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Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia

Slate Podcasts

Music, Music History, Music Commentary

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2019

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are you tired of hearing how awe-inspiring the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was 50 years ago for 400,000 lucky hippies in Bethel, New York? Imagine how the people of 1969 felt—specifically the millions who couldn’t go. Yet, in the age before YouTube and social media, the rest of America did catch Woodstock fever—weeks, months, even a year or more later—and they made stars out of many of the performers. By 1970, not only was the Woodstock movie dominating the box office; the soundtrack album and a constellation of Woodstock stars were crushing the Billboard charts. This month’s Hit Parade offers a new take on Woodstock: To understand its legacy, you have to look at the charts long after August 1969. Chris Molanphy counts down 10 acts—some of them music legends, some of them short-lived hitmakers—who were materially boosted by the festival: from a guy hanging out backstage who got shoved onstage by desperate show organizers; to the band who loathed the whole experience yet saw their albums reach new chart heights; to the young man who arrived with no discography but kicked off one of the longest hitmaking careers in rock history. Podcast production by Chau Tu. Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Louis Thruu Interviews is back on BBC I Player.
0:04.0	Thank you for letting us in.
0:05.0	Letting you in, you've taken over.
0:07.0	I'll be having honest chats with some well-known faces,
0:10.0	like Anthony Joshua.
0:12.0	When I be the champions of the division, then you'll see me exciting.
0:14.0	If you beat Tyson Fury,
0:16.0	I'll be able to lose.
0:17.0	Ray.
0:18.0	I don't know how I would handle some things that I've experienced without music.
0:21.0	And Ashley Walters.
0:22.6	Well I had no reason to be out on the street, do you know what I'm saying?
0:25.6	Louis Tharu interviews. Watch on BBC Eye Player. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine, about the hits from coast to coast.
0:47.0	I'm Chris Mulanthus, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why is this song number one series.
0:54.0	On today's show, it's August,
1:00.0	on today's show, it's August 2019, and if you've been following music news for the last few weeks, you probably know it's the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which took place not in Woodstock, New York, but in nearby Bethel in August 1969.
1:21.5	You maybe also heard this year that attempts to mount a Woodstock 50
1:26.6	commemorative concert ultimately failed. Here at Hit Parade we've been thinking
1:31.8	about the legacy of Woodstock too.
1:34.4	But of course, we have a particular, quirky, pop charty prism through which we view music history. One, two, three. What are we fighting for?
1:44.0	Don't ask me I don't get there.
1:46.0	Woodstock was a cultural watershed, to be sure.
	...

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