As part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Idolator Critics’ Poll editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. After the click-through, he looks at two books aimed at list fanatics, one intermittently entertaining but flawed and one recommended unreservedly to all music geeks:
My life of list-geekdom began, more or less, with two books. Growing up, our house copy of The Book of Lists, first published in 1977, belonged to the library; a friend of my mom’s had left it at the house and it was never returned, certainly not by me. I wouldn’t call myself obsessed with The Book of Lists, because I think of obsession as requiring some awareness of its own state. It was just the book I looked at over and over and over, just like I did with Fred Bronson’s Billboard Book of Number One Hits, which my grandmother gave me for Christmas when I was 10 and which remains one of the most entertaining music reference works I know.
That isn’t quite true of either book’s recent offshoots. The Official Punk Rock Book of Lists, issued by Backbeat Books in November, is “official,” apparently, because it was co-written by Amy Wallace, one of the co-authors of the original Book of Lists (along with her father, Irving Wallace, and her brother David Wallechinsky). Or maybe it’s because of the bona fides of Wallace’s co-conspirator, Handsome Dick Manitoba, leader of the Dictators and owner of NYC bar Manitoba’s, where I’ve gotten happily drunk on a couple of occasions. After all, no species is quicker to claim “official”-dom like pre-Sex Pistols punk rock musicians from New York. “Accept NO imitations!” the back cover demands, and all I can think is, “What imitations? What are you guys talking about?”
That feeling comes up a fair amount throughout the book. Sometimes it’s just dumbly glib, as when the intro to “7 Punk Rock Bands That Pay Homage to–or Trash–Lester Bangs” IDs the late rock critic as “a wacky, fucked-up brilliant music writer and musician.” Sometimes it’s hopelessly corny, as with “14 Punk Bands That Snuck Onto The Sopranos Soundtrack.” No. 1 is Link Wray: “We say Link is a punk, and we should know. After all, this is The Official Punk Rock Book of Lists.” (Aaaaand . . . clunk.) Sometimes its facts are skewed. Not just in the slapdash historical acumen in “hilarious” personality-driven lists like Crypt Records founder Tim Warren’s “Top 10 Things That Doomed Punk Rock”–David Bowie is responsible for “All those bad Iggy recs”…Raw Power is a bad Iggy record?–but in some of the straighter stuff as well. Take No. 8 in the “11 Great Punk TV Performances and Degrading Sitcom Portrayals,” Patti Smith singing “Because the Night” on Wonderama. Surely they mean Smith’s notorious, absolutely straight version of “You Light Up My Life”–on which she was accompanied by the song’s composer, Joe Brooks, on piano–on the Wonderama-related show Kids Are People Too:
Beyond occasional instances of tired cred-grabbing, though, the book has some charm. The book’s funniest entry is dentist and Scared Stiffs guitarist Dr. James Brown’s rundown of the “8 Worst Sets of Punk Rock Teeth (and Recommended Treatment)”–Shane MacGowan is advised to pull ‘em all out and start over. There’s smart, playlist-ready record lists by ex-GNR guitarist Gilby Clarke (”10 Best Punk Rock Guitar Solos”) and Lenny Kaye (his 25 favorite reggae singles) that buzz with true believers’ fervor, and to get you started in other media, “Jim Jarmusch’s 25 Pre-Punk Films with ‘Punk Attitude’” and “Richard Meltzer’s Beatnik Roots of Punk: A Reading List.” And the book’s definition of “punk” is pretty wide, as with this Top 10 from Reagan Youth’s guitarist (his examples, when offered, in parenthesis):
Paul Cripple’s 10 Heavy Metal Bands Suitable for Punk Rock Consumption:
1. Motörhead (”Iron Fist,” “Ace of Spades,” etc.)
2. Led Zeppelin (”Communication Breakdown”
3. Jimi Hendrix (”Astro Man”)
4. Black Sabbath (first four albums)
5. David Bowie (The Man Who Sold the World–album, not song)
6. Van Halen (”Atomic Punk”)
7. Alice in Chains
8. Jethro Tull (the live version of “Dharma for One”)
9. Metallica (Ride the Lightning)
10. Megadeth (first album)
If a list like that–an aesthete’s list–is the kind I’d write as an adult, the juggernaut that caps the fourth edition of Fred Bronson’s Billboard’s Hottest Hot 100 Hits, published by Billboard Books in October, is closer to what I’d have wanted to do as a kid. Hottest Hot 100 is the ultimate chart-maniac’s book, 325 lists of the biggest hits of the last five decades by year (random example: the No. 1 of 1972 was Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again [Naturally]“), decade (No. 1 of the Eighties: Olivia Newton-John, “Physical”), artist (No. 1 song by Barry White: Love Unlimited Orchestra’s “Love’s Theme”), producer (No. 1 song produced by Jermaine Dupri: Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together”), songwriter (No. 1 song written by Bob Dylan: the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man”), record label (No. 1 song on United Artists: Don McLean’s “American Pie”), subject (”The Top 100 Songs About the Body”: No. 1, Toni Braxton’s “Un-Break My Heart”), all of it capped by a ranked list of “The Top 5000 Songs of the Rock Era.” The book is recommended unreservedly to anyone who dorks out about this kind of stuff, whatever their other, subcultural musical affiliations. And if you’re reading this, that likely includes you.
As students of pop history–or those who pay close attention to the comments and columns of Chris “dennisobell” Molanphy–are aware, the charts underwent a massive change thanks to the introduction of SoundScan into the data-gathering system in 1992. This has precipitously skewed the upper reaches of the Top 5000: only 22 of the first 100 entries predate 1992. Even if you take into account the payola of the ’50s and ’60s–and the ’70s, and the ’80s–the shift is manifest. Where once the positions of hoary old chart behemoths like Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel”/”Hound Dog,” Chubby Checker’s “The Twist,” and Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life” were thought to be untouchable, they’re now 18th, 24th, and 39th on the all-time list.
Jay Smooth recently drew an analogy between the recent rappers-on-steroids scandal and Major League Baseball following the 1994 players’ strike: both were/are on shaky ground as far as fan appreciation goes, and the players/artists feel obligated to turn themselves into superheroes and/or caricatures to keep people’s attention. I wonder if there isn’t a similarity with the charts as well, songs staying on top for-freakin’-ever as a way of proving that, really, pop music really is too as popular as it used to be. Hell, maybe we can start using a Roger Maris-esque asterisk to mark things pre- and post-Soundscan. On that note, I’ll end this with two versions of Hottest Hot 100 Hits’s biggest chart, with the records’ actual positions in the book’s Top 5000 in brackets:
The Top 10 Singles of the Rock Era, Pre-Soundscan
1. Elvis Presley, “Don’t Be Cruel”/”Hound Dog” (RCA, 1956) [18]
2. Chubby Checker, “The Twist” (Parkway, 1960) [24]
3. Debby Boone, “You Light Up My Life” (Warner Bros./Curb, 1977) [39
4. Bill Haley & the Comets, "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" (Decca, 1955) [44]
5. Pat Boone, “Love Letters in the Sand” (Dot, 1957) [47]
6. Bobby Darin, “Mack the Knife” (Atco, 1959) [48]
7. Olivia Newton-John, “Physical” (MCA, 1981) [51]
8. Diana Ross & Lionel Richie, “Endless Love” (Motown, 1981) [53]
9. Guy Mitchell, “Singing the Blues” (Columbia, 1956) [54]
10. The Beatles, “Hey Jude” (Apple, 1968) [55]
The Top 10 Singles of the Rock Era, Post-Soundscan
1. Santana ft. Rob Thomas, “Smooth” (Arista, 1999) [1]
2. Mariah Carey, “We Belong Together” (Island, 2005) [2]
3. Toni Braxton, “Un-Break My Heart” (LaFace, 1996) [3]
4. Los Del Rio, “Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)” (RCA, 1996) [4]
5. Usher ft. Lil Jon & Ludacris, “Yeah!” (LaFace, 2004) [5]
6. Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men, “One Sweet Day” (Columbia, 1995) [6]
7. Boyz II Men, “I’ll Make Love to You” (Motown, 1994) [7]
8. Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You” (Arista, 1992) [8]
9. Elton John, “Candle in the Wind 1997″/”Something About the Way You Look Tonight” (Rocket, 1997) [9]
10. LeAnn Rimes, “How Do I Live” (Curb, 1997) [10]
Yeah, out at a movie last night I realized I really should have picked out his jab at “acoustic-guit-strumming shoegazer band[s].” Sort of like those xylophone-playing hip-hop DJs.
