Hit Parade: This Ain’t No Party?! Edition Part 1

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Music, Tv & Film, Arts

4.2 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

HEY! HO! LET’S GO!! Is this chant: (a) a movement of disaffected hipsters, (b) walkup music for a baseball player, or (c) a really catchy bop? How about all of the above? The legendary New York nightclub CBGB was the birthplace of punk. But it was also the future of pop: the Ramones, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Blondie. To varying degrees, these acts either became hitmakers, tried to reshape their music for the charts, or influenced generations of future multiplatinum stars. Honestly? Their music was pretty infectious from the jump, even if it was too advanced for the ’70s hit parade. The music we called punk contained multitudes: the improvisatory jazz-rock of Television. The demented anthems of the Ramones. The quirky funk of Talking Heads. The stylistic eclecticism of Blondie—who scored four No. 1 hits in four different genres. Join Chris Molanphy on a journey back to New York’s dirty days to try to answer: When did CBGB punk morph into chart pop? Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, hit parade listeners.
0:02.8	What you're about to hear is part one of this episode.
0:06.7	Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month.
0:10.4	Would you like to hear this episode all at once?
0:12.8	The day it drops, sign up for Slate Plus.
0:16.2	It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts.
0:22.3	Just go to slate.com slash hit parade plus.
0:26.1	We'll get to hear every hit parade episode in full the day it arrives.
0:30.6	Plus, hit parade the bridge, our bonus episodes.
0:34.6	With guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia.
0:40.0	Once again, to join that Slate.com slash hit parade plus.
0:44.8	Thanks.
0:45.8	And now, please enjoy part one of this hit parade episode.
0:56.1	Welcome to hit parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about the hits
1:05.7	from coast to coast.
1:07.2	I'm Chris Malanfee, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why is this song number
1:12.3	one series on today's show 44 years ago in the fall of 1979, a song that mixed funky rhythms
1:21.9	with jittery lyrics about life during wartime, made its debut on billboards hot 100.
1:30.0	The song claimed that things were too hard in the apocalyptic New York City of the 70s
1:36.4	to have any fun.
1:38.4	It wasn't a time to party, not a time for disco.
1:43.0	And yet, the song was totally fun and quite danceable.
	...

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