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Slate Culture Feed

Hit Parade: Smells Like Christmas Spirit, Part 1

Slate Culture Feed

Slate Podcasts

Music, Tv & Film, Arts

4.22K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2020

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hit Parade is back for non-Slate Plus listeners! Upcoming episodes will be split into two parts, released two weeks apart. For the full episode right now, sign up for Slate Plus and you'll also get The Bridge, our Trivia show and bonus deep dive into our subjects. slate.com/hitparadeplus. When Nirvana’s Nevermind ousted Michael Jackson’s Dangerous from the top of the Billboard album chart, it made headlines in early 1992. Only, it didn’t really happen in ’92. What gave Nirvana the win happened right after Christmas ’91. Teenagers who were home for the holidays voted with their gift cards, and they gave Kurt Cobain’s band the win over the King of Pop. This month, Chris Molanphy examines the chart dynamics that not only ushered in the grunge era but also invented a new music sales strategy, the post-Christmas album. Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey there, hit parade listeners, what you're about to hear is part one of this episode.

0:06.3

Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month.

0:10.6

Would you like to hear this episode all at once, the day it drops? Sign up for

0:16.2

Slate Plus. It's just $35 for the first year and it supports not only this show but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and

0:26.1

podcasts just go to slate.com slash hit parade plus you'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full the day it arrives

0:36.7

Plus hit parade the bridge are bonus episodes with guest interviews deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia.

0:46.0

Once again, to join, that's Slate.com slash Hit Parade Plus. Thanks.

0:52.2

And now, please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode.

0:57.0

Take the home with bounds of Holly.

1:01.0

Falala la la la la la. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart history from Slate magazine about the hits from

1:10.8

Coast to Coast.

1:11.8

I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of

1:15.8

Slates, Why Is This Song Number One series? On today's show, Happy Holidays from all of us at Hip Parade. In this pandemic plagued holiday, I hope you are finding ways to celebrate with your bubble of loved ones. Even in 2020 this holiday can still be about togetherness.

1:37.2

Of course given what a garbage fire of a year this has been perhaps it's more apropos to celebrate 1991's style,

1:46.7

when this was the way thousands of American teenagers were saying,

1:52.0

Merry Christmas.

1:54.0

New time treasure,

1:55.0

a la la la la la. Nirvana's landmark 1991 album, Nevermind, might not sound like a holiday album.

2:15.0

And this is not going to be one of those conversations where I try to convince you,

2:21.0

Nevermind is secretly a Christmas Christmas album the way some folks insist

2:25.2

die hard is a Christmas movie. But speaking just for myself 29 years later I

2:31.6

still think of the 1991 holiday season when I think of Nirvana's breakthrough.

...

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