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Chris Dalla Riva, "Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
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A
Welcome to the New Books Network. Welcome to the New Books Network. I'm your host, Gregory McNeff and I'm excited to be joined by Chris Delariva, the author of Uncharted Territory, what Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves. The book was published by Bloomsbury in the United States in November of 2025. Cristel Arriba lives at the intersection of music and data. Playing in bands and recording music since his teenage years. Chris is currently a senior Product manager at audiomac, where he focuses on data analytics and personalization. He writes the popular newsletter Can't Get Much Higher and he has his work featured in many periodicals including the Economist, Business Insider, the Wall Street Journal, the London School of Economics, and npr, among many others. He currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. With his four guitars, I Collected Uncharted Territory because it's a wonderful analysis of the development of music by both a musician and a data scientist. The fact that Chris has this strong background shows up in the book. It's also a very fascinating and interesting read. Hello Chris, thank you for joining me today to discuss your book.
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B
Hey, how are you? Thanks for having me. I'm really, I've been really looking forward to this.
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A
No, thank you Chris, first question. Why did you write Uncharted Territory? And who is the target reader?
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B
Yeah, I. I mean, this book came about in a very roundabout way. I was out of college. I played in bands and whatnot, as you said in my bio. And I was. I wasn't working in the music industry, but I was looking for just another musical outlet. And I came up with this quest to listen to every number one hit ever. The from the Billboard Hot 100, which is Billboard's pop chart chart, started in August 1958. I was like, I'll do one song a day. So, you know, I played the first song, Ricky Nelson's Poor Little Fool. I would noodle around on my guitar while I was listening. Then the next day I would do a different song. And it was just like this nice little way to relax at the end of the day. I roped a friend into listening with me, and we would chat about the songs every day. And I just started noticing some trends, and I would keep track of some information about the songs, and I wrote up a little blurb about what I was seeing, and I sent it off to an old professor that I had, and he was like, oh, this is pretty good. You should keep at it. So then this book slowly emerged over time. There was not a grand scheme from the beginning. And I think ultimately the target audience ends up being anyone who is into popular music or anyone who's into data analytics or measuring things that we usually don't think of as measurable, in this case, music. So I like to joke. I've joked that the. Whether you dance the twist or the Dougie at your senior prom, the book will have something for you, because we cover 1958 pretty much up to the present. So, you know, any pop culture fan, I think, will get something out of this.
- [04:22]
A
Yeah, absolutely. The level of research is really impressive, as is the analysis. And I. Before we dive in, you talked about it sort of evolving from a hobby or a way to relax to more of a structured product. And in the book, you reference this data set that I believe you've now made available online. Could you talk about what's in that data set briefly? It is an important aspect of this book.
- [04:47]
B
Yeah, so like I said, my friend and I initially were just. We would listen to the songs and we would chat about them every day, and we would rate them out of 10, and I would just put our ratings in a spreadsheet at the time. Like I said, I wasn't working in music, but I was working a spreadsheet job for Lack of a better term. So I was already very familiar with the wonderful program Microsoft Excel. So I would track our song ratings, and I just started tacking on other things that were. I thought were interesting. You know, who wrote the song, who produced it, what label put it out. And then this. This data set just grew and grew and grew as I got curious about other stuff, like, I don't know, what were the demographics of the songwriters? Were they men, were they women, Were they both? Were they white or black? And more and more trends just started to emerge as I did this. And like you said, I did put this data set online. I think if you go to the sources in the book, I reference a URL you could go to to see the spreadsheet. Because I wanted. It was such a long, arduous process to put the whole thing together that I wanted it to be available to other people to use if they so desire. So that data set is not the. It's basically. It's the backbone of the book. Not every piece of information in the book came from that, but a lot of it did.
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A
And I should mention, you also provide other sources as well for people who want to basically drill into the data. Chris, why just number ones? Why not the top 10?
- [06:15]
B
Good question. Well, first and most simply, I listened to all the number one hits. There's about 1200. If you do the top 10, you'll see that number blows up. And I probably would have never gotten to the end. Um, there are certain pieces of the book where I expanded the data that I was looking at, but I wanted to focus on number one hits just because a, you know, number one is like. It's a thing people talk about, people are familiar. It's a big deal if you have a number one hit. These are all very, very popular songs, which I like because, you know, you could mention a musical trend and I could talk about some obscure song that illustrates that trend, but it's much, I think, better for readers if you're mentioning a very, very popular song. They'd be like, oh, yeah, I'm familiar with that. Also, I found over time that I think number one hits end up being representative of something larger because they are so popular. Usually things that get to the popular get to the top of the charts are representative of larger trends that are going on. But in the same breath, I could. I could have listened to every number three hit. It probably would have been able to write pretty much the same book. You know, I'm really just looking for. Ultimately, I was looking for just popular Songs over time to see what they told us about what was going on.
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A
Yeah, definitely. I think you succeeded there. Another interesting aspect of the book is how you, I guess, how you broke up the time periods. Or more specifically to the book, the chapters you suggest that, hey, a decade, I guess, we as a society function around a base 10 nomenclature. So perhaps you could have broke it up by decade, which I guess would have been the default. But you choose a more either arbitrary or thoughtful approach. Could you talk about how you, I guess, segmented the chapters or time periods up to the present day?
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B
Yeah, I denote each chapter an era, but this is ultimately me just saying, all right, this is the period that I'm writing about in this chapter that is our era. And I did want to point out that it's helpful to think about popular music or cultural trends by decade, because, you know, we give identities to decades, at least in the 20th century. The 1960s supposedly has a different feel than the 1970s, but I think it's obvious to everybody, like, the cultural trends of the 1960s did not just stop on December 31, 1969. So I wanted to have a little bit more flexibility to be able to trace cultural trends. And ultimately I would listen until I felt like I had enough to say about a specific period of time. So if that time period happened to end at December 31, 1969, then I was happy to denote that whatever error I was writing about in the book. But if it happened, but if also at the same time it ended up bleeding, you know, into the early 70s, I didn't want to be constrained in that way. So I just did that for. Mostly for flexibility. It's not completely arbitrary. I would usually stop at a point where I felt like there was enough of enough trends to discuss. But there is a somewhat arbitrary nature to it. If I went one song further or stopped one song earlier, it wouldn't have changed the conclusions of the book.
