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Here is Chris Malanfi with Hit Parade.

It's not a nice song? Welcome to hit parade.

Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History

about the hits from coast to coast, from Slate magazine.

Coming to you live from the bell house in Brooklyn, New York, the greatest city in the world.

And I do mean Brooklyn.

I am Chris Malanfi, a native son of the County of Kings, and also a chart analyst, pop

critic, and writer of Slate's wise, the song number one series.

As you can hopefully hear out there on podcast land, we're recording a podcast tonight. I am being joined tonight by a few hundred of my newest

friends, a boisterous gang of fellow chart nerds. Say hello everybody. I must say, I am relieved

to feel so much love and support in this room because frankly, all of you are guinea pigs.

Not just for me, but in the more than dozen year history of Slate podcasts, because, funny story,

we've never really done anything like this before. When the Slate Live team approached me last summer

and asked flatteringly if I wanted to try a live edition of hit parade,

I played it cool, but on the inside, my first reaction was to cheer, silently.

I've long dreamed of hosting not just a Slate podcast, but a live podcast.

But my jubilation was followed seconds later by total panic.

What the hell would we do? So I asked the

Slate Brain Trust meekly. So has anyone ever done a solo live podcast? Because you know how

these live podcasts normally work, three stools, or maybe two couches, a trio of hosts walks out, or maybe one MC plus a cavalcade of guests.

And you all observe as the gabbing is gabbed or the chatter is cocktails or whatever it is the hang-up and listen guys do.

...