The Bridge: Let Me Be the One
Chris Molanphy: Hey, everybody, this is Chris Molanphy, host of Hit Parade Slate’s podcast of Pop Chart History. Welcome to The Bridge When. This is Come Go With Me by freestyle girl group exposing their 1987 breakthrough pop hit reached number five on the hot 100 and rather exceptionally for a club oriented dance song. It has a traditional bridge.
Chris Molanphy: Songwriter, producer and Expos impresario Lewis. A martini brought exposure, greater chart success than any other freestyle act, not just through his percolating arrangements and slamming beats, but also the sturdiness of his compositions. Breaking just as Billboard was launching its crossover 30 chart in early 87. Come Go With Me was a smash on that chart immediately. It served as a bridge from the early years of freestyle to its arrival as the dominant form of late eighties dance pop. And these mini episodes bridge are full length monthly episodes. Give us a chance to expand on those episode topics and enjoy some trivia. And this month is a real treat for me. My guest is a mentor and a dear friend.
Chris Molanphy: Maura Johnston is a writer and editor living in Boston. She contributes to the Boston Globe and Time magazine, teaches at Boston College and hosts the Pop and Wrestling Connection on the streaming radio station Uncertain FM more than a decade ago. Maura was also, by the way, my editor, both at the music blog Idolaters and at the Village Voice folks, she was the first editor to hire me to write about the Billboard charts, for which I will be forever grateful. Also, around that time in the early tens, Maura published the pop conference paper turned Kindle edition. The season came to an end. Freestyle brings loneliness to a crowded dance floor. Maura Johnston. Welcome to the bridge.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. It’s so delightful to be here.
Chris Molanphy: It’s so delightful to have you. I’ve wanted you on for the longest time. I’m glad we finally had a mesh of topic and the ideal person to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks.
Chris Molanphy: And because you and I go way back, I’m going to start with a teeny bit of nostalgia. So let’s talk about our shared history. Okay. You and I both grew up listening to New York radio in the eighties. You from Hicksville on Long Island, me from Brooklyn, which meant we heard a lot of freestyle.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Chris Molanphy: What do you think made it so prevalent on New York radio at the time?
Speaker 2: I think it was the energy of the music, first of all. A lot of it was from New York. So there was a certain amount of New York pride in playing it on stations like Z100. But I think also just the energy really fit into anything that was being played. You could fit an Alicia song or a CoverGirl song in with any of the high energy pop R&B songs or even like, you know, the sort of rock songs that were being played at the time. Like, I used to think of it as kind of like the glue that held a lot of these radio stations together during this time in New York. And I know that that might have been different in markets that weren’t New York or Miami, but certainly there was a lot of freestyle just being played in the clubs. And I think that was another thing, too, was that, you know, these stations had their Saturday Night Dance parties and the dance parties were very, very freestyle dominated. And those would sometimes catapult songs to the wider playlists.
Chris Molanphy: While we’re being a little nostalgic. Freestyle Faves. Do you have any especially fond freestyle memories or favorite hits? Because I’ll Confess, I played two songs by Alicia in the episode that weren’t big national hits just because I happen to love them. So. Any. Any memories like that?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Alicia is great. I will say that I want to be the one by. Stevie was one of the first singles I ever bought. I’m guessing. And I also won a cassette of Take It Like It’s Hot by Sweet Sensation. When I announced the number one song on the high five at nine on Z100 back in the day, serving in.
Speaker 3: Invited you, ladies and gentlemen, from the top of the Empire State Building and Broadcasting LA.
Chris Molanphy: My. You made the top five and nine. I’m really jealous now.
Speaker 2: Did I know? It was a very, very big moment. I think it was middle school because the song, you know, the number one song was Do Tell. It was a top radio original. It was New Kids Got Run Over by a reindeer, which is like, Oh, my God, such a specific snapshot of such a specific time.
Speaker 4: Kids got run over by a reindeer. All the little children are inside. No more loud, annoying.
Chris Molanphy: It’s got to be 88 or 89, right?
Speaker 2: I think it was 89. Because the other tips I got. Disintegration by the Cure.
Chris Molanphy: Oh, there you go. That would have to be a.
Speaker 2: Punch both ways by Gloria Estefan and New Jersey by Bon Jovi as.
Chris Molanphy: Well. Okay. So New Jersey is an 88 album, but the others are all 89. So that that adds up.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Chris Molanphy: Nice. I love that number.
