"Hit Songs Decoded: Chris Dalla Riva on Data Driven Music Insights from Uncharted Territory

Summary

Podcast Summary

Takin' A Walk – Music History with Buzz Knight

Episode: Hit Songs Decoded: Chris Dalla Riva on Data Driven Music Insights from Uncharted Territory

Air date: December 8, 2025
Host: Buzz Knight
Guest: Chris Dalla Riva, author of Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us About the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Buzz Knight sits down with Chris Dalla Riva—music data analyst, musician, and author—to unravel the surprising patterns and human stories that lie behind decades of hit songs. Leveraging Chris’ unique perspective and research from his book, the conversation examines how the intersection of music, data, and culture reveals the changing face of pop music, community, and the music industry itself. The episode offers deep dives into how hit songs have evolved in content, collaborative structure, and impact, and ends with a critical look at the influence of platforms like TikTok on the current music landscape.

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Main Discussion Points and Insights

Chris’s Musical Journey and Connection to Data

• [04:34] Chris shares his early love for both listening to and making music, rooted in rummaging through his dad's collection and self-taught guitar from a young age.
  • “My initial love for music is that I love listening to music, I love playing music...I started playing, taking guitar lessons...immediately enamored with trying to write my own songs, start bands.” (08:08, Chris)
• Music and analytics came together naturally in his life, even when traditionally, people saw these as separate interests.

Writing Uncharted Territory: The Quest to Listen to Every #1 Hit

• [12:22] The book began unintentionally as a personal project to listen to every Billboard Hot 100 #1 hit since 1958, adding observations and gradually compiling a massive spreadsheet of song data.
  • “I was working in the exciting world of economic consulting...I was like, I'm going to listen to every number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in history...and track some information about the songs.” (12:22, Chris)
  • The journey took about 8 years and was ultimately sparked into publication by a chance connection from a TikTok post about an obscure #1 song.
  • “It was just this off the cuff TikTok about an obscure number one hit that I loved that ended up doing the trick.” (15:38, Chris)

The Healing and Social Power of Music

• [16:49] The process of engaging deeply with music offered Chris respite during challenging times—“a healthy outlet”—and fostered bonds with friends and family invited to rate songs or share stories.
  • “It was a nice way to connect with people across time about music...It really is a social thing. It's meant to bring people together.” (17:06, Chris)
• Buzz reflects on the sense of community experienced by collectively listening to albums and trading thoughts before digital listening privatized the experience.

Notable “Song Data” Insights from the Book

1. 1950s Hit Songs: Gruesome Deaths and Teenage Tragedy

• [27:04] A striking early finding: hit songs in the late 1950s were often about tragic deaths, birthing a subgenre known as "teenage tragedy songs" (e.g., “Teen Angel,” “Leader of the Pack,” “Dead Man’s Curve”).
  • “There’s a lot of number ones about people dying and they’re like war, people fighting...there was this trend at the time, and they come to be known as teenage tragedy songs.” (27:04, Chris)
  • Chris attributes this to post-war culture, the emergence of ‘teenagers’ as a demographic, and the tragic context of the era.

2. Songwriting Today: More Writers Per Hit

• [30:08] Compared to the mostly-duo songwriting model of the 1960s-1980s, a hit song today typically credits twice as many writers.
  • “From basically 1960 to around 1990, the standard is two people...but around 1990, this changes, and we see a pretty sharp uptick in the number of songwriters credited on number one hits.” (30:08, Chris)
  • Modern songs line up credits for producers, engineers, and anyone contributing, partly to avoid lawsuits over similarities. Remote, asynchronous creativity via technology makes collaboration easier and more complex.

3. Were the Charts Rigged in the 1970s?

• [33:03] The episode delves into issues of chart manipulation pre-1991, when reporting was survey-based and more easily gamed.
  • “People at Billboard would call up a sample of record stores around the country and basically be like, what's selling? You could understand why something like that could be manipulated...” (33:25, Chris)
  • Barcodes and digitized sales data after 1991 brought sharper accuracy.

