A delightful debut daily chart for by music-data maestro ! He listened to every Billboard Hot 100 number-one song since 1958 so you don't have to. One key finding? Intros are getting shorter
economist.com/graphic-detail
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Max Martin—the genius behind songs from “...Baby One More Time” to “Blinding Lights”—has found the winning formula. Only Lennon and McCartney have written or co-written more number-one hits
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The outlier position of Hotel California (somehow - I haven’t worked out the argument yet) confirms my belief that it is the single worst song ever composed in human history.
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Bet you a pint you can't guess the number one with the longest intro! It's literally off the charts
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Great question! I'll happily owe you a pint next time we're in the same city but it is something by Led Zeppelin/Jethro Tull/Emerson Lake & Palmer - that sort of vintage?
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Yes, good instinct, it was very much during that era, but definitely soul rather than rock. As a clue, Stephen Wyman might have sung this song at his wedding to his ex-grandmother-in-law
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Great clue. Try a Little Tenderness has a good long intro but not as long as HC, right? I’m going to go nuts trying to guess- what is it?
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4 minutes!! I really am kicking myself - great clues. (Also the first 75-ish seconds has a great “On the Corner” sound to it.)
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The version on the single "only" lasts 1m55s, but it's the longest in the dataset. Theme from Shaft is second, at 1m49
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