Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia

The Slate Music Club returns, in this special year-end edition of Hit Parade’s The Bridge! Host Chris Molanphy joins New York Times pop music critic Lindsay Zoladz, and Julianne Escobedo Shepherd of Hearing Things in a critics’ roundtable led by Slate’s own Carl Wilson. They discuss their favorite albums and singles, as well as the trends that shaped music in 2025. Among this year’s big musical questions: Have we reached peak Bad Bunny yet? Did those animated Demon Hunters reinvent K-pop? Are Geese the saviors of rock, or just muppets with guitars? Is hip-hop ready to move on from Kendrick and Drake? Plus: Rosalia, Water for Your Eyes, Gaga, Wednesday—and of course, Taylor Swift. Note: Slate Plus members can hear this special episode in full. Ad-supported listeners will hear the first half. Want to hear the whole discussion? Sign up for Slate Plus! Unlock monthly early-access episodes, bonus episodes of “The Bridge,” and ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Visit slate.com/hitparadeplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Don’t miss the rest of this year’s Slate Music Club episode! Become a Slate Plus member! Join for monthly early-access episodes, bonus episodes of "The Bridge," and ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe directly from the Hit Parade show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/hitparadeplus to get access wherever you listen.

If you need confirmation of Hollywood’s vast influence on mass culture, look no further than the pop charts. From the 1937 classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs through this year’s KPop Demon Hunters, soundtracks have launched hits, defined genres—and sometimes even eclipsed the films that inspired them in the first place. Rock classics, funk jams, rap bangers, even Christmas standards: all became hits because we heard them first at the cinema. Join Chris Molanphy as he unspools nearly a century of hit movie music, from Simon & Garfunkel’s groundbreaking ode to “Mrs. Robinson,” to the, ahem, titanic tin whistle of “My Heart Will Go On.”

If you need confirmation of Hollywood’s vast influence on mass culture, look no further than the pop charts. From the 1937 classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs through this year’s KPop Demon Hunters, soundtracks have launched hits, defined genres—and sometimes even eclipsed the films that inspired them in the first place. Rock classics, funk jams, rap bangers, even Christmas standards: all became hits because we heard them first at the cinema. Join Chris Molanphy as he unspools nearly a century of hit movie music, from Simon & Garfunkel’s groundbreaking ode to “Mrs. Robinson,” to the, ahem, titanic tin whistle of “My Heart Will Go On.”

When you hear the term “superproducer,” names like George Martin, Quincy Jones, Max Martin, Pharrell Williams or Missy Elliott might come to mind. But … Robert “Mutt” Lange? Probably not. Yet Lange was by some measures the biggest hitmaker—the producer of more top-selling albums than any of those better-known producers. The South African studio wiz crafted the arena-rock sound of AC/DC and Def Leppard. Then, Lange transformed the Cars, Billy Ocean, Bryan Adams, and Shania Twain into fist-pumping stadium-fillers, too. Join Chris Molanphy as he traces Mutt Lange’s legacy of loud—and his uncanny success on the pop charts. He poured sugar on every hit. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Get more Hit Parade with Slate Plus! Join for monthly early-access episodes, bonus episodes of "The Bridge," and ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe directly from the Hit Parade show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/hitparadeplus to get access wherever you listen.

When you hear the term “superproducer,” names like George Martin, Quincy Jones, Max Martin, Pharrell Williams or Missy Elliott might come to mind. But … Robert “Mutt” Lange? Probably not. Yet Lange was by some measures the biggest hitmaker—the producer of more top-selling albums than any of those better-known producers. The South African studio wiz crafted the arena-rock sound of AC/DC and Def Leppard. Then, Lange transformed the Cars, Billy Ocean, Bryan Adams, and Shania Twain into fist-pumping stadium-fillers, too. Join Chris Molanphy as he traces Mutt Lange’s legacy of loud—and his uncanny success on the pop charts. He poured sugar on every hit. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Get more Hit Parade with Slate Plus! Join for monthly early-access episodes, bonus episodes of "The Bridge," and ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe directly from the Hit Parade show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/hitparadeplus to get access wherever you listen.