4. TikTok’s Anonymizing Effect on Artists

• [38:06] TikTok is now as foundational to breaking hit songs as MTV once was.
  • “TikTok has become really fundamental to breaking hit songs...but you associate that sound with the trend more so than you do with the artist.” (38:06, Chris)
  • The platform’s trend-driven nature makes many viral hits feel anonymous; even #1 songs may not boost the artist’s public profile or touring draw in a lasting way.
  • Songs can take off through user-generated content independent of the artist’s intention—a shift from MTV-era star-centric promotion.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On wanting to walk with Bruce Springsteen:
  • “My musical hero has been and remains Bruce Springsteen...anytime I listen to him talk about music, it's very clear that the man is a student of the game and his knowledge...is obviously so deep.” (05:03, Chris)
• On music and community:
  • “Music is for me. It really is a social thing. It's meant to bring people together.” (17:06, Chris)
• On chart manipulation:
  • “Popularity usually begets more popularity...before 1991, it would be easier to manipulate the charts in some way.” (34:33, Chris)
• On TikTok and artist anonymity:
  • “There are songs that are very popular on that app that I don't think the people who wrote them could sell out a 100-person room.” (39:54, Chris)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic Description | |-----------|--------------------------| | 05:03 | Chris’s musical walk fantasy with Bruce Springsteen | | 08:08 | Chris’s early music connection and blending analytics with creativity | | 12:22 | How the “Uncharted Territory” project and book began | | 16:49 | Music as community and personal solace | | 20:20 | Chris’s first concerts: The Who and The Rolling Stones week | | 26:11 | First music ever bought by Chris | | 27:04 | 1950s teen tragedy songs and their historical context | | 30:08 | How songwriting teams have grown over decades | | 33:25 | Rigging and manipulation of the charts before digitization | | 38:06 | TikTok’s double-edged influence on song virality and artist identity | | 41:21 | Book wrap-up and where to find Chris online |

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Resources & Where to Find Chris

• Book: Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us About the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves
• Online: Search “Chris Dalla Riva” or @cdallarivamusic on social platforms

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Tone and Style

The conversation is enthusiastic, conversational, and deeply knowledgeable, mixing personal anecdotes with data-driven, music-history geekery. Chris is relatable and passionate, with a bit of dry humor; Buzz brings warmth, curiosity, and the perspective of a longtime industry insider.

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Conclusion

This episode is a treasure trove for anyone curious about music history, data analytics, or how pop culture and technology shape—and are shaped by—our listening experiences. The intricate connections drawn between song trends, industry changes, and the ways we relate to music offer inspiration for both music fans and data nerds alike.

Transcript

[Chris Dalleriva]

Taking a Walk.

[Buzz Knight]

Well, I'm Buzz Knight, the host of the Taking a Walk podcast and welcome. We have a special episode here with Chris Dellariva. He's the author of a book called Uncharted Territory. What numbers tell us about the biggest.

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Hit songs and ourselves.

[Buzz Knight]

And Chris, I'm so excited to talk.

[Chase Sapphire Reserve Sponsor]

To you about this book.

[Buzz Knight]

I'm kind of a numbers geek in my own way, so I'm fascinated by the storyline. You got a few things.

[Chase Sapphire Reserve Sponsor]

We're going to tantalize people, aren't we?

[Chris Dalleriva]

I Hope so.

[Buzz Knight]

Like for example, hit songs in the 1950s. They were regularly about gruesome deaths.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Not the topic you would think for a pop song, but yes, pretty common.

[Buzz Knight]

Well, you know what, podcasts can kind of uncover this, so don't worry about it. We're gonna get to the bottom of it, Chris. So let's pay some bills and come.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Right back with this is an I Heart podcast.

[Buzz Knight]

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[Chris Dalleriva]

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[Buzz Knight]

Crystal Eeva.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Taking a Walk well, thanks.

[Buzz Knight]

For being on Chris on the Taking a Walk podcast. It's nice to be with you in person here at the iHeart Studios in Midtown Manhattan. So thanks for coming on by.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah, I was really happy we could get together in person.

[Buzz Knight]

So before I embark on talking about your book Uncharted Territory, what numbers tell us about the biggest hit songs and ourselves, I do have to subject you to our opening Taking a Walk question, since we call this Taking a Walk. Chris, if you could take a walk with someone living or dead, and I'm gonna really ask you to make it someone around music, who would that person be and where would you take that walk with him?