Chris Molanphy: So I want to touch on your pop icon paper because you said something really incisive about freestyle and sadness. And I’m going to read back to you something you wrote. Quote, So much of freestyle comes from a place of isolation and revels in that fact, even though its ostensible purpose is to lubricate the movements of people at dance clubs. Much of the genre works with minor keys and yearning lyrics, which combine to create an atmosphere where solitude and loneliness aren’t what the dance floor is an escape from. Instead, they lurk in the thick of the crowd, unquote. Love that. Where do you think this sadness comes from? Dance and disco music has always reveled in some amount of melodrama. But what makes freestyle especially sad, do you think?
Speaker 2: I think it’s a lot of things. I think it was very much a youth music at the time. And so with youth comes that kind of heightened drama and feeling. Our colleague Alfred Soto has talked about how freestyle was sort of the telenovela of pop music at the time, which also indulged in melodrama. And freestyle is obviously short for Latin freestyle because a lot of its early proponents were Latin artists. And also that kind of loneliness on the dance floor, you know, is definitely a theme that’s been echoed throughout the disco era up until Dancing on My Own by Robin.
Speaker 5: Watching you kids.
Speaker 2: The solitude of the one person just singing their heart out because this might be their one shot to get their message out. If they’re going to do that, then they’re going to sing something important. So they’re going to reach deep into their hearts.
Chris Molanphy: I wonder, speaking of sadness, if there are other forms of eighties and early nineties music that are tonally or thematically similar, because in the episode I briefly, very briefly compared one a song to Goth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
Chris Molanphy: When I hear Let me be the one. And I even had to defend this on our slate plus Facebook groups, somebody is like, what are you talking about with exposing Goth? If you really listen to the beginning, especially the beginning of exposes, let me be the one that beginning sounds like a Siouxsie Sioux or a Cure record.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Hmm. Definitely the breaking glass effects that that kind of like explodes into the shimmers and then dips right into the beat. I think that that’s very true. I mean, I think that, you know, what was happening in Pop at the time was there was so much cross-pollination. You mentioned in the episode Whitney Houston and Madonna, who were very much at the forefront and even like, you know, you could say George Michael to his more danceable songs. You know, there was the remixers Pettibone, who definitely did that extended remix of Hard Day that I listen to all the time. It’s like 9 minutes long.
Chris Molanphy: Well, this song has such.
Speaker 2: That could definitely drop into a set with some Stevie B and cover girls. I think that a lot of it was the emotionalism, too. I think that that was what linked a lot of these songs because there’s definitely that ferocity of feeling that is evident in, you know, the singing was sometimes off key that the chords didn’t always resolve in like a perfect way. But at the same time, there was this just overwhelming feeling. And I mean, you know, the fact that I got, like, sweet Sensation and the cure, because that’s together, I think is very you could probably make those two together, right? That could be, like mixed up to freestyle.
Chris Molanphy: Oh, God. I would love to hear a freestyle remix of The Cure Jam. Like on mixed up, they’d have there were housemate mixes, but I’m not sure there was a freestyle mixture of anything on that on that Cure remix album. But there’s also, as you’re pointing out, overlap with U.K. pop at this time. You know, I noticed that in your paper you talked about how freestyle in the eighties could segway seamlessly into new wave synth pop like Scritti Pelini the perfect way. I think. And of course, high energy, including the popular high energy, like the stuff from stock and Waterman like Bananarama. That was at times almost indistinguishable. So how did this music together so well? Was it just the sense?
Speaker 2: I think that was part of it. I think it was also this idea of the technology was still really new. There were a lot of people just trying to figure out where it could go and what you could do with it. I mean, I’m going to bring up New Kids on the block again, because why not? But I’m sure I think about it. I went to the Boston stop of the mixtape tour that New Kids on the BLOCK are headlining this summer. And if you were coming in from a late eighties, early nineties perspective, you would be like Rick Astley is touring with New Kids on the BLOCK and salt and Pepper and En Vogue because, you know, that seems weird. That might have seemed weird at the time, but it makes sense now. And even when they all ended the show by doing Never Going to Give You Up Together, which I thought was pretty great.
Chris Molanphy: All of them.
Speaker 2: All of them. Yeah.
Chris Molanphy: And Vogue was singing. I’m never going to give you up.
Speaker 2: Really? Yeah. Damn, I know.
Chris Molanphy: That’s amazing. Wow.
