More pop stars have an oddball, ultimately forgotten big single than you might think. Pop quiz: Name Maroon 5’s first No. 1 hit. Think back to the mid-aughts, when Adam Levine and his merry men were the hot new act on the charts. What song took them to the top of the Hot 100 for the first [...] Read more

It took more than a year for this TikTok hit to break into the mainstream. On a muggy late spring day in 2020, a perspiring British man drags himself down an empty street in East London. He is lugging what might as well be the weight of a pandemic-afflicted world—but, as it turns out, it’s [...] Read more

Its historic success is less about the song’s greatness than about how the chart works. In 2021, the Billboard Hot 100 was topped by an array of bespoke popular song forms: power-torch balladry (“Drivers License,” “All Too Well”), bubbly ’80s-style synthpop (“Save Your Tears,” “Stay”), Chicago drill–slash–New Orleans bounce (“Up”), flamenco-inflected hip-pop (“Montero”), classic pop-punk (“Good [...] Read more