Timelapse encompasses 50 years of No. 1 singles, but you won’t be able to pick out Madonna or The Beatles on first listen. Composer R. Luke DuBois analyzed 50 years of Billboard No. 1s, and then gave each song a “spectral average” (basically, a smooshing-together of each individual sound contained in the song) that was played one second for each week that its corresponding song hung on to the No. 1 spot. What results is music in its most abstract form: a series of detached bass rumbles and pop-sheen glitters. “IV,” the final chapter in the chart-remixing, is an eight-minute journey from November 1991 through December 1999. We couldn’t definitively pick out any songs, although there was one lengthy interlude that may have represented “I Will Always Love You”’s fourteen-week reign.

R. Luke DuBois – IV [MP3, link expired]
billboard #1 hits composite [information aesthetics]