[Chris Dalleriva]

I knew this one was coming, obviously, but still a tough question. I feel like in terms of musicians, if there's anyone I could take a walk with, my musical hero has been and remains Bruce Springsteen as a good Jersey Boy. So I feel like a walk with Bruce Springsteen would be great also, because not only do I like his music, but anytime I listen to him talk about music, it's very clear that the man is a student of the game and his knowledge about music history and how the music industry works is obviously so deep. If you ever get a chance. In 2012, he gave a great keynote address at south by Southwest. And he sort of covers his career, but he's really talking about the rise and I guess fall, sort of fall of rock music over the decades. And he's just very astute and very eloquent on the topic. So the man can not only write music, but he seems like he'd be a good conversational partner, too.

[Buzz Knight]

Any particular place in New Jersey? I assume, Chris, that you would go with him to take a walk.

[Chris Dalleriva]

I mean, you'd have to go to one of the classic Springsteen spots that he sings about, probably somewhere at the Jersey Shore, probably in Asbury park, which is where the Stone Pony is, which is a club that he came up at. I actually saw him play at See Here now, which is a festival. They do an Asbury park on the Shore every year for the last couple years now. And he headlined it last year, and it was sort of a cool homecoming show. I feel like it would be fun to go relive a lot of those spots down where he made his name initially.

[Buzz Knight]

Oh, and I love that area, for sure. The company I used to work for owns some of those radio stations down there, particularly the Rat.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Oh, yeah, yeah, right.

[Buzz Knight]

And so we visited the Stone Pony one year on one of the trips, and I have to prove it that I made that trip. I've got a T shirt, a Stone Pony T shirt, and a little secret I'll let you in the audience in on. My wife has essentially banned me from wearing this T shirt anymore in the future. She said it needs to be relegated to the T shirt hall of Fame Museum, which I didn't even know existed in my own house. The reason being there's too many holes underneath. It's just. It's been really worn. It's one of my favorite shirts. So I'm not getting rid of it, but it is going to stay for sure in the closet.

[Chris Dalleriva]

I think I've had a few T shirts inducted into the hall of Fame over the years.

[Buzz Knight]

You can't help it.

[Chris Dalleriva]

You got to keep them. You know, they also band and music T shirts are classics in the hall of Fame because you'll wear them till they're literally falling apart.

[Buzz Knight]

It's a badge of honor.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah, exactly.

[Buzz Knight]

So tell me about the first moment that you became connected with music, because it's obvious you are fascinated by data analytics. You work for a music streaming service called Audio Mac, but when in your life was the first person that you first point that you knew you were connected and loved music?

[Chris Dalleriva]

So my, my current shtick is. And with the book is again, connecting music with data. How can we quantify certain things about music to investigate things we hear in history, see if they're actually hold ups to scrutiny? But my initial love for music is that I love listening to music, I love playing music. I don't come from a musical family in the sense that my parents weren't singing or playing the piano around the house. My parents loved music. It was always in and around the house. You know, I was always digging through my dad's CD and cassette collections to find stuff. And probably when I was in fifth or sixth grade, I started playing, taking guitar lessons. And I was immediately enamored with trying to write my own songs, start bands. And anytime there would be, you know, a battle of the bands or some event at the high school or in and around town, I was sure to rope a bunch of people, whether I was good friends with them or not, into playing a set with me. And that's still, I think the motivating factor for me is I still love to sit down, write music and play music. And later when I got interested or learned about data analytics.

It just became a natural pairing for me, which I think for a lot of people is odd. I feel like growing up you're often told you like English and history or you like math and science, but to me, they've always lived together in some sort of harmony. So I like to bring these things together, you know, to illuminate ideas that might otherwise escape us.

[Buzz Knight]

So were you one of these folks who, you know, knew the A side and the B side of a 45 when it was released and who the, you know, publishers were or whatever? I mean, did you, were you, were you someone who knew that degree of detail besides the analytics, or is that a little different?

[Chris Dalleriva]

No, I think it's all related. If once you start collecting information about songs, you know, who produced the song and who wrote the song and which label put it out is just as interesting as what instruments were played on the track. That certainly came a little bit later for me. Of course, you know, the. I think that would be a weird angle to first come to music for is like, who produced this track? I think initially it's just like, I love this song. I love it so much. I love these artists that I want to know more about it. And then you start flipping over to the B side, then you start looking, oh, this same producer produced all these songs. I love who is this guy or gal. So I am into that stuff. But to me, it was always secondary to just a love of music.

