalist, that is the legendary |
| 1:41.3 | Bing Crosby, with Swinging on a Star. |
| 1:44.8 | It spent a total of 10 cumulative weeks at number one on Billboard's pop singles charts, |
| 1:52.2 | best-selling retail records, and most played jukebox records in 1944. |
| 1:59.0 | That 10-week run was the most of any chart topper that year. |
... |
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