Speaker 2: But I think that, you know, on both sides of the Atlantic, there was that spirit of just trying to figure out what these new technologies could do and how they could make pop music. You know, like Stuck and Mormon stuff is very kind of like. Brick wall. Right. Compared to freecell, which is a little more gossamer and has, you know, definitely booming drums. But like if you pick apart the sounds, you can really easily see a lot of space there.
Chris Molanphy: You know, speaking of musical commonality from this period, one topic I wish that I had had you on to discuss previously was hair metal circa my Bon Jovi episode of a few years ago. Because you’re one of the finest connoisseurs of eighties metal. I know. And here’s why I’m bringing this up. You were getting into Headbangers Ball and all that around the same time the freestyle was peaking. So as a teenager or heck, even now, did you or do you hear commonality between, say, I don’t know, expose and poison?
Speaker 2: One thing about freestyle that I think really appealed to me was that kind of Saturday Night Dance Club aspect where you got to hear the really long mixes of the songs like the Alicia song, Too turned on, I think is like 550 in its original form. It’s definitely more than 5 minutes. And just this idea that you could, you know, go past the boundaries of the traditional pop song. And once I was buying hard rock records, that happened as well with extreme to porno graffiti being, you know, this kind of mini rock opera that had even its own act one closer where all the songs come in in a medley or Skid Row’s Slave to the grind, which was super heavy. And I think that it was the way that they both kind of. Had pot aspirations at their core, but then spun off of them into very different places, but similarly exciting places.
Chris Molanphy: So one thing I was trying to get at vis a vis freestyle was how those acts only seemingly topped the hot 100 with ballads. What do you attribute that to?
Speaker 2: I mean, you could also say that that’s another commonality with hair metal, right?
Chris Molanphy: To show.
Speaker 2: Me.
Speaker 5: Are you. More than.
Speaker 2: It’s like we’re more than words to be with you. I remember you. Those were all the big songs from these bands.
Chris Molanphy: Heaven. Sweet, even sweet child.
Speaker 2: Even sweet child of mine. Right. I mean, I interviewed, you know, Gary Cherone and, you know, Betancourt, and like they talked about how people were kind of surprised by the rest of pornography after hearing more than words, which is this very sure stripped down Everly Brothers. And then you hear, you know, Betancourt’s guitar playing. And I think that ballads are the ultimate crossover. And, I mean, that’s even the case now, you know, that’s even the case with the way that Jason Raz’s I’m yours was so unkillable. Because once something reaches that point of no return, where where it can cross over into the stations, that might be a little hesitant about playing dance pop, but are that are okay with playing ballads then you’ve reached the kind of promised land of Pop are.
Speaker 4: It’s up to. But no more. It can.
Speaker 2: Is it ideal? No, of course not. I mean, in my world, like Spring Love by Stevie B would have been a number one hit, but. I don’t run things. And I think that it’s kind of the way for them to reach the biggest audience because it has the most mass crossover potential in this country that is, you know, that has a lot of adult contemporary stations that appeal to people at work or the doctor’s office.
Chris Molanphy: So let’s talk a little bit about the nostalgia factor again. These freestyle packaged tours do so well. You saw a package tour recently yourself, although I wouldn’t call that a pure freestyle tour.
Speaker 2: No, no. I think they do well in certain markets. You know, I live in Boston. Actually, Boston had a pretty big freestyle scene in the eighties. It had a lot of deejays who spun freestyle. It had people who went regular two nights and they had a package tour. In 2015, I want to say that came to the again, this arena, which is the Boston University ice hockey arena, right down the block from my apartment. And it was great. But those shows don’t come to non New York, L.A., Miami markets as much. But I think that, you know, picking their spots and also doing these package tours where it’s like hits, hits, hits.
Speaker 2: In the early 20 tens, I went to a couple of the Freestyle Forever shows that were sponsored by Fever Records, which was a very important label in the freestyle world in the early years. And those were kind of more package tours. Plus people would give speeches between sets about how important freestyle was. Yeah, yeah. And there was like a Hall of Fame. Yeah. But I think the package tours work because one act does three songs and is out, one act does X songs and is out. And so, you know, in a way, it’s kind of reductive because it does reduce these artists with big discographies to just their hits, but it also gives listeners the kind of experience of being on the listening to the radio or listening to the Saturday Night Dance Party again.
