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Contributing Author Music Historian returns with the surprisingly dramatic tale of a chart system that once tried to out-Billboard Billboard. It’s a story featuring jukebox math, disputed No. 1s, and an extremely determined crooner who broke the algorithm – before algorithms existed.
Today is gonna be the day that Contributing Author DJ Professor Dan unpacks the moment Oasis tried to manifest legend status by opening an album with “Wonderwall” before anyone knew what a “Wonderwall” was – a power move surpassed only by Tupac strolling out of jail and immediately leveling California. What follows is a guided tour through Britpop beefs, West Coast mythmaking, and at least one chart upset so bewildering it nearly makes Robson & Jerome sound like a threat.
In this week’s dispatch, Contributing Author and historian Bill Bois introduces us to a man who heard a weird noise on Radio Moscow and thought, quite reasonably, that his radio had finally given up. Instead, it turns out Paul Pena was just warming up for his eventual career as Tuva’s most improbable “Earthquake,” proving once again that the universe rewards curiosity—and occasionally, bathroom acoustics.
He scored five Top 40 hits and then pulled off the rarest trick in pop: vanishing so completely that even Google seems a little unsure about him. Contributing Author Music Historian gamely follows the breadcrumb trail of Dean Esposito, a man who briefly ruled the charts and then slipped into the witness protection program of 90s music trivia.
Contributing Author and Record Collector Chuck Small takes us through K-Tel’s Sounds Spectacular, a 1975 collection so stuffed with hits it’s practically bursting at the grooves. From Rubettes’ truncated charm to Gloria Gaynor’s disco fire, it’s a record that both dazzles and occasionally asks, “Really? That edit?”
With a folk-rock scripture lesson on one side and a sonic demolition derby on the other, November 1965 turns out to be one of those months where pop culture accidentally overachieved. It’s all courtesy of Contributing Author DJ Professor Dan, who cheerfully reminds us that the distance between King Solomon and The Who is shorter than you’d expect.
It’s November 1955, and the airwaves are thick with sweat, smoke, and the occasional baritone moral crisis. Three songs: “Sixteen Tons,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” and “Cry Me A River” show that even in Eisenhower’s America, sin and sorrow could still top the charts.
Contributing Author DJ Professor Dan sifts through the dust, danger, and dinner-jacketed despair to tell us why seventy years later, these songs still sound alive.
Deliver Me From Nowhere lingers on a conflicted artist and the making of the seminal Springsteen album Nebraska. Contributing Author Bill Bois guides us through the intimacy, the music, and the quieter corners of The Boss’s world.
It’s the debut of Contributing Author Music Historian, dutifully surveying the foggy landscape of the forgettable 1990 year of pop: where charted hits came and went without fanfare. No judgement here: we promise not to keep score of how many you’ve forgotten to remember.
In this labyrinth of lost masters and mixed-up names, Contributing Author JJ Live At Leeds traces the twisting path of “Do I Love You (Indeed I Do).”
It’s a rabbit hole of vanished vinyl, unreliable narrators, and one Northern Soul miracle that simply refused to stay buried.
Contributing Author DJ Professor Dan time-travels to 1925, when flappers set the tempo, radios crackled with ukuleles, and Eddie Cantor shouted “WOW” like it was headline news. It’s a century-old playlist of Charleston-worthy chaos, served with equal parts shellac, sass, and secondhand jazz smoke.
Contributing Author Stobgopper’s ‘I Made a Playlist’ series rolls on, as our scribe dissects the twilight renaissance of Bob Dylan’s artistry. From the spectral echoes of ‘Oh Mercy’ to the rustic grit of ‘World Gone Wrong’, it’s a second act worth revisiting. And maybe even re-believing in.
A Whole Lot Of Soul
In Record Relays Volume 12, Contributing Author Chuck Small curates twenty remarkable R&B and pop collaborations, each representing a handoff between icons. From Stevie and Deniece to Aretha and Clarence, it’s a Classic Chuck playlist celebrating timeless R&B collaborations—heartfelt, ambitious, and rich with soul.