Writing teen-oriented pop is a fairly specialized talent. Writing for a musical is an even more rarified art. Combining the two—and introducing the musical-theater art form to an entire generation that previously had little use for the stuff—is some kind of pop triple-lutz, a strange sort of accomplishment. Two songwriters behind Disney’s High School Musical [...] Read more

Late this past summer, I was thinking of making one of those CafePress T-shirts with the somewhat cryptic, post–Katie Holmes slogan “Free Estelle!” True, it wouldn’t have meant a thing to anyone except my fellow poptimists and chart geeks. And it wouldn’t have accomplished much, unless I wore it while marching in a circle in [...] Read more

The release today of Billboard’s tallies for the year’s biggest U.S. singles and albums produce few jaw-dropping surprises. The top eight songs of the year, according to the Hot 100, come directly from the list of 10 songs in my predictions post last week. So what about those two songs I called wrong? I’ll get [...] Read more

In a year that’s seen the digital economy upend our notions of what a “hit” is—from songs leaping to the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 before radio has even digested them, to acts turning every damned song on their albums into a momentary chart smash—it’s appropriate that the weirdest insta-hit of all was scored by [...] Read more

When Billboard closes out 2008 next week by charting the year’s biggest hits, you can expect several songs from late 2007 to loom large on the year-end Hot 100. But I doubt any will surpass the song that made an unrecognizable Tom Cruise shake his groove thing this past summer. If there’s any chance that [...] Read more