Writing - Page 2 of 33 - Chris Molanphy

Lil Nas X once again proves he’s a master memester. Plus, he gives great lap dances. In the fall of 2018, when Montero Lamar Hill stumbled across the beat he would turn into “Old Town Road,” the 19-year-old built the track as a meme as much as a song. Everything was devised for virality: the [...] Read more

Slate Why Is This Song No. 1?

Why It Took the Grammys to Send Cardi B Back to No. 1

26 March 20217 April 2021

“Up” is the rapper’s fifth chart topper, but this time it took a Grammy Bump to put the superstar back on top. When I watch the Grammys every year, I like to play a chart-nerd parlor game I call “Grammy Bump.” It doesn’t happen every time, but in many years, a song, an album, or [...] Read more

Slate Why Is This Song No. 1?

Why Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” Had the Biggest Debut Since “WAP”

22 January 202124 January 2021

The singer’s overnight success is about more than the Sabrina Carpenter–Joshua Bassett drama. If, as the actor, comedian, and belletrist “Judge” John Hodgman has declared, “Specificity is the soul of narrative,” actress–singer Olivia Rodrigo just won the Soulful Specificity prize for 2021, before the year was even a month old. It’s rare that a debut [...] Read more

Slate The Music Club

Music Club: America spent 2020 retreating into the sounds of the past.

19 December 202027 December 2020

Entry 4: America spent 2020 retreating into the sounds of the past. In Slate’s annual Music Club, Slate music critic Carl Wilson emails with fellow critics—this year, Rolling Stone staff writer Brittany Spanos, New York Times contributor Lindsay Zoladz, and four special guests—about the year in music. Greetings, fellow music freaks, seven days a week: [...] Read more

Slate Why Is This Song No. 1?

How BTS Made History with the First Korean-Language No. 1

3 December 202027 December 2020

“Life Goes On” broke the language barrier—but there are still other obstacles holding them back. K-pop fans got a bracing reminder this week that North and South Korea are still technically at war, 67 years after the armistice that ended fighting between the two territories. Why should this still-simmering conflict matter to pop fans? Because [...] Read more

Slate Why Is This Song No. 1?

America Has a New No. 1 Song, and for Once the Reason Isn’t TikTok

23 October 202030 October 2020

24kGoldn and Iann Dior’s “Mood” is uniting rap fans, rock fans, and fans too young to care about the difference. In the fall of 1988, when Billboard launched its Modern Rock Tracks chart, it was more diverse than what came to be known later as “alternative rock.” In that first Modern Rock top 30, there [...] Read more

Slate Why Is This Song No. 1?

The Strange, Globetrotting Story Behind America’s New No. 1 Song

16 October 202017 October 2020

“Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat)” was born of Korea, a Kiwi, TikTok, and Jason Derulo. A quarter-century ago this week, in October 1995, the No. 1 song in America, Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy,” represented a number of firsts. It was the first single by a woman to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100—then a new [...] Read more

Slate Why Is This Song No. 1?

Why BTS’s “Dynamite” Is the First K-Pop Song to Top the U.S. Charts

3 September 202017 October 2020

Did the boy band adapt for America, or did they make America adapt for them? On a business trip through Japan in 1962, the president of Britain’s Pye Records heard an enchanting pop song by the young Japanese singer Kyu Sakamoto and brought a copy of the 45 back with him to the U.K. He [...] Read more

Slate Why Is This Song No. 1?

How “WAP” Became the Dirtiest No. 1 in Hot 100 History

20 August 202017 October 2020

The video is a smash, but it’s the song that put it on top. This month marks the centennial of vaudeville performer Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues,” a watershed for both blues recordings and Black women’s cultural expression. Smith’s August 1920 recording, lamenting a love gone wrong, eventually sold about 2 million copies and, over the next [...] Read more

Slate Why Is This Song No. 1?

Why Harry Styles Just Scored His First No. 1 Song

14 August 202017 October 2020

Like any boy band alumnus, he first had to overcome radio’s bias against teen heartthrobs. Late summer is a great time for sleeper hits: songs that have been hanging around the charts for months and finally hit their stride. Four years ago, in August 2016, Sia’s “Cheap Thrills” reached No. 1 after knocking around the [...] Read more