When this column launched one year ago this week, Kanye West was locked in a mortal struggle for the top of Billboard‘s Hot 100, first defeating and then retreating from a smash by Soulja Boy. Twelve months later, the smash holding down the No. 1 spot has changed—this time, it’s from a more seasoned hip-hop [...] Read more

In this week of financial horrors, created largely by formerly cocksure men, it’s perhaps apropos that a couple of ladies post the most gloat-worthy performances in the upper reaches of Billboard‘s Hot 100. That starts at the top, where Pink, a nearly decade-long veteran of the chart wars, scores her first solo No. 1 (and [...] Read more

Reading the New York Times obituary of Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright yesterday, I came upon a statistic that the newspaper ran unquestioningly that ticked me off, as it always does when I see similar statements in print: Pink Floyd’s 1979 album, “The Wall,” eventually sold 23 million copies in the United States. No, it didn’t, [...] Read more

Baseball is such a rich sport for data geeks, what with every move made by a player having a number attached to it. But the inconsistencies and outright mistakes in the sport’s long history, from the number of games in a season to the exclusion of the Negro Leagues, make the sport even moregeek-friendly–those missteps [...] Read more

Last fall and winter, chart fans noted the return to the radio of a style that, until recently, was pretty unfashionable on Billboard‘s Hot 100: pure-pop female singer-songwriters. Strummier and sunnier than their Lilith counterparts in the ’90s and closer in kinship to California’s post-Joni ladies of the ’70s, two gals with hard-to-spell names led [...] Read more