- [09:22]
A
Interesting. You mentioned working with a friend. I believe there were two individuals involved. One was a friend that started through the entire process with you. And then I believe you had another individual come in who rotated. I can't remember if you said every 25 songs or that third individual was sort of a rotating position. Could you briefly talk about the benefit of that?
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B
Yeah. So one thing that I think is sort of fun about the book is each chapter is broken up into two sections. The. Or broadly, two sections. The first section is Chris picks apart whatever trends are going on in this era. And the second part is I list the three best three Worst songs and a couple others and describe them. And those what's determined as the best of the worst came from three. Three people rating each of the songs out of ten. Me, my one friend who again, I started just doing this listening, went on this listening journey with. And then I would rotate a third person in, usually around every 25ish songs, just to get different perspective on some of this music. And my thought process was if three people say a song is a perfect ten or three people say a song is an imperfect one, then that probably means there is some consensus about the quality of this song. Though I do ruminate on that throughout the book about what it means to be a good song, what it means to be a bad song. But I think even if ultimately there is not some objective measure about what makes a great pop song, these are conversations that people always talk about. Everyone talks about what's the greatest song or what's my favorite song, or what music do I like, or what music do I not like. And I think it's really important for us to be able. For us to be able to discern what we think is good art and what we think is bad art. I. I think that bleeds into a lot of other areas of our lives. And it's just a ton of fun to have conversations like that. So I wanted to include that in the book. But, you know, I didn't want it just to be my opinion. I didn't want to just be like, okay, this song is perfect. At least balancing it with two other people made me feel a little bit sure that what I was saying was this is the best song of this period of time. Probably was.
- [11:33]
A
No, it feels like a very structured approach. What you would expect from a data scientist. You know, I'm going to jump right in. You mentioned the 60s, and I believe the Billboard 100 was implemented in August of 1958. And your first chapter covers the first three years or so. And that's a heck of a way to start because we. We've got a lot going on there. One is the birth of the teenager and Mamie related teenage tragedy. Could you talk a bit about those themes?
- [12:07]
B
Yeah, that was the theme that initially inspired me to try to write something about this. In short, there's sort of seemingly strange trend, I think from a modern perspective, that there are these songs that are known as teenage tragedy songs where two teenagers, usually high schoolers in love, one of them dies tragically. Like it usually involves a car in some way. Maybe the quintessential example is this Song called Teen angel by Mark Dinning was the number one hit, I think, the late 1950s, about two teenagers who are in love. They're driving along, car gets caught on the railroad tracks. They both escape. As you know, the train is barreling towards them. But then the girl goes back to try to retrieve a ring that he gave her, or she tries to retrieve some ring, she dies. And you're like, this is very strange. Like, well, how were these. How were songs this dismal popular? And there are a bunch of them in this short period. It sort of dies out in the mid-60s. I think the last true teenage Tragedy song was Leader of the Pack by the Shangri Las, or at least the true one to true Teenage Tragedy song to top the charts. And I became fascinated with this because it's. Again, I think it's. I was like, this is a weird, depressing trend to be at the top of the charts. I usually associate pop music with stuff that's upbeat, danceable, very friendly, and none of those songs fit that mold. And what I talk about in the book, and I think what you're alluding to is I think a lot of this is connected to the rise of the teenager. You know, from, again, a contemporary perspective, there is a demographic group between when you are a child and when you are an adult. But that was really an invention of the early 20th century. If you go back far enough, you know, you're a kid one day and then eventually you are considered an adult. But with the rise of compulsory education, where you had people in this age range hanging out all day, namely in high schools, you start to see teenagers develop their own culture. And then eventually, you know, companies are trying to market culture towards them, especially as you see the post World War II economic boom.
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A
And.
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B
And I think part of the teenage tragedy craze or trend is connected just to the rise of the teenage demographic and trying to create culture that would appeal to them in some way.
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A
Another insight you draw is the fact there's no sort of monolithic genre. And you suggest it, maybe it might do. The fact there's no sort of technical concentration. I might have that wording wrong, but as evidenced by the large number ones, this era is really, you know, there's a lot of different genres that the. The audience likes. Could you talk a little bit about that and why that dynamic is so.
- [14:52]
B
Yeah, I. I felt like when I started learning about popular music and when you read very broad histories of the history of popular music in the United States, especially in the 20th century, it really Starts with the Beatles. It's like, you know, there are tons and tons of quotes from people. I think there's a great Ozzy Osbourne quote saying the world was black and white until the Beatles came along and then it was in color. And of course these histories also mentioned before the Beatles there was Elvis Presley. He was this very, very popular, influential figure. But I always feel like after Elvis gets drafted into the army, there is this period that's like a dead zone where people don't talk about as much that you're sort of just waiting, okay, for the Beatles to arrive, for the British invasion to happen and then music is good again. But I wanted to point out with the. If you look at the number one hits of that era, you know, post Elvis getting drafted into the army, which is in the late 50s and the Beatles arriving, there's really a lot of exciting things going on in popular music. There's fun trends in the singer songwriter community, lots of brill building songwriters. When you think of Carole King and her first husband Jerry Goffin are writing great songs. Motown starts coming about surf rock's super interesting short lived genre which births the Beach Boys, you know, one of the great 1960s groups. And I just wanted to point out that you do sort of have a lot of exciting stuff going on in this transitional period before the Beatles arrive in the United States. And I think that's an important corrective because I don't think it is a musical dead zone that's like it's often described as.
- [16:30]
A
That's interesting and we're definitely going to get to the Beatles. I feel like they're sort of the, you know, the, the benchmark and maybe along with Presley and Bob Dylan that we, we tend to associate with genre defining or error changing periods. But I want to talk about one other insight I thought was fascinating. In this period you mentioned 42% of songs were covers or based off another work. I, I wouldn't have come close to guessing that percentage.
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Why?
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Why do you think that is?