Nice column. And yes, I thought that before you namechecked me appreciatively.
I am a longtime Fred Bronson fan (like you, Billboard Book of Number One Hits changed my life), but I gotta say, I avoid his Hottest… books in general on principle. There’s too much to nitpick: he’s come up with his own points system, and that’s totally fair and fine, but there’s nothing official or Billboard-sanctioned or (this is the important part) data-driven about it. The problem with lists compiled by him or by Record Research founder Joel Whitburn is, they’re based entirely on chart position. Which is fine as far as it goes, but as we’re all learning in this era of, for example, No. 1 albums that sell 60,000 copies, chart position tells you little about the relative strength of a record.
I mean, put it this way: one time, The Wall Street Journal did an article revealing the formula behind the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It’s incredibly complicated (way more involved than just taking 30 stock prices and totaling/averaging them), but it’s an appropriate complexity, because it takes into account the myriad ways New York Stock Exchange rules have evolved since the 1920s and some of the wrinkles related to the particular stocks they’ve added and removed over the years.
A true version of what Fred’s trying to do in Hottest… would be that complex: first, start with the actual point totals of sales and airplay that put a record on top in any given week; then incorporate various multipliers to give a fair shake to records that charted when rules were different (when B-sides were allowed/disallowed; when airplay-only songs were permitted); then throw in a formulation for how to weight pre-SoundScan/BDS records; etc., etc., etc. I know: impossible, right? Which is why I think it shouldn’t be done.
I dunno, I don’t mean to suck the fun out of such an enterprise, but when I see a list like the one Fred updates every five years that shows all these post-’92 records trumping the previous 40 years of hits, it just screams “bad methodology” to me.
@dennisobell: that’s why I thought you’d appreciate my suggestion that pop chart histories contain Maris-esque asterisks. I wonder how exactly they could work, though.
In fact, what you’re suggesting is something like a Total Average for pop-chart gathering. [en.wikipedia.org]
@Matos: Clearly what we need right now are pop chart Sabermetrics. For instance, each single could have a VORS rating (Value Over Replacement Song) that could determine, through careful analysis and comparison to the mean of record sales, what being #1 means in 2008 compared to 1991 or 1966 or 1958.
And then older rock critics can call us nerds who spend too much time playing with calculators.
hee hee LET’S DO IT
@natepatrin: btw, the ‘97 Raw Power isn’t a remaster. it’s a complete remix. (and I prefer it to the ‘73 mix.)
The Book of Lists, such a treasure. (The copy at my grandparents’ place had one whole section scissored out, though — and later I found out that was the sex section.)
That Patti Smith clip just realigned my universe a little bit.
I totally need to buy the Billboard book before my next vacation.
That’s Bowie bit in Tim Warren’s list is possibly one of the least insane things he says — a lot of people think the original Bowie mix of Raw Power “neutered” the impact of the record, and I suppose the ‘97 remaster’s preferable if you think “Gimme Danger” didn’t work with a fadeout and wasn’t noisy enough. (I don’t.)
As for the rest of the stuff in his list, I thought people stopped being that rage-filled and petulant about music (and stopped using more than two exclamation points in a row) when they left high school.