The band’s new No. 1 is only their latest collaboration with the song factory. The Beatles. Led Zeppelin. The Clash. Talking Heads. The Police. Nirvana. All of these hit-making, Hall of Fame–level rock bands recorded together for fewer years than Maroon 5, who have now been releasing hit albums and, especially, hit singles for 16 [...] Read more

“In My Feelings” is an accidental smash. It could become Drake’s biggest hit. Sixteen years ago, in July 2002, singsongy rapper Nelly commanded the Hot 100 with his salacious sultry-weather hit “Hot in Herre,” the leadoff single from his monster Nellyville album. The only question was how he would follow it up. “Hot” was about halfway [...] Read more

Last year’s undisputed Song of Summer, “Despacito,” was a lilting, thumping, Latin-Anglo hybrid by a pair of Puerto Ricans, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, sung mostly in Spanish with a brief English-language assist from Justin Bieber. This year, the race for Song of Summer has, to date, mostly been a faceoff between streaming gods Drake [...] Read more

Though he’s far from the first troubled victim of gun violence to go to No. 1. Serial killer Charles Manson’s only studio album was released while Manson was being held on charges for the two-night series of 1969 killings he instigated via his “family” cult, known as the Tate–LaBianca murders. Morbid curiosity couldn’t, however, make [...] Read more

With “Psycho,” the “rapper” behind “Rockstar” confirms he’s this generation’s Everlast. With sincere apologies to Maya Angelou, I’m starting to think when white “rapper” Post Malone showed us who he was, we should have believed him the first time. I place “rapper” in scare quotes, because Malone has been running away from hip-hop for the [...] Read more

With his latest No. 1, the rapper takes a page from Justin Bieber and breaks another record. Now, where was I? Eleven weeks ago, in the closing paragraph of my “Why Is This Song No. 1?” article about “God’s Plan”—Drake’s previous chart topper and the song he himself ejects from Billboard’s penthouse this week—I offered [...] Read more

The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” is now considered one of the greatest recordings in rock history, but when it was released in 1966, it never climbed higher than No. 39 on Billboard’s Hot 100. As I explained in the latest episode of my Slate podcast Hit Parade, this was partially because Brian Wilson’s exquisite [...] Read more

With “Havana,” Camila Cabello emerges as a solo artist on her own terms. Slat Patience is a virtue, and for emerging pop megastars, January is the most virtuous month. At this time two years ago, Justin Bieber tied an all-time record on Billboard’s Hot 100, just for waiting: His tropical-house smash “Sorry” sat at No. [...] Read more

If living well is the best revenge, perhaps charting well is the best Grammy clap-back? For Ed Sheeran, our premier polymath pop troubadour, this holiday season really has been the ultimate in bad news–good news whiplash. Within the space of two weeks, Sheeran was shut out of every top Grammy category—by a Recording Academy that [...] Read more