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Yeah, this is another thing that's from our contemporary perspective, seems odd because when you look at the pop charts today, it's largely, largely original songs. It's not like people don't cover stuff. You go on YouTube and search any song. You know, there's a gazillion people sitting in their bedroom covering a song. And of course there are counterexamples. Just a few years ago, Luke Combs had a huge hit with Tracy Chapman's Fast Car. But this really doesn't become a thing. This Idea of not covering music until, you know, after the 1960s. And it really is associated with the Beatles to some degree. Beatles, Bob Dylan, who are writing their own music. But before that, it was very, very common to cover songs to the point where you would see multiple covers of the same song released at the same time. And not only that, multiple versions would be popular at the same time. This is why when you look at old jazz standards, you know, there's a version by Frank Sinatra, there's a version by Isla Fitzgerald, I don't know, you know, there's a version by Tony Bennett. Cover covering music was very, very common. And what I talk about in the book is this is certainly connected. You have to go back to this idea. Before recorded music, basically every song was a cover. Whoever the artist associated with a song was whoever was sitting there in front of you performing it. So once recording comes along, it wasn't like that trend just died. We only now associate record songs with specific artists because recordings are so ubiquitous. You know, I could take my iPhone out of my pocket and I could listen to any piece of recorded music basically in history for the most part. So up through the late 50s, early 60s, we're still emerging from this world of pre recorded music where we're not only there are like, artists are expected to cover songs. That was sort of how you cut your teeth, that was how you became respected. And like I said, like I said book 42%. I mean that does seem very high. And we sort of see over the decades that percentage plummets close to close to zero these days, at least at the top of the charts. But I think that's the reason that covers were so prevalent in that era.
- [19:15]
A
You mentioned the Beatles and you know, Ozzy's comment moving from black to color. And I think you make a reference to Einstein, you know, sort of upending Newtonian physics with the space time Beatles. There's a lot going on here. So A, I want to ask you about their impact and then I want to talk about their arrival as it relates to the JFK assassination as well as some other trends going on in the early 60s.
- [19:42]
B
Yeah, I mean I, like I said I spent a lot of time in the early part of the book being stressing that there was a lot of great musical stuff going on before the Beatles. But at the end of the day, I mean the Beatles are, I always like to joke, they're the most perfectly rated band of all time because they're probably the most popular musical act of all time, most critically acclaimed, and they really do deserve the praise. I mean, they are a paradigm shifting act. Who I talk about in the book greatly inspired other artists to write their own songs. And they really transform the band to some degree to become a creative unit. Whereas previously it was you would have an artist who would really perform the song, but songwriting and production duties were handled by other people. The Beatles are this singular creative unit where they're going to work with one producer, they're going to write their own songs and they're going to perform their own songs. And at the same time, I mean, I think the most important part is that the songs are great. It's the Beatles catalog is someone asked me the other day if my apartment caught fire and I had to run out with one artist's albums before the building burned down. I mean, you have to me, you have to take the Beatles records. Those are still such a cultural touchstone and their influence sort of can't be overstated because of how popular they were and how they continued to reinvent popular music just at the right time. And by that I mean television becomes more accessible to the American people. Right around when the Beatles are becoming popular, you do have this boom of young people who are tuned into music. The 60s are a very radical time. And part of the Beatles popularity is just really, you know, right place, right time. But the music really does stand up all these decades later.
- [21:34]
A
Yeah, it almost seems like it's the perfect band at the perfect time. Obviously, the advent of television. You also discussed the timing around the JFK assassination. I think this might be more myth than reality that that propelled them on to the. Into the US consciousness. But could you briefly talk about that?
- [21:53]
B
Yeah, there's a. It's not. It's not a fun story. JFK gets killed in late November and the Beatles put out I want to hold your hand right around that. And they come to America a couple months later and the sort of story is that part of the Beatles success is that America was really depressed at the time. And you know, these upbeat Brits who are singing very positive songs about falling in love and holding hands sort of lift America from this deep cultural depression. And it's sort of a nice story and you see it repeated from time to time, but it's just not really true. The Beatles were already starting to get press coverage before JFK was killed. And people were. There was growing interest in the band in the United States. It already sold a gazillion records in the United Kingdom. So the Beatles, like I say in the book, they were coming to America, no matter what, who was in the White House. But it's, you know, it's an interesting, it's an interesting story. And I do think some of the Beatles story is, as you just said, right place, right time. But I don't think JFK really inspired more people to enjoy their records.
- [23:05]
A
And when we began this interview talking about the structure of the book, for each chapter you go through the history and evaluate technology perspective and key trends. And the second half has highs, lows and some I think you call discussion points. And in that second half of this chapter, I think you say something along the lines of on most days, you consider yesterday the finest composition of the 20th century. You just briefly touch on that.
- [23:31]
B
Yeah, it's, it's per. I mean, it's a perfect song. It's lyrically, you know, it's very efficient. You know, there's not that many words in that song, but Paul McCartney manages to convey this very complex emotion in so few words and melodically it's gorgeous. It's one of those things is like you could write a million words about it or say a million words about it, but you put it on and it still sounds just as vital as it did I think, when it came out. I love a lot of Beatles songs, but that one still sort of stands above the rest for me.
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B
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- [25:24]
A
You also touched earlier in our conversation on diversity, particularly over time, black and female artists. Could you maybe talk about what's going on in this era, the early 60s, and how that progresses?
- [25:37]
B
Yeah, you can't talk about the history of popular music, especially in the United States, without talking about race and gender issues. I mean, if you look at the most popular songs of the 1940s, it's almost exclusively songs released by white people. And then in the 60s, we start to see this change a bit, Especially with the growth of Motown records, where black artists really start to cross over in the United States pop world. And I think understanding that trend is very important as a way to understand what was going on with race relations in the United states throughout the 1960s. And it's not like I'm not saying that the Civil Rights act wouldn't have been passed without, you know, Motown and the Supremes, But I think we underrated how much people are influenced by the art that they consume, by the movies they watch, by the songs that they listen to. If you were, you know, a white person living in middle America, it's possible that the first time you were really seeing or interacting with people of other races on any level were, you know, seeing the Supremes on the Ed Sullivan show or something like that. So, you know, I try to tie in these. These statistics about racial and gender representation as I work through the eras, because I think it's an important part of our history.
- [27:00]
A
Excellent. Another theme you talk about, and I believe it's sort of emerging in this period, is the rise of the lead singer, which is fueled both by World War II dynamics and the evolving technology of the time. Could you talk about that?
