How did guest rappers change the way supporting performers are credited across popular music? Cardi B and Bruno Mars perform onstage during the 60th Annual Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 28 in New York City. Theo Wargo/WireImage Listen to Hit Parade via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Slate Plus [...] Read more

Listen to Hit Parade via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play In the second part of our two-part episode about the B-52’s and R.E.M.—the bands that put Athens, Georgia, on the map and helped define new wave rock in the early ’80s—we trace how they transformed themselves from hipsters to hit-makers. One band waited [...] Read more

The story of how two very different bands came to define the boundaries of New Wave rock from the college town of Athens, Georgia. Listen to Episode 14 of Slate’s Hit Parade: Listen to Hit Parade via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. The B-52s and R.E.M. don’t sound all that much like each [...] Read more

Slate’s music history podcast is here to quiz you with some trivia. Think you know music? Hit Parade, the pop-chart history podcast from Slate, is back with a new episode of The Bridge. In this monthly mini-episode of Hit Parade, host Chris Molanphy answers some listener mail and invites one contestant onto the show to [...] Read more

Since the heyday of MTV, music videos have made hits bigger. Now, watching them even counts for the charts—which helped make Miley Cyrus’s career. Even before the launch of MTV, the music video has been making pop songs buzzworthy. And since the early ’80s, it has transformed also-rans into hit-makers—from the Buggles and Duran Duran [...] Read more

Think you know music? Hit Parade, the pop-chart history podcast from Slate, is back with a new episode of the Bridge.

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Over the objections of critics, Bon Jovi entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this month. What is the band’s legacy? Listen to Episode 12 of Slate’s Hit Parade: Slate Plus members: Get your ad-free podcast feed. Bon Jovi is many things—platinum-selling, chart-topping, and now, Hall-of-Fame-inducted. That angers music critics, who have been slagging [...] Read more

Slate’s music history podcast is here to quiz you with some tough pop-chart trivia. Listen to Hit Parade—the Bridge: Think you know music? Hit Parade, the pop-chart history podcast from Slate, is rolling out a new feature. Every month, the show will test a listener contestant in a special mini-episode called the Bridge. Host Chris [...] Read more

In 1998, at a crossroads, Madonna rebooted her career by fusing electronics with matters of the heart—and turned digital music into viable pop. Listen to Episode 11 of Hit Parade: In 1998, Madonna was at a career crossroads. After dominating the 1980s with hits like “Like a Virgin” and “Open Your Heart,” she spent the [...] Read more

Listen to Episode 10 of Slate’s Hit Parade: Slate Plus members: Get your ad-free podcast feed. Watching this year’s Grammy Awards, it’s clear hip-hop is the dominant genre in popular music. But back in the 1980s, it was an influential but still underground style looking for a place on the charts—and some mainstream respect. That is, [...] Read more