[Buzz Knight]

Do you ever see the movie Diner?

[Chris Dalleriva]

No, I haven't.

[Buzz Knight]

Oh, you got to see it. It's a one of the classic, I would call it, really. It was a kind of a cult movie that became a classic movie. And it's basically, you know, all the guys that grew up together in the Baltimore area who are all intertwined, and they go to the diner after they, you know, have been out hanging out till all hours and just, you know, shoot the breeze. You got to see it there. A particular piece of Diner where Daniel Stern.

The character he plays, and he's married in the movie to Ellen Barkin. And in that particular scene, he explains to her how important it is for his record collection to be filed perfectly. And he's actually pretty mean to her over it, really. And she just says, I just want to listen to the music, but see the movie. The scene's remarkable, but it speaks to my question in terms of the degree of detail, because Daniel's character knew the A side, the B side. He knew what it meant to him the first time he heard it, the first time he heard a particular song when he met her. You know, all the things that are emotionally attached to it. So definitely.

Recommend that. So what was the ultimate motivation for you to write Uncharted Territory?

[Chris Dalleriva]

It was something I feel like I accidentally fell into right when I graduated college. I was working in the exciting world of economic consulting, and I still playing in bands, but I needed, like, an outlet from this job. It was just very long hours. I didn't particularly like it. I mean, it was a good job out of college. So I came up with this quest. I was like, I'm going to listen to every number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in history. The Hot 100 started in August 1958. It has changed over the years, but it still exists in name till today. So I would listen to one song per day. I'd usually play along on my guitar. I track some information about the songs, and it was just a nice, I don't know, reprieve from my job at the end of the day. Slowly again. But I worked with data in this job, so I again, I had a spreadsheet I would try. I would, like, rate the songs, and I would do it with a friend. But slowly I started adding other things to the spreadsheet, to the things you're talking about. What label put out the song? Who wrote it, how long is the song? Does it have an introduction? I don't Know, is there a saxophone on the song? You name it. It's probably in this giant spreadsheet which I've since put online for anyone to take a look at. But I got about 50 songs in. I felt like I noticed some trends. I was like, maybe I'll write something up about this. I sent it off to a professor I had in college and he was like, yeah, this is pretty good. You should keep at it. So at the time, I never published. I'd never published anything. But just over years and years, I would listen to number one hits. I had this spreadsheet, I would notice some trends, I would write a little bit more about it. And I was like, I should try to get this published. I would show it to people occasionally, they would seem to like it because the approach, again, it was it's date. It's a data driven history of popular music. So I usually just say it's music history, but with some charts and graphs that illuminate what's going on. And it took years and years. Probably actually took eight years from the time I initially tried to pitch this book to people. But yeah, it just sort of accidentally happened. It started with this weird quest to listen to every number one hit, and then I just wanted to write about things I was observing along the way and it turned into a book. But that was not the plan initially.

[Buzz Knight]

And you said to yourself, it's too late to turn back now.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah, I believe.

[Buzz Knight]

Oh, sorry, I couldn't help it.

[Chris Dalleriva]

No, that's. I mean, initially I got to a point where I was like, all right, I have to. I have hundreds of pages here. I need to. Someone's got to read this no matter what. So I was lucky enough to eventually find a publisher, which is the story of that is kind of funny. I am pretty active on TikTok and I would post about these number one songs sometimes. And I posted about this song, Want Ads by Honeycomb, which was a number one in the 70s for the most part. Hot Wax Records. And this guy who wrote for Billboard saw it, he sent me an email, and then ultimately he connected me with this publisher. So.

My journey to the number ones ended up helping me get the book published too. But yeah, I did get to the point where I was like, I can't go back now. I got to figure out how to get this out there.

[Buzz Knight]

But it was being seen on TikTok that kind of drove that first connection.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah, yeah. I was pitching agents and publishers on and off for years, but I didn't really have any connections in that world, I never really published anything and it was just this off the cuff TikTok about an obscure number one hit that I loved that ended up doing the trick.