- [27:14]
B
Yeah. I think one of my favorite trends that I would come upon again and again is that musical innovation is often downstream of technological innovation. And the lead singer is a perfect example of this. Again, you go back far enough if you have an orchestra perform. Go back far enough where there is no amplification. If you have an orchestra or a band playing, it's going to be hard for a single singer to be heard over that. So if you want to be heard, your voice really has to boom. And we see this trend continue. When recording is first invented, you have to sing or perform loudly for the recording devices to pick up your voice. But then throughout the 1930s and 1940s, microphone technology improves, and we can pick up a wider range of sounds. So with that, you get this softer croon of someone like Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby, where those voices almost couldn't have been recorded if they were Born a couple decades previously. So it's not deterministic in the way that we invent this technology. And then everyone starts singing in a particular way. But the technology enables artists to experiment with different sounds and sonic textures. And at the same time, again, amplification is improving. So you can't have a single singer. Whose voice can be heard over the roar of a band or an orchestra. And I think it's really. When we think about pop groups today. We almost always think of the singer as the leader of the band. That was not the case throughout the first half of the 20th century. And I think it's really the effect of new technology. Related to microphones and amplification.
- [28:56]
A
Another sort of key figure in the development of music. We talked about the Beatles. I guess the next peak would be Bob Dylan. Could you talk about his influence. And particularly as it relates to this heroic theory of invention versus multiple discovery sort of paradigm you mentioned in the beginning of the chapter?
- [29:14]
B
Yeah, Dylan is one of my favorite musicians of all time. And certainly an influential figure. But throughout the book, when I talk about these big figures. I don't want to just accept the histories that I've heard. I want to investigate them. And see if there's anyway we can quantify certain things. To see if the stories that we hear. Actually hold up to statistical scrutiny. And, you know, one thing that I'd heard growing up. Was how Dylan changed how people write lyrics. You know, his lyrics, especially in the 1960s. Are highly more complicated. Than you would expect from your average pop song. So this is what I call. Or what's termed, like, the heroic theory of Invention. Or the Great Man Theory of history. Is just like this. One person emerges and they change everything. Whereas the alternative is sometimes called multiple discovery. It's that the times really shape the people. And if Bob Dylan wasn't around, you know, other people would have led. Or other people would have created these lyrical innovations that were prevalent during the 60s. And that's sort of what I land on is like, obviously, Bob Dylan was a tremendously influential figure. You can read almost any artist from that period talk about him with great praise. But at the same time, it seems like the lyrical changes we see in the 1960s. Are the result of people reacting to the various social and political upheavals that were going on at the time. Related to civil rights movement, the women's liberation movement. Political strife around the world. The war in Vietnam and conflicts in other places. So I just want to situate Dylan within that. That history is. He is a very Important, influential figure. But at the same time, part. Parts of him and his influence were just a product of the 1960s.
- [31:07]
A
Is it true that Dylan never actually had a number one hit on the.
- [31:11]
B
Billboard 100 as an artist? That is the case. He. The closest he got was number two two Times Like a Rolling Stone peaked at number two. And Rainy Day Woman also peaked at number two. I believe the former got stuck behind Help by the Beatles, and the latter got stuck behind Monday Monday by the Mamas and the Papas. He did have a writing credit on a number one hit, though, because he wrote Mr. Tambourine man, which the birds took to number one. I guess if you're being super technical, you could say Bob Dylan did perform on a number one hit because he was involved in We Are the world with like 30,000 other artists. But I'm not going to count that.
- [31:51]
A
No, that's nice. You know, as I introduce you and as you see throughout the book, the data analytic part of this book really shines here, particularly around your analysis of the complexity of Dylan's lyrics. And you actually cite a few, I believe, methodologies in the footnotes. I'm not going to attempt to explain them, but something like Flesh Kincaid or Lindsay Wright. Could you talk about the complexity of Dylan's lyrics and how that also was sort of genre defining?
- [32:21]
B
Yeah, there are lots of ways that people try to use to measure the complexity of a piece of text. And you know, this is useful for, you know, children trying to learn how to read. They're usually sort of simple formulas based on how big the words are, how many syllables they have. And I applied that to popular songs in and around this era. And when you look at those metrics for Dylan's songs, say his song, his output in the 1960s, and compare that to the number one hits of the 1960s. I mean, Dylan songs are far and away more lyrically involved than your average song at the top of the charts.
- [32:59]
A
I want to move down to the 70s. And there you raise this question. Are the songs becoming more acoustic? Could you talk a little bit about what you mean by that and what conclusion you draw?
- [33:10]
B
Yeah, I mean, one of the stories of the 70s is the early part. The early part of the decade is dominated by singer songwriter types. You know, think Carole King, James Taylor, even the music of Paul McCartney from that era. There's often these singer songwritery efforts. And I wanted to see if there was a way to quantify this. And luckily for me, Spotify, they publish various metrics around songs on the platform. One of which is acousticness, which is a way of, they're using, you know, machine learning algorithm to try to estimate if a song, or try to predict if a song is acoustic. And what we see in the early 70s is that rate increases dramatically. We see an increase in this acoustic acousticness number. So that backs up, you know, the quantity, the qualitative history we hear about that time. And it definitely checks out.
- [34:06]
A
You actually, I believe you come to the conclusion that it's yes and no, particularly when it's sung by younger singers or I guess older singers or alone. Is that, is that how you, how you concluded on the acousticness?
- [34:22]
B
Yeah, yeah. So what I, I talk about is there we can measure this and see that there is a rise in acousticness. But then I try to posit why. And part of my theory is that you see a lot of groups break down at the end of the 1960s. You know, the Supremes, the Temptations, the Beatles, and all the artists from those groups or many of them go on to start their own solo careers. And my theory, which I think we see some proof for, is that solo artists are more likely to make acoustic music than groups and bands. But also younger and older artists are more likely to make acoustic ish music. And that's the other thing we see is that in the early 70s, the average age of your chart topping artist increases. And to me, you know, I say this seems to check out because we sort of see again and again, I mean, it's almost a stereotype. Artist is in some band, you know, they're 35, the band breaks up and they, they want to make a more personal record and it ends up being something that's just acoustic guitar and piano, something more singer songwritery. So that's my theory for why we see this trend in the early 1970s.