Hark, the holiday season is upon us—and with it, the most solemn of festive traditions: a gift guide! In this video and podcast special, Slate hosts Dana Stevens, Chris Molanphy, and Willa Paskin beam in from their collective hearths to deliver unto the internet their favorite gifts for culture lovers. In addition to sharing gifts, they also discuss the cultural artifact that is the “holiday gift guide,” and its history going back to the early 20th century, up to the modern day. See the entirety of the 1910 gift guide Our Special Holiday Gift-Book from Greenhut-Siegel Cooper, and Esquire’s ultra-mod gift guide from 1961.  Check out our gift recommendations below:  Dana Stevens’ Cozy Movie Night-In:  The Salbree Collapsible Silicone Microwave Popcorn Popper & Amish Country Popcorn L'agraty Chunky Knit Blanket Throw The Adventures of Antoine Doinel, The Criterion Collection Box Set Chris Molanphy’s Hit Parade Collection:  The Beatles’ Revolver CD Box Set Mad Men Blu-Ray Box Set  Can't Slow Down: How 1984 Became Pop's Blockbuster Year, by Michaelangelo Matos Willa Paskin’s Fruit-Themed Trompe-l'œil Housewares: Cantaloupe-shaped bowls in the style of Bordallo Pinheiro 4-Pack Orange-Shaped Candle Stocking Stuffer Cherry-Shaped Toilet Brush The Slate Culture Gift Guide is produced for Slate Studios by Benjamin Frisch and Micah Phillips, with Meryl Bezrutczyk and Andrew Harding.

Walk into any store or flip on a radio, and you’ll probably hear the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” sooner or later. Thanks to that ubiquity, the swooning, menacing megahit’s songwriter—Sting—is a very wealthy man. Now his former bandmates, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, are suing Sting over who deserves to profit from “Breath” and other Police songs. No matter how that dispute turns out, it’s a reminder of Sting’s uncanny songwriting skill and his charmed life of hitmaking. For more than four decades, Sting seems to resurface every few years with a new earworm, from “Roxanne” to “Russians,” blending New Wave rock with another genre—reggae, jazz, classical, country, even rap and Raï—and in the process, getting sampled by new generations of millennial and zoomer hitmakers. Join Chris Molanphy as he recounts the long, varied, sophisticated, but catchy career of the King of Pain. Whatever he tries, every little thing Sting does is magic.

Walk into any store or flip on a radio, and you’ll probably hear the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” sooner or later. Thanks to that ubiquity, the swooning, menacing megahit’s songwriter—Sting—is a very wealthy man. Now his former bandmates, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, are suing Sting over who deserves to profit from “Breath” and other Police songs. No matter how that dispute turns out, it’s a reminder of Sting’s uncanny songwriting skill and his charmed life of hitmaking. For more than four decades, Sting seems to resurface every few years with a new earworm, from “Roxanne” to “Russians,” blending New Wave rock with another genre—reggae, jazz, classical, country, even rap and Raï—and in the process, getting sampled by new generations of millennial and zoomer hitmakers. Join Chris Molanphy as he recounts the long, varied, sophisticated, but catchy career of the King of Pain. Whatever he tries, every little thing Sting does is magic.

In the rarefied world of smash pop singles, there are No. 1s—and there are No. 1 debuts. Entering Billboard’s Hot 100 at the top is one of the hardest tricks in music. In fact, it wasn’t possible in the U.S. until 1995. That’s when the record labels hacked the Hot 100 and figured out how to send new singles straight into the chart penthouse.  But scoring a No. 1 in Week One doesn’t mean it’s built to last. For every enduring hit like “Fantasy,” “Shake It Off” or “Hello,” there are plenty of one-off oddities, coronation pabulum from American Idol finalists, and even a few missteps from chart luminaries. Within a couple of years these fast-breaking hits may be forgotten—never to be spun on the radio or streamed on Spotify. Join Chris Molanphy as he explores the chart calculus, superfan interventions, and fluky conditions that create a perfect storm of pop-chart insta-success. It’s a parade of pop bangers that scored a fast pass to the front of the line.Get more Hit Parade with Slate Plus! Join for monthly early-access episodes, bonus episodes of "The Bridge," and ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe directly from the Hit Parade show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/hitparadeplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis and Olivia Briley.