[Buzz Knight]

So I love that. So the book covers the period from 1958 to 2025. And you said in your note to me, also, in its own way, this journey, you know, kind of saved your life a bit when you think about it in terms of, you know, how music is important and what it, what it means to us. You know, we have this other podcast called Music Save Me and it's, you know, often leans on the healing powers certainly of music, but in general, what music means to us all, you know, is a saving grace for sure. So you found, as you were more immersed into this, you found songs that you knew that you loved, and it probably made you love those songs even more. But also it allowed you to discover a lot of music that you had never heard before.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Totally, yeah. Like I said at the time I started this weird little quest, I wasn't particularly happy with my day to day life. And this was a nice little musical reprieve. At the end of the day.

When I described this to my sister years later, she was like, you know, it just sounds like a healthy outlet for whatever you were feeling at the time. But at the same time, I started doing this with a friend. We both listen to the songs and we would text about the song. But then over time, I started always bringing in a third person to also listen to the song for a stretch. And everyone would rate the song. I track all the ratings and that's also part of the book. Like at the end of each chapter, I give you the highest and lowest rated songs of each era that's covered in the chapter. But it was also a nice way to bond with other people in my life. You know, I would occasionally invite friends along to rate a stretch of song number one hits. I would occasionally invite, you know, my mom or my dad would come on for a stretch from when they were like in high school. And it was a nice way to connect with people across time about music. And it really did, to your point, show how music is for me. It really is a social thing. It's meant to bring people together. As much as we listen to so much music by ourselves these days, it's a, it's a social art form, I.

[Buzz Knight]

Think, and it's community. I mean, I believe on an episode somewhere of the podcast, I've told the story. But.

Going to college at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio, and working that was the first radio work that I did there out at a college station. WVUD was the name of it. When one of our favorite bands put out something new. I'll use Steely Dan as a great example. The, you know, small community group of us, two or three of us, would be so ravenous to hear what was new off of Steely Dan that, you know, we'd get together and we'd listen from COVID to cover and it would allow, you know, comments and oh, this reminds me of this from the first album. Or oh my God, what are they doing here? Or, and, and it was this community, you know, discourse and connection that was such a memorable part about first experience in so much music. So I think you make an excellent point how as the times have changed, music and community, other than concerts, certainly, because that's community. It's. It's different based on people's lifestyle and ways to consume music.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah, totally. I mean, when you, if you go back far enough, I mean, music is a very social thing. You think about like the 1800s, you know, people getting around the piano and singing a song. That was like a form of entertainment in the pre radio and television world. And I think we've lost a little bit of that. But I think it's important to remember that that's ultimately what music is. It's a, it's a community building thing. It's something that people perform in churches and at funerals and.

It still has that power even though most people, their musical experience is popping in their earbuds and listening as they walk down the street or at work or whatever.

[Buzz Knight]

Yeah, it's way different. First concert you ever went to, by the way.

[Chris Dalleriva]

First concert. My first two concerts I went to were in the same week. I was very into classic rock growing up as a kid and we went to the who and the Rolling stones in like six days, probably around 2005 or 2006. So that was a big week for Chris growing up. So the who was first and the Rolling Stones were second. Though my memories of those shows are not as vivid as you might think. The strangest thing about that Rolling Stones concert was the opener was Kanye West.

[Buzz Knight]

Wow.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Which I don't. I'm always looking back, I was like, how who set that up?

[Buzz Knight]

Well, but the bills, if you study those, I'm sure you, you have of the concert bills way back, you know, really produced these, you know, things that converged and that didn't converge in terms of the way lineups were. And the Stones over their career. I mean, they were certainly always known for, you know, just bringing someone out that was, you know, maybe a little bit different than or vastly different, you know, I mean, I remember Stevie Wonder, you know, opening for the Rolling Stones on a particular tour as an example, you know, early on in his career and, you know, obviously way earlier in their career. Where were those shows? Were they in New York?

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah, they were. Well, the Rolling Stone show was at MetLife Stadium, formerly Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. And the WHO show was at the PNC Art center, or it used to be the Garden State Art center, which is a little bit down the parkway in New Jersey.

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[Chris Dalleriva]

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[Buzz Knight]

Hello.

[Chris Dalleriva]

I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast smart talks with IBM. I recently sat down with IBM's chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna, and I asked him, how can companies use AI to its fullest potential to create smarter business?

[IBM Representative]

My one advice to them Pick areas you can scale. Don't pick the shiny little toys on the side. For example, if anybody has more than 10% of what they had for customer service 10 years ago, they're already five years behind it. If anybody is not using AI to make their developers who write software 30% more productive today with the goal of being 70% more productive.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah.

[Buzz Knight]

Wow.

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So we are not asking our clients to be the first experiment on it. We say you can leverage what we did. We are happy to bring out all our learnings, including what needs to change in the process. Because the biggest change is not technology. It's getting people to accept that there's a different way to do things.

[Chris Dalleriva]

To listen to the full conversation, visit IBM.com smarttalks.

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Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast.

[Buzz Knight]

First music that you bought, whether it be album or, you know, whatever cd.

[Chris Dalleriva]

I was talking about this with someone the other day. I the era I grew up in, like pop punk was a very big thing and I feel like they must have had this on like the Disney Channel or something because this band, Simple Simple Plan was a big pop punk band at the time. I actually saw them in concert a few weeks ago. Coincidentally, that was probably their first album, was probably the first CD I bought. And I was like, I felt like this was my own thing. But right around the same time I was also super into acdc. So it's also possible that there was an ACDC album purchased as my first album. But it's either one of those two.

[Buzz Knight]

It gets hazy, I realize.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah, yeah.

[Buzz Knight]

Trust me, I know. So, all right, we tease this at the outset. Hit songs in the 1950s were regularly about gruesome death. Tell me about this dark story.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah, so this was also sort of what started the book. I got through about 50 number one hits and I was like, sort of weird. There's a lot of number ones about people dying and they're like war, people fighting. Which to me, to me, having grown, grown up in the 2000s, I'm like, I don't associate the most popular songs in the land with those topics, but there was this trend at the time, and they come to be known as teenage tragedy songs. Quintessential examples would be like Mark Dinning's Teen angel, the Shangri La's Leader of the Pack, Dead Man's Curve. And the way these songs typically go is there's a young couple, usually teenagers, in love, and one of them dies tragically. And then, you know, they sometimes say they'll reunite again in the afterlife or something like that. The Teen angel song by Mark Denning is, I think, maybe the most quintessential example. It's super melodramatic. Teen couple. Car gets caught on the railroad tracks. They get out before the train hits them, and the girl goes running back to get the ring that the guy gave her. She ends up dying. And you're like, what the. This is. This is dark stuff. Why. Why was this ever popular? And in the book, I posit a couple reasons. I. I mean, songs of that nature historically have been around for hundreds of years. And part of that might just be a connection to the fact that, you know, the world used to be more violent and people dying young used to be much more common than it is today, especially in the United States. But I think there's a lot of things that happened specifically at the beginning of the 20th century that influenced it. Tons of tragedies, world wars, the Holocaust, Great Depression, influenza, pandemic. I mean, there was a lot of tragic death leading up to this period. At the same time, you have the teenage demographic emerge for the first time. If you go back far enough, there is no such thing as teenagers in, like, the 1500s. It's, you're a child and then you're an adult. But.

After World War II, with an economic boom in the United States, there's more disposable income going around. The rise of compulsory education, where you're having people in this mid period of their lives being forced to spend all day together. Culture starts to emerge around that. And this is music about teens. It's depressing, but it is about this emergent demographic at the time. It's weird to think about as, like, being a teenager, such a. Something that everyone is so aware of, but it's in the grand scheme of things, sort of a newish idea.

[Buzz Knight]

Well, and there's one other piece probably, that was going on with some of this, at least in the storyline of this or the background of it. And that is, you know, hormones raging. You know, I mean, you got to include that as well. That makes a storyline.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yes, that always helps.

[Buzz Knight]

It always helps. All right. The next fact, it takes twice as many people to write a hit today as it did in the 1960s.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah. So this is one that you could view this in many different ways. You could view this as like, oh, songwriters have gotten less skilled, so they need more help.

I don't think that's the case. But there has been a huge increase in how songs are written from basically 1960 to around 1990. The standard is two people. And when you think of songwriters of that era, usually you're thinking in duos, even if they always weren't working in a duo. Elton John, Bernie Taupin, Linda McCartney, Jagger Richards, Carol King, Jerry Goffin, you know, it goes on and on. Burt Bacharach and whoever was writing lyrics with him at the time. But around 1990, this changes, and we see a pretty sharp uptick in the number of songwriters credited on number one hits. This happens for a few different reasons. One of the biggest is.

Basically the way we credit songs has changed. Whereas historically, you were only getting credited if you wrote melody chords, lyrics, you know, Ringo wasn't getting a songwriting credit even if he came up with a great drum part on I Feel Fine or whatever the song happened to be. But these days, if you produce a beat, you're probably gonna get a songwriting credit, even though historically that doesn't align with, like, what we think of as copyrightable intellectual property. But it seems like over the years, people have realized that you make. You make money, more money if you have a hit song, if you're collecting royalties. So people dole out, are more likely to dole out songwriting credits. I think that's probably the biggest thing that's led to this increase. But at the same time, I think the way we write songs now with computers also influences this. I could work on a song on my computer, send it off to someone somewhere else, and you see this with hit songs that are, like, passed around through a bunch of many different people. Songwriting credits are added along the way before it's released. Whereas you go back far enough, like, you could really only write who you were sitting, sitting down with. So we do see this huge increase in songwriters on hit songs. I don't think it's because songwriters have become less skilled. I think some of these other factors have led to an increase, but it certainly has happened.

[Buzz Knight]

And there are some instances certainly where songwriting Credits not being divided the right way turn into legal battles. But relationships of band members, things of that nature.

[Chris Dalleriva]

I mean, the people always. If you look at any of the recent albums by Beyonce, there are an absurd number of songwriters and producers. And one thing I've read is that because she's so popular, if anything resembles something else, she'll probably get sued. So they just dole out songwriting credits just to avoid lawsuits, which I could see also being a thing. I feel like music lawsuits are much more common these days than they were 40 or 50 years ago.

[Buzz Knight]

All right, so this next one that we teased is a. I believe it's controversial to this day, but we can debate that a bit. The pop charts were rigged in the 1970s, which is pretty well documented in terms of certainly pale and all of that. But talk about that.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah. So the Billboard charts from 1991 onward, the Code was scanned for a purchase. That data was getting sent off to Billboard. When that happened, overnight, the charts changed a ton. Suddenly there was more hip hop on the charts. There was more country on the charts. So it was clear that the tracking before that was not as accurate, did not actually line up perfectly with what people were actually buying. The way it was done before that was just through surveying record stores, which is a perfectly sound way to try to do something like this. People at Billboard would call up a sample of record stores around the country and basically be like, what's selling? You could understand why something like that could be manipulated on many different sides. On the record store side, maybe you realize if something's higher on the charts, people are more likely to buy it. So you could, you know, you lie to Billboard, you say, oh, this record by Paul Abdul is selling because you got a million copies of it and you need to move them off the shelves. But at the same time, on the Billboard side, because it was not this super scientific process.

It would be very easy for people to try to manipulate people at Billboard to put something higher on the charts, because popularity usually begets more popularity. And in the 70s, something I show in the book is there. There is some anomalous data for how long songs spend at the top of the charts. Right around when this guy, Bill Wardlow was the head of Billboard, and you see this anomalous behavior, and then he leaves, and then it sort of goes back to normal. And people have alleged over the years that he was willing to. He wasn't selling placements, but he was. He could be convinced to shuffle things around the charts for his own benefit in certain ways, not to Point the finger just completely at him. I mean, this is a musical tale as old as time, but basically, before 91, 1991, it was. It would be easier to manipulate the charts in some way.

[Buzz Knight]

Well, and now, beyond Billboard, there are other industry publications that include charts. And in fact, in this very room, I spoke with Paul Rapaport and recorded an episode of Taking a Walk. Paul's a dear friend who ran promotion for many, many years for Columbia Records, and he tells a lot of stories in his book about some of the shenanigans that were involved to get number ones.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah.