- [35:38]
A
Another trend that develops in this time period is the copyright law. And you spend a fair amount of time on that. And we've actually one of the Beatles, George Harrison's My Sweet Lord may have played a role in that. Could you talk about the development of copyright law and then this dichotomy of copy, like copy might, that you reference?
- [35:58]
B
Yeah, I mean, copyright has been around in the United States since effectively the ratification of the Constitution not long after the first copyright act is passed with the initial term being 14 years, with the option to extend your copyright another 14 years. At the time, music was not included in this or compositions were not included in this. But what I talk about in this chapter and I frame it around some songs that are popular in the 1970s that were involved in lawsuits is that over the last 200, 250 years, copyright terms have been expanded dramatically. Like I said, when the first copyright act was passed, it was 14 years with the ability to extend your copyright another 14 years. So a max of 28 years. Whereas now copyright lasts the lifetime of the authority plus 70 years. So you know, if you were to write a song at 20 years old and live to 80, you would have your copyright for 130 years because copyright goes past death. And I basically just, I again, I frame this discussion around two songs from the 1970s. And I talk about how I think this is actually bad for artists, that copyright lasts past death. And one thing I point out is there are just tons and tons of copyright lawsuits around songs these days. And some of them are two contemporary artists suing each other. But often we see the estates of long dead artists suing each other. And it just, it doesn't feel like the goal here is to actually help artists protect their compositions and inspire creativity. It ends up being about people who are powerful. What I call copy might exercising that power. So you see the biggest corporations, the biggest artists who are clearly not hurting for cash or their estates, just suing younger songwriters willy nilly. And I don't think that's good for the industry.
- [37:55]
A
Yeah, it's a, that's a really nice discussion that you tease out there. And I, I think you end it with the lesson of Stephen Foster, who in a different time might have been a much more wealthy man. Yeah, again, staying with the mid-70s, one really interesting note is the, the rise of the dj. And you talk about the DJ in two different contexts there. Could you first discuss Casey Kasem and maybe his relationship with Bill Wardlow? And then I want to move into Francis Grasso and Club DJing.
- [38:26]
B
Yeah, the DJing is something. Again, it's very prevalent now, but it's, it was a new thing at some point. And I point out how the idea of going somewhere to listen to somebody play records rather than watch someone perform songs. Again, doesn't seem weird from a contemporary perspective, but at the time it might have been weird. It's like, why would I go listen to someone and just pick out music and play it for me, that's odd. But in the 70s we see DJs becoming more powerful. And again, sort of two DJs working in two different contexts. One on the radio and two in disco clubs. First case, my example for the radio is Casey Kasem, who's a very, very popular and successful radio DJ for decades. He had definitely had one of the most well known voices in the United States and many other countries. And Kasem had a show called American top 40 where every week he would count down Billboard's top 40 songs. And this show was tremendously popular. And what I talk about around Kasem is that there are some chart anomalies during the 1970s where you see number one hits falling further down the charts than they ever have before. You see number one hits not staying at number one as long as they have. And there seems to be anecdotal evidence that the head of Billboard's charts at the time, this guy named Bill Wardlow, was sort of putting his finger on the scale to get things to the top of the charts for people that he was friendly with. And we see that in the data. And more qualitatively, we see that just by anecdotes from people over the decades. As I say, there's no evidence that Casey Kasem was involved in any of this chart collusion. But I speculate that there would be a possibility that, you know, his show would be involved with something like this. Maybe you want the charts to shake out a certain way to make for a better radio show. And, you know, I just talk about various nefarious or illegal practices that have existed in the music industry for decades and how we can use data to spot those.
- [40:34]
A
I want to get back to that because later on the book you talk about how important the year 1991 and Soundscan was in determining, I guess, the methodology for the top 100. But before we move on, another interesting note you have is Francis Grasso and the idea of beat matching. I thought that was interesting. Could you briefly talk about that?
- [40:56]
B
Yeah. Francis Grasso was one of the first or one of the most important influential club DJs, and he was associated with disco clubs and he pioneered this. I don't even know what you would call it. It's called what you said. It's called beat matching. It's basically you have two records on two turntables and. And you're going to mix them together into one continuous song. And the way you do that is by getting the beats to match up. This is easily enabled by much modern technology. But Grosso was sort of doing this on the fly, just listening to one song in his headphones while the other was playing and then perfectly transitioning from one record to the other because he got those beats to line up perfectly. Like I said, he didn't invent this, but other DJs who were around at the time basically said he perfected this technique and it transformed how we think about people who DJ in clubs.
- [41:52]
A
We'd be remiss if we moved on from the 70s without discussing disco. Did disco die in the 70s or did it evolve? And why was Charlie Carey singing Take Me out to the Ball Game on Disco Demolition Night?
- [42:06]
B
Yeah, I mean, the answer, as with a lot of these things, is probably both in name. Disco certainly died in the 1980s 70s, whereas artists in the 80s were not saying the music they made was disco, even if it closely resembled the genre sonically. And people often point to this event called Disco Demolition Night, which occurred at a Chicago White Sox game in the late 1970s where a DJ named Steve Dahl showed up. And if you brought a disco record, you got to come into the game for, I think, 98 cents, because he was associated with radio station 98 Point Something. So people came in, they brought their disco records, and then Dahl and his cronies blew them up on the field during in between two games of a doubleheader. But this turned into a huge riot to the point where the field got destroyed and they had to cancel the second game. And people often say, like, this disco died on this night. And most of it is just coincidental, is that the genre was already winding down in popularity when Dahl hosted this. And it's. It looks like, oh, this guy hosted this event, and suddenly the genre was dead. That wasn't really the case. And like I point out, the genre evolved into all of the other dance genres or club genres that we hear today. And there are tons of artists from Dua Lipa to Justin Timberlake, who were clearly influenced by disco, even though for many of them, the music, they weren't calling the music that they made disco. And to your question, before, as this riot erupted on Disco Demolition Night, Harry Carey, who was the announcer for the White Sox, tried to quell the crowd by singing a rousing rendition of Take Me out to the Ball Game. It did not work. Like I said, the field was basically destroyed. I think it's one of the only. It might be the only MLB game in history that was forfeited because they deemed the field unplayable.
- [44:08]
A
And I should note, they lost the first game of the doubleheader as well. But that is classic. If Disco defined the 70s, MTV and the video, the music video defined the 80s. Could you talk about the impact of MTV on the culture and particularly radio and film?
- [44:28]
B
Oh, yeah. I mean, it's. It's hard to overstate the impact of mtv. They had the ability to break hits in a way that previously only radio really had. And you see this in the bands that are popular. There are lots of British new wave bands that become popular in the United States in the early 80s, to the point where there are more British bands on the charts in the early 80s than there were British bands on the charts during the British invasion in the mid-60s. And when MTV executives, when people have spoken to MTV executives from that time, like, why are you playing so much British music? And they're just like, well, there weren't that many music videos around. And all these British bands just happened to have music videos, so we would just play them endlessly. And that made these groups very, very popular. So suddenly, because label executives start seeing this, of course, they're like, we just need to make great music videos and people will buy our records. And that's really what you see in the 1980s is artists become just as focused on their visuals, on what they look like, on how they're perceived, than they're as focused on that as they are focused on the actual sonic or auditory qualities of their music. And when you think of big artists of the 80s, Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, I mean, we think of their music videos, we think of their appearance as much as we think of their music. And that's still, you know, this exists till today. We still live in a very visual world, even in. Even in music. Hello, Finny. Did you think our story was over? Mr. Grammer?
- [46:04]
A
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- [46:17]
B
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A
It's time to find out. Black Phone 2 only in theaters Friday. Rated R under 17. Not admitted without parent.
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B
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A
Through sugar maple charcoal, giving Jack its smooth taste.
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B
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- [47:14]
A
Again, this is the data Side of the book here you actually show the correlation between having a music video and I think number one on the Billboard top 100. I mean the chart is definitely one of those up and to the right looking charts.
- [47:26]
B
Yeah, by, I mean by the mid-80s, nearly every single number one hit has an associated music video. And some people start complaining, like people started focusing too much on the visuals and the music started to stink. I don't know how true that is. But yeah, if you wanted to top the charts, you effectively had to have them. You had to be making music videos.
- [47:47]
A
Yeah. Another theme you talk about throughout the book is this idea of the music industry being quote, 70 years of oligopy, 20 years of competition and then a lot more oligopoly. Could you talk a little bit about what you mean by that? Because you know you've got the big three record labels, rca and then the explosion of independent labels.
- [48:09]
B
Yeah. In the early part of the 20th century there are like three or four record labels that control most of the music that's coming out. And then for a variety of reasons we see more independent labels crop up in the early 50s. And this is when you see a ton of. You see a creative explosion of rock and roll in that decade. And I think that was really enabled by this explosion of independent labels. But then by the mid-60s, the consolidation becomes a. The consolidation starts again. And when you get to the MTV era, you know you're down to like five or six labels and then five or six major labels. And then by the time you get to the 2000s you're sort of down to three again. And I think it's important to understand this, the concentration in the industry because we know that competition is generally good for art and for many different industries. It's good when firms compete for talent. It's better for employees, in this case artists, better for listeners. And I just wanted to point out that I don't think people realize how concentrated the music industry is and problems that can come about because of that for both artists and listeners.
- [49:27]
A
We've talked earlier about the role of technology impacting music. And right here in the middle of the 1980s you got the drum machine. Could you talk about how that really changed the landscape for music in terms of the production?
- [49:41]
B
Yeah, drum machines start to come about in the 1970s. Previously, I mean, drum machines existed before that, but they were really just presets that were usually sold with organs. So you could be playing your at home organ and you can have a samba rhythm playing in the background. But in the 70s Roland starts releasing drum machines that are programmable, meaning you can make and save your own beats. And, you know, these are the drum machines that we associate with songs like in the Air Tonight by Phil Collins or I Can't Go for that by hall and Oates. But by the mid-80s, especially with the rise of the Lindrum and the TR808, two very popular drum machines, we see so many songs using drum machine technology. And I think it leads to a rigidity in rhythm that did not exist before that. To the point where even artists that were using human drummers were expected to play with more rigidity than was expected in the 1970s. And I say if you listen to, say, the big hits of Bob Seger at the end of the 80s and compare them to his hits in the early 70s, I mean, there is. The rhythm is much more structured. And I think that's the influence of. Of the drum machine. Now, I don't think drum machines are necessarily a bad technology, but I think it's important to understand how they impact the rhythms that we make and how rhythm sounds on our songs.
- [51:05]
A
Yeah, I found that really interesting. Just I didn't realize how big a change that was for the industry moving to the next or another critical change is this year of 1991 and why it was so important for the Billboard methodology. Could you talk about SoundScan and if you think it really improved the process totally.
- [51:28]
B
There's a writer at the Atlantic, Derek Thompson, who. He has an article that claims 1991 is the most consequential year in the history of popular music. And the reason 1991 is so consequential is it's sort of an accounting change, which sounds really boring. Basically, up to that point, the way Billboard would aggregate its charts, it would call record stores and be like, hey, what's selling? And then they would use some magic formula and boom, you know, you got your charts. This was of course, imperfect. I mean, you're relying on humans telling you the truth, humans remembering what is being sold, and then that information all being aggregated in a way that's accurately reflects what's actually being sold and listened to. When SoundScan came around, this took humans out of the process to some degree. Where whatever barcodes were scanned at a record store, that data would be immediately sent to Billboard and we got a more accurate reflection of what people were actually buying and listening to. And overnight the charts pretty much change. In the late 80s, there was a grain of pop music and rock music that was always dominating the charts. And suddenly overnight, the three big changes we see is there's a ton more hip hop on the charts, there's a ton more country on the charts, and there's a ton more alternative rock on the chart. So basically this old methodology was obscuring the popularity of certain styles. The Billboard's methodology in effect was biased against them to some degree. So in the Soundscan era we get a more accurate representation of people's purchasing habits.
- [53:03]
A
Napster came online effectively at the very tail end of this decade, I think 1999. And you talk about its appeal across four metrics. Affordability, flexibility, accessibility, portability. Overall, was Napster good for the industry from an artist perspective, a listening perspective and the record industry perspective? Record recording industry perspective, yeah.
- [53:28]
B
I mean Napster is interesting because it really did decimate music industry revenues. And of course if we want to have a music business, the music business has to make some money in some way. And Napster broadly infringed on tons and tons of copyrights. I mean it could have, it could have something like that could have existed in a legal way, but the record industry was not ready for it. And because of that they ended up fighting fans and Napster for years upon years. And I think it ended up hurting artists to some degree. But I think the, the record industry had overplayed its hand to some degree in the 1990s where they, they stopped selling certain things as singles. So I don't know what example I use in the book, but let's say you really like the Bare Naked lady song one week. It's possible that the only way for you to own that song was if you bought their entire album Stunt, I think it was called. And at the same time we found out in the early 2000s that record labels were colluding to charge higher prices for CDs. So there is a huge run up of revenue in the late 1990s, but it was really at the expense of consumers. And I'm not surprised that when Napster came online people were suddenly like, oh yeah, this is where I'm going to get my music from now on. Because there was more flexibility in what people could get. Now again, it was illegal and I don't want people stealing people's hard earned recordings. But I think it was a wake up call for the music industry that we can't continue to take advantage of consumers if we want to make money and if artists want to make money. Artists didn't seem to be as angry as the record industry because artists also always felt like they were getting screwed by Labels, but that'll be the story till the end of time.
- [55:22]
A
Yeah. I always found it amusing that Metallica was the one taking sort of the lead on that. I actually had an opportunity to sit in a discussion with Lars about their thought process. And you think of Metallica as this sort of alternative band, but they sort of led the corporate charge against Napster. One of the themes we keep talking about is this idea of musical evolution is downstream from technological innovation. Could you talk about the digital audio work stream and how that changed the whole recording, editing and process?
- [55:53]
B
Yeah, I mean, digital recording ultimately changed everything about the music that we listen to and the music that we make. Ricky Martin's Living La Vida Loca was the first number one hit completely recorded digitally. And to keep things simple, just think of digital recording as recording that's done on a computer. But digital recording made it possible to record in more places. Right now we're doing this interview over zoom. So I'm on my computer, but on my computer I also have Logic Pro and GarageBand, which are two recording softwares where you can make professional grade recordings. So it's suddenly much easier for anyone to record music and record it anywhere. And by the 2000 and tens, it became easier for people to distribute that music around the world in a way that wasn't possible decades before. You had to go through a record label. You know, if you want your CD available in Italy, you need to go with a giant corporation to print up, manufacture those CDs and ship them around the world. Now you don't have to do that because of the digital revolution. I can record a song on my computer, click, upload on whatever site I may be choosing to use, and anyone anywhere on earth can listen to it. I mean, that's a radical, radical transformation. It democratizes, curate creation. It breaks down so many barriers, but it also changes the way that we write and record songs. Digital recording is a very visual process. Digital recording also enables collaboration across distance in a way that wasn't really possible for the analog world, where I can start working on a song and ship it off to someone, you know, in California, I live in New Jersey, and that's no problem. We could pass a song around to a million different people before it ends up being completed. You know, it's just a radical change in the way that we can record.
- [57:46]
A
You talked about radical transformation and democratization. It feels like that's, that lays the groundwork for Spotify. Could you talk about how you view that as impacting listeners preferences?
- [57:58]
B
Yeah, I mean, Spotify, I Remember the first time I was on Spotify, I was like a kid in a candy store. Like I said, I mean, you just, you had access to all of this music. It was, it was crazy. I mean it's still, it's still crazy, especially for the price point. But Spotify and I think Internet music generally, the way streaming has been set up has made passive listening very easy. Where, you know, you open up the platform, there's some playlists that was personalized for you sitting there, you click play and then you don't forget about it. Where, where or where you do forget about it, music's just playing in the background. Whereas in the analog world of course there was always passive music listening. Like, I'm not going to pretend that wasn't the case, but if I'm listening to a vinyl record, I have to be more actively involved in the process. After 20 minutes I'm going to have to flip it over. So I think that I work in music streaming. I think music streaming is great and it's enabled growth, revenue growth for the industry in a way that it was not growing after the whole Napster debacle. But I think the way we've set up certain things around music streaming has led to more passive consumption or more passive listening.
- [59:09]
A
Just to a few follow ups there a. I find the fact Sean Parker was involved in both Napster and Spotify amazing. Talk about, talk about one individual having so much influence. And you do make the point in the book that the economics of streaming made local labels more profitable. So I feel like there's definitely, and I want to contrast that with this notion of Spotify core, that there's just this ultimate homogenization of the industry. Could you maybe talk about how you see that the benefits and the negative aspects of Spotify in terms of bringing out musicians that otherwise wouldn't have a platform?
- [59:47]
B
Yeah, I mean it's great that anyone can upload their music and share it with the world. I mean, I'm all for the democratization of curation creation. I'm all for the ability to be able to share your songs easily and cheaply with other people. But at the same time, I mean that just creates a flood, a flood of content across Spotify. And it's hard to, you know, it's hard to be heard through that sea of noise. So there are pros and cons to all this stuff. And at the same time, you know, we can talk about how people think the financial model of Spotify and music streaming in general is unfair and how it should be changed. And I think there are things that certainly should be changed with it. But when you look at industry trends, I mean after Napster, when the itunes store was launched, industry revenues were still collapsing. Itunes, digital downloads did not stem the bleeding. So at the very least streaming is growing. The revenue pie for the music industry. How that pie is divided up is a separate question. But like we wouldn't even be having that. We couldn't even ask that question if there weren't revenues to divvy up. So I think it's important to remember that when talking about the financial model of Spotify is it and Spotify and other streaming services. It's enabled revenue growth and now we can try to figure out ways to get artists paid more. Whereas that was a question that was like, should we even ask this when no one's making any money in the 2000s?
- [61:20]
A
Yeah, again you've got a really nice chart. It just shows how the peak of the revenues over the last call it five decades or so was Napster. And then you've got it on the downward with itunes and then Spotify is really re accelerating revenue for the overall industry. So nice job there with the data. I want to hit on a point you just mentioned and you, you really cite in the book that stood out. More music is being released today in a single day than all of 1989. Is that a good thing?
- [61:48]
B
Well, it's a, that's a good question. I'm going to say it's. It is a good thing in the sense that the reason that's happening is because there are a lot of people who want to make music and want to release it. And I think it's great that you can get your music out there. Like I said, it makes it very difficult to sift through all of this music to the point where it's not possible. So it's easier to release music. It may be harder to have a career because there's just so much out there, you know, so much for labels to sift through. So you know, there's, there's pros and cons to it. But I, I ultimately would err on the side that democratizing creation is. It's a good thing. So that's sort of where I sit.
- [62:32]
A
No, that's interesting. Again, another theme. Musical evolution downstream from technological innovation. No technology is upending really our entire lives like AI and in the music industry it's Suno is sort of the AI version of that. Could you talk about good, bad, how you see that developing?
- [62:54]
B
Yeah, I mean this is definitely an open question right now. In the simplest sense, the product is built on just mass, mass copyright violations. So someone's gonna have to figure out if. And there are lawsuits in progress on if a technology like that should even exist. The way it works, for those that don't know, it's sort of like ChatGPT and then there's a little text box. You describe a song and then click enter and boom, you know, you get two recordings. I've heard people describe this as democratizing. Curie. I keep saying curation, creation, but I really don't buy that because as you said, you know, streaming services were seeing hundreds of thousands of uploads per day before any of the these AI tools were created. The problem with music is not the difficulty there is to create it. I mean, you know, you can sit at home and tap on a table and sing a song. I mean, you. In music, it's a very human thing. You look at every society over tens of thousands of years and people are creating music in some way. Creation and sharing music with the world was certainly already democratized. I am worried that these AI tools will just create a flood of musical content and will very quickly outweigh all human creation on these platforms. I don't think human pop stars are going to go away. But I could see there being really bad incentives around music people listen to passively, where you'll just have machines generated at little to no cost and not have to pay royalties on it. I mean that concerns me and I could see there being a really strong incentive for streaming services to try to use some of that stuff to cut costs.
- [64:37]
A
Yeah, I think we're already seeing on film in Hollywood with the rise of, you know, AI created actors and actresses. Before I ask you a few rapid fire questions, Chris, I want to give you a chance to talk about audiomac, maybe your role there and what the company does.
- [64:51]
B
Yeah, audiomac is, you know, if you used a music streaming service. Audiomac is a music streaming service. We are more in the vein of something like SoundCloud because users can upload directly to our platform. Audiomac is tremendously popular in Africa and the Caribbean where in a lot of countries in those areas where the most popular streaming service and we like to position ourselves as an artist first platform. We try, have tried over the last bunch of years to roll out tools for artists to be able to build and connect with their audience in ways that other streaming services are not allowing. One tool that comes to mind is a messaging tool. We have. Whereas, you know, if I Go on Spotify and follow an artist. There's not really anything the artist can do with that information. It's like maybe their song will pop up on some automated playlist for me, maybe not. Whereas if you follow someone on Audio Mac, an artist can directly message all of their followers. So we want to give artists ways to make, to build their careers, to grow, to directly talk to their fans. So we like to say we're an artist. Artist first platform. But yeah, regular. I mean, but also in the simpler sense, we're a music streaming platform available all over the world. And as this book will not surprise you, I'm involved with a lot of the data work over there and I've been there for, I guess, six years now. And it's been a ton of fun over those six years. And we're continuing to grow and continuing to try to build out more tools to improve the lives of listeners and artists.
- [66:26]
A
Yeah, no, sounds great for the industry. Chris, I want to close with a few rapid fire questions. Just want to get your thoughts, two, three sentences tops. And these are sort of themes or insights you point out throughout the book. So here goes. Why is I'm Henry viii? I am the most annoying song of all time?
- [66:46]
B
Like I say in the book, that song sounds like it was created by some mad scientist trying to make the most annoying song of all time. Ultimately, it's like a bar room song that is supposed to just be a bunch of people shouting the lyrics together. So sitting at home listening to it by myself is not the most enjoyable experience. But yeah, it's the redundant. The redundancy in that song is crazy.
- [67:10]
A
Got it. Why is Want Ads by Honeycomb so underrated?
- [67:14]
B
Because Want Ads is an absolutely tremendous song and it has left literally no cultural. It has no cultural impact. Nobody covers the song. It's not really featured in movies, it's very infrequently sampled and it just absolutely rips and I need more people to listen to it.
- [67:33]
A
Why is Hotel California so divisive?
- [67:35]
B
Because Hotel California is played so many times a day that I think whether it's your favorite or least favorite song of all time, you never need to hear it again. And because of that, I could see this is a problem with lots of overplayed songs is that even though they may be great compositions, like in the case of Hotel California, they're very easy to hate just because they're so prevalent.
- [67:59]
A
Would Milli Vanilli have been more successful or embraced today?
- [68:03]
B
I think so. I think a lot of modern celebrity is built on artifice. And especially with, you know, the rise of AI technologies, the Milli Vanilli fiasco almost seems quaint.
- [68:17]
A
Digital versus analog.
- [68:18]
B
You know, I'm big on that. People overrate digital being worse than analog, but I'm definitely an analog guy through and through. I like the, I like the ritual around analog listening.
- [68:30]
A
What's so beautiful about Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine? Anything for you.
- [68:35]
B
Gloria Estefan is a beautiful voice and I think it really shines through on that song. Also, the, the production on the song is, is really beautiful and melodically and lyrically just a gorgeous song.
- [68:47]
A
How do you interpret Taylor Swift's cultural dominance in terms of what it says about our culture and age?
- [68:52]
B
I think culture is certainly more splintered today, so when we get these monocultural figures or experiences, people are more likely or people want to embrace those things because they don't seem to exist as much as they useful. Taylor Swift is also just a master marketer, so I guess props to her for that.
- [69:13]
A
Last question. Best New Jersey artist.
- [69:15]
B
I mean, as a Springsteen super fan, I probably got to go with Springsteen just because he's also a proud, proud New Jerseyan. Whereas some other New Jersey artists, like Frank Sinatra, born in New Jersey, we don't really associate him with the state as much. So Bruce Springsteen through and through.
- [69:32]
A
Great. That concludes our interview. Again, the book is uncharted territory. What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves by Chris Della Riva. Chris, thank you so much for your time and writing such a thought provoking book.
- [69:44]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me. And Doug Limu and I always tell.
- [70:02]
A
You to customize your car insurance and.
- [70:03]
B
Save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. But now we want you to feel it. Cue the emu music. Limu. Save yourself money today. Increase your wealth. Customize and save We I see that.
- [70:19]
A
May have been too much feeling.
- [70:20]
B
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