Chris Molanphy: Right. It’s kind of like all killer. No filler.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Chris Molanphy: To a fault almost, because it’s got to be rough for an artist as big as exposure. I guess they probably get more songs than average, but still, other than the couple of times I went to see one hundreds Jingle Ball back in the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Chris Molanphy: I don’t think I’ve ever been to that kind of package store where it’s just like two songs off, three songs off, one song off. Yeah, that’s that’s a very different rhythm.
Speaker 2: It’s a different rhythm. It’s an interesting rhythm, too, because it requires a lot of discipline and timing from everyone. Right. And you need to have like one band or one deejay just doing everything and one deejay maybe also acting as the master of ceremonies in between set changes and things, talking about what’s going on or hyping up the crowd, maybe dropping some songs that are by artists that were contemporaneous but not those artists are not on the tour for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: I will say also that there is a sort of interesting wrinkle with freestyle in that, as you mentioned in your podcast, like exposé had its entire membership changed out. Yes, before they broke super big. And that was the case with other freestyle artists as well. And so you have kind of the dueling bands, which is another commonality with Hard Rock from the late eighties and early nineties in that you have these artists that are using the same name but are different configurations touring.
Chris Molanphy: So a guitarist or a keyboardist get swapped out in a hard rock band. And similarly one one or two vocalists get swapped out in I don’t know, the cover girls. I’m making this up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Chris Molanphy: Now we’re bringing this up to the modern day and near the end of my episode. I had a hard time pointing to freestyle elements and 21st century music, at least in terms of the music. Although I love. A few minutes ago you talked about how Dancing on My Own by Robin is. It may not be a freestyle record, but it has freestyle energy. So, you know, other than some Lisa Lisa interpolations because it feels like can you feel the beat within my heart pops up in a song every ten or 15 years. It seems scant, but where do you hear the fingerprints of freestyle in modern pop?
Speaker 2: There are artists who I think have the kind of energy like I love this new record by this woman, Jane Ink, who’s based in Toronto. It’s not an exact 1 to 1 freestyle thing, although that kind of song that you mentioned, I heard that and I was like, oh, yeah, this is you know, this is her freestyle jam.
Chris Molanphy: That was like a eureka moment for me.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Chris Molanphy: She has not been shy about this at all. That was great.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then there’s also an artist named Milo Schon, who’s very much a scholar, freestyling, like on his Spotify page. He has, like, a playlist of his favorite freestyle songs. And I was like, Oh, this is pretty legit. Got some good, deep cuts in there and everything. And his music is good, too. Also, you know, there are just a lot of like synth pop artists who will nod to freestyle. Annie is one. I love Annie. I think that she’s great. 11 and she had that single Antonio maybe in 2013 or 14. And the B-side of it was a song by Antonio called Angel Face that was actually a total freestyle jam.
Chris Molanphy: Wow. All right. So it does crop up here and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there are playlists on Spotify and other music services just called like new freestyle. And sometimes, you know, it’ll just be a remix of a T.K. song from a couple of years ago. But it is an interesting way to see how the music is staying alive.
Chris Molanphy: Totally. Well, I just want to say thanks again more for taking the time to talk with us. What’s the best way for folks to keep up with your work? Do you want to share your Twitter handle or anything like that?
Speaker 2: Sure. I’m at Maura on Twitter.
Chris Molanphy: Simple as that.
Speaker 2: And that’s where I’ll post writings and also reminders of my show on Uncertain FM, which is every Tuesday at 10 p.m. where I do play a fair amount of old new freestyle.
Chris Molanphy: Awesome. Well, if that doesn’t hook people, I don’t know what more. I thank you so much for joining us on Hip Read the bridge. This was a real treat for me.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. This is a treat for me to. I remember when.
Speaker 4: We first got. You.
Chris Molanphy: Now comes the time in Hit Parade, the bridge where we do some trivia. And joining me from Poli, Pennsylvania, it’s Jeff. Hi, Jeff.
Speaker 6: Hey, Chris. How you doing?
Chris Molanphy: I’m all right. Now, I understand that, like me, your music acquisition fandom goes back to the eighties, and you worked at a record store back then. Can you tell me about that?
Speaker 6: Oh, my goodness. Yes. When you started the episode last time in 1987, it took me back to that summer when, as a 19 year old, I worked at the listening booth on the King of Prussia mall outside Philadelphia.
Chris Molanphy: Nice.
Speaker 6: Yeah. And it was lousy pay. A fair amount of grief from fellow workers who didn’t agree with each other’s musical tastes. But I was a teenager surrounded by music, and that was all it took for me to really enjoy myself.
