The Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson

One wonders how we're going to explain the current era in comparison. This history of American popular song is so rich. One can see that beginning to develop in the last decade this book covers and it's only gotten worse since the publication of the last few big popular music reference books like this a decade (or more) ago. It takes real work to uncover the authentic voices in music these days, and most of the resources that claim to help us only throw up a smokescreen. Digital music and corporate control of what is publicized has also made the charts largely irrelevant. The factoids of the internet have supposedly replaced the need for them (except for serious music fans, they most definitely have not). I also want to bemoan here the fact that books like this are not getting published much anymore. For that, the reader has to read between the lines, but it's not hard to notice how different genres of music rise and fall, how the power of radio stations weakens over time, how the uber-popularity of certain acts makes number one or even the top ten less relevant in certain stretches, how important movie soundtracks become for a time, and so on. What he doesn't do is give any analysis of what kinds of pressures are driving what is charting and what isn't in different eras. This older edition presents a single page storyline and pictures of those who performed the music for every single song recording that was the top seller for any day from Jto October 11, 1997. Bronson does a really nice job of summarizing the career of each artist as they appear on the charts, and taken in all of its scope, that in itself is a great and entertaining education for the reader. The Billboard Book of Number One Hits revised and updated 4th edition was written by Fred Bronson and published by Billboard Books in 1997. before books with Stories Behind the Songs. I think one has to keep in mind that this is a chronicle of the charts, and not necessarily what is best or most interesting in music. The book that the New York Times called a treasure trove of pop lore just got better Before MTV and VH1. Taken that way, I think it's an even more interesting chronicle of the state of popular music in the United States. This is a fat book, and so I read it a decade at a time, putting it aside for a while as I finished each decade.

The Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson