Set Fire to the RainBillboard Number Ones – 2012 Edition:
Over the past month I’ve read, watched, or listened to dozens of year-end retrospectives. Best of year lists, entries reflecting on a specific artist or trend, podcast debates about the above, and an especially entertaining March-Madness-style bracket pitting the year’s hits against each other in a fight to the death (dontstoppopthat.com). However, I like to reflect upon the past year through the lens of the old-fashioned, borderline-irrelevant, payola-baiting Billboard Hot 100. (Ok, maybe there’s no more payola, but you can’t convince me that Maroon 5’s nine-week reign was not the result of a vast government conspiracy hellbent on keeping one-time Yankee-hater PSY from reaching the top of the charts; or a unified push by American record companies to forestall the incoming K-Pop invasion). The year’s Billboard Number Ones are not comprehensive and always leave out many songs that the define the year (no Frank Ocean…
Over the past month I’ve read, watched, or listened to dozens of year-end retrospectives. Best of year lists, entries reflecting on a specific artist or trend, podcast debates about the above, and an especially entertaining March-Madness-style bracket pitting the year’s hits against each other in a fight to the death (dontstoppopthat.com). However, I like to reflect upon the past year through the lens of the old-fashioned, borderline-irrelevant, payola-baiting Billboard Hot 100. (Ok, maybe there’s no more payola, but you can’t convince me that Maroon 5’s nine-week reign was not the result of a vast government conspiracy hellbent on keeping one-time Yankee-hater PSY from reaching the top of the charts; or a unified push by American record companies to forestall the incoming K-Pop invasion). The year’s Billboard Number Ones are not comprehensive and always leave out many songs that the define the year (no Frank Ocean…