[Buzz Knight]

And in fact, to this day, still in the Nashville community, I believe they have on Mondays, number one celebrations for the artists who reach their first number one. So it's still a competitive, at least in those charts. Those charts have nothing to do really with sales. They have to do with airplay. So I think to this day, the topic of charts still is a bit of a conundrum based on what's reality and what is fabricated.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Oh, yeah. I mean, this is the music business, right? You know, people are trying to make money, and having. Getting your song, that sort of publicity to be on a chart, whether it's real or not, will probably lead to more people checking it out, more money to be made. I mean, people. There's always. To your point, there's always ways people are going to try to manipulate this stuff, because it's how careers are. It's how careers are made. I mean, it's. It's. It's like an open secret. Especially back in the 70s and 80s. There's a great book called Hitmen by this guy, Frederick Dannon, where he talks about a lot of these shenanigans that went on. It's pretty crazy stuff.

[Buzz Knight]

It's an amazing book, and I will confess, I know some of the characters that are in the book actually who were represented very honestly, whether it be from the record label side or from the radio side. So that is a good one. I'm glad that you brought that one up because it does tell the story and it's a dark story.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah, it is. It's cited in my book. So it's a great resource if you're interested in that stuff.

[Buzz Knight]

So then lastly here on some of your summary points, and this one's fascinating to me how TikTok has made artists more anonymous than ever before. Talk about that.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah. So this is something that I think is fascinating. If you've ever used TikTok as you scroll through, I mean, you're seeing hundreds of videos, you know, you could see over the course of a few minutes. And TikTok has become really fundamental to breaking hit songs in the same way that MTV was fundamental to breaking hits in the 80s. The way it typically happens on TikTok is there might be some video trend.

Where people do something specific in a video. There was a song by SZA called Kill Bill that was a number one hit and there was a trend where people would look, I don't know, sort of disheveled and they would move their arm past their face as if they were this. I don't know why I'm picking this as sort of a gruesome trend, as if they were stabbing someone. Because the song was called Kill Bill and when their arm would move past their face, they would suddenly be like all dolled up, dressed to the nines. That helped that song become more popular. SZ is obviously a big star, but there's tons of stuff on TikTok where there's a very popular trend that's associated with a song, but you associate that sound with the trend more so than you do with the artist. So we've seen a bunch of hit songs over the last five or six years where the artist does not. It's not really a launching point for their career that there is this very popular trend associated with their song because no one is associating that song with them. They're associating it with this trend, this social trend going around on the app. So it's like TikTok is a double edged sword in that way, in that it has certainly launched careers. But at the same time, there are songs that are very popular on that app that I don't think the people who wrote them could sell out 100 person room.

[Buzz Knight]

And isn't it some of it though, to that point that you know, just the disposable nature of content, the short lived nature of attention, the disposability of it, I mean, it does speak to the overall, you know, trend line of popular music, right?

[Chris Dalleriva]

Totally. I mean, that's the. You don't really go back and rewatch TikToks. It's all. It's one and done for the most part. The other interesting thing there is, like I said, throughout the decades, various forms of content have been used to promote songs. MTV is a great example. But when you watched MTV in the 80s and you saw the Like a Virgin video, you of course associated that song with Madonna because she's in the video and she has decided how this video is going to look. Another weird thing about TikTok and the Internet in general. Sometimes a song will become popular but has nothing to do with the artist. A couple years ago Doja Cat had this it hit number one, a song called say so and it was not the song that they were promoting from the record as a single. But then some girl on TikTok made a dance up to it. The dance started going viral and then her team was like oh actually this should be the single. So songs can become very popular and it's sort of out of the artists hands. It's very. It's a very strange phenomenon that's unique to not just TikTok but the Internet in general because anyone can create content, anyone can post.

Well, we talk about.

[Buzz Knight]

Music history on this podcast. You have taken us through song history here in a deep way. Uncharted Territory is the name of the book what numbers tell us about the biggest hit songs and ourselves. I love how you blend in sort of the, you know, the psychology of it all based around the stats. So it's a fascinating look. Congratulations on the book Chris, and thanks for being on the Taking a Walk podcast.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Chris Dalleriva yeah, thanks for having me. I'm an easy guy to find online, so.

[Buzz Knight]

And how can folks find you?

[Chris Dalleriva]

Yeah, I am C Dalariva Music on most platforms, but if you search my name you will find me.

I'm too easy to find online I think. And the book's called Uncharted Territory as you said, so check it out if you get a chance.

[Buzz Knight]

Thanks for being on Taking a Walk.

[Chris Dalleriva]

Thanks for having me.

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