Chris Molanphy: What’s not to love now? 87, I’m thinking that’s the year of hair metal freestyle. I think you mentioned in your letter to us the Grateful Dead put out a record that year and that the commonality was maybe you, too. Do I have that right? Yeah.
Speaker 6: So the in the store, we definitely had some whoever was running the register got to choose whenever the P.A. So the hair metal fan put on Bon Jovi over and over again. Sorry, Chris.
Chris Molanphy: Breaking my.
Speaker 6: Heart. The manager I remember, he particularly liked the The Elton John Live from Australia album that was out. He played that a lot, but when we all really were at each other’s throats, the Joshua tree seemed to be the the bridge that brought us all together.
Chris Molanphy: Nice. I like the way you worked in that bridge. So it sounds like when you guys were having tough times at the store, two had found what you were looking for.
Speaker 6: Oh, there we go. Very nice.
Chris Molanphy: All right. Well, I think you know how this works, Jeff. We’re about to launch into our trivia round. I’m going to ask you three questions. And unlike last month’s unusual trivia round, where all three were themed around a single episode. This time we’re going back to our usual. The first question is going to be a callback to our most recent episode, and the next two are going to be a preview of our next episode. And finally, at the end, I’m going to give you a chance to turn the tables and ask me a question. Are you ready for some trivia?
Speaker 6: I am indeed.
Chris Molanphy: Wonderful. Here we go. Question one. In last month’s episode, I talked about freestyle acts from all over the country and around the world, not just Miami and New York, which freestyle hitmaking act turned out to be surprisingly a husband and wife from Portland, Oregon. A Expos. B new shoes. C Will two power or. D Pretty poison.
Speaker 6: I’m pretty confident on this one, although I also remember Will to Power of being an unexpected combination of performers. But I’m pretty sure the answer is new shoes.
Chris Molanphy: And that is correct. The answer is new shoes. The hitmakers behind the number two R&B number three pop hit I Can’t Wait, turned out to be Portlanders, Valarie Day and John Smith. Excellent. You’re one for one. Are you ready for some preview trivia?
Speaker 6: I hope you’re doing something in my wheelhouse, but we’ll see what happens.
Chris Molanphy: All right. Here we go. Question two What is Journey’s highest charting hit ever on the hot 100? A. Open arms. B. Separate ways. Worlds apart. C faithfully or D Don’t stop believin.
Speaker 6: You are completely in my wheelhouse because I played in a cover band in junior high and high school that did play Journey songs.
Chris Molanphy: Excellent.
Speaker 6: But I don’t know the exact chart positions, so I’m pretty sure it’s one of the ballads either Open Arms or Faithfully, because as much as Separate Ways and Don’t Stop Believin were hits then and in some ways had much greater afterlives. I feel like the ballads were the ones that were the huge hits. I’m going to go with C faithfully.
Chris Molanphy: You were so close. The answer is a open arms. You puzzled that out. Exactly right. And then you just went with the wrong one. So open arms reached number two on the big chart and spent six weeks at number two. By the way, contrary to its modern reputation as journey’s greatest hit and most played hit, Don’t Stop Believin only reached number nine. Separate Ways, which was recently featured on TV’s Stranger Things, reached number eight and faithfully. Believe it or not, only reached number 12.
Speaker 6: That is surprising.
Chris Molanphy: It is surprising. Right.
Chris Molanphy: But you very cleverly keyed into why I ask this question, because now our third question is not going to be about journey at all. Are you ready for question three?
Speaker 6: I am.
Chris Molanphy: All of these hits are party classics and wedding reception staples, but which was the only one to crack the top 40 on the hot 100. A modern English I melt with you. B The Romantics What I Like About You. See Cupid, the Cupid Shuffle or D, D.J. Cool. Let me clear my throat.
Speaker 6: So I feel like and again, maybe my age and generation are leading me astray here, but I’m leaning towards one of the first two since I melt with you. And what I like about you were so prevalent in my teenage and college years. I’m going to go with the Romantics. What I like about you.
Chris Molanphy: And I’m sorry. The correct answer is D let me clear my throat. Deejay Jam, a wedding and club staple for 25 years now managed a number 30 peak in 1997, still lower than you might guess. The Romantics Rock Classic What I Like About You only reached number 49 in 1980, Cupid’s self-titled dance hit the Cupid Shuffle reach number 66 in 2007 and modern English’s MTV era BOP only got to get this number 78 in 1983 and the 1990 rerelease only got as high as number 76.
Chris Molanphy: I’m sorry, Jeff. Those preview trivia questions were tougher than I imagined for you. But here’s the good news. You now get your revenge. You get to turn the tables on me and ask me a question. Do you have a question for me?
Speaker 6: I do indeed. So we were talking earlier about 1987, the year of my service for Listening Booth And as you noted in the last episode, the year that Freestyle got its first number one on the hot 100 with Lisa, Lisa and cult jams head to toe. Among the other number ones from 1987 was another freestyle adjacent single club Devo’s Percussive Synthy cover of Lean on Me, but Lean on Me also deserves notice as one of several covers of oldies that reached the top of the charts that year a crop led by Los Lobos, rendition of La Bamba, which stayed at number one for three weeks in late summer.
Speaker 6: And not coincidentally, by the way, 1987 also witnessed a renewed popularity for actual oldies, as seen with the top selling soundtrack album from Dirty Dancing. So which one of these oldies covers from 1987 did not reach number one on the hot 100 a mony mony by Billy Idol? B I think we’re alone now by Tiffany. C Respect Yourself by Bruce Willis. Or D You Keep Me Hanging On by Kim Wilde.
Chris Molanphy: This is a brilliantly structured question because, you know, it hadn’t occurred to me in a while just how many covers hit number one that year. And when you throw Lean on Me, which was not even one of your choices, that’s yet another one, which is crazy, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got it. I think Bruce Willis is cover of the Staple Singers. Respect yourself, reach the top ten, maybe even the top five. But I’m quite confident it did not reach number one. So I’m going with respect yourself.
Speaker 6: And you are correct. Despite significant assistance from June Pointer in the Pointer Sisters, Bruce Willis, cover of the Staple Singers, classic Respect Yourself peaked at number five. The other three covers all reached number one for at least one week with Tiffany staying for two.
Chris Molanphy: Well, I did love that question. That was also a funny era where TV’s stars were actually scoring major hits, because I think that was a year after Don Johnson went Top ten with Heartbeat. It was that weird era where, like, if you were a big enough person on the tube, you could somehow get a hit on the radio. Which, by the way, could have been a theme in our June episode about TV hits. Well, since you got our first question right, I hope you can hold your head up high for giving it a good, valiant effort in our trivia round.
Speaker 6: I did. I did. And and I think I’m going to have to look back at my party playlist and make sure I understand their chart history a little bit better.
Chris Molanphy: All Jeff. Thank you so much for taking part in the hit parade. The bridge.
Speaker 6: My pleasure. One. Be.
Chris Molanphy: So as those last two trivia questions indicate, our next episode of Hit Parade coming in September will be about legacy hits. Now, as much as I love the Billboard charts, even I will admit they are an imperfect barometer of long term popularity. The charts are only compiled week by week, and not all of the songs you hear on the radio or in public spaces these days were number one hits or even top ten hits. The first time hits. That peak low on the chart in their day might wind up being classics, including Wedding and Club Staples, like the ones I highlighted in that last trivia question. What’s especially surprising, too, is when a lower charting hit, let’s say Don’t Stop Believin or even lower. Tiny Dancer, Tempted by Squeeze. These songs missed the top 40 and they become an ATS signature hit over other hits. The peaked higher.
Chris Molanphy: Now, last December for our holiday show, I themed a whole episode around what I call Chestnut Roasters Christmas hits that have overtaken certain artists catalogs the way, say Paul McCartney now gets more airplay and streams for his non charting hit Wonderful Christmastime than for any of his bigger post-beatles hits or how chart topper Brenda Lee is now mostly known for Rockin Around the Christmas Tree. Well, the same applies year round, not just to Christmas. Songs you hear on the radio might have been chart flops in their day, but they now punch above their weight.
Chris Molanphy: I want to measure what I call legacy hits and using the same data from Illuminate and Billboard that I used for the Chestnut Roasters episode comparing modern radio spins and online streams to their original chart position. I’m going to do an exploration of these legacy hits and try to figure out the reasons why, say, the Romantics will forever be known for their number 49 hit instead of their number three hit. So that’s our next full length episode of Hit Parade. We’re taking the month of August off, but we’ll be back in your feed in mid-September. This episode of Hit Parade The Bridge, was produced by Kevin Bendis. And I’m Chris Molanphy. Keep on marching on the one.
