Way back in July of 2009, before this Song of the Day blog was even a year old, I posted a week’s worth of songs by The Smiths.
The reaction was swift and ugly: “Ugh!” “I can’t stand it!” “Grating!” “I can’t believe you are doing a whole theme week on the Smiths.”
Even my wife, largely a stranger to the blog’s comment section, chimed in to register her disgust.
Throwing back to the week of January 18, 1964, we find one of history’s greatest rock-n-roll songs tucked away at #2 behind Bobby Vinton’s ‘There! I’ve Said it Again..’
The Kingsmen’s ‘Louie Louie’ never made it to #1 but it is one of the best-known rock songs of all time, one of the most covered, and one of the most misunderstood. It’s an unintelligible three-chord masterpiece.
Throwing back to the week of January 16, 1954, we find Eddie Fisher’s ‘Oh My Papa’ with a stranglehold on Billboard’s Weekly Singles chart. The song, which I featured a few weeks back, clung to #1 from the beginning of the year through mid-February.
For a few of those weeks, including this one, it prevented a much better song from reaching #1. Dean Martin’s classic charmer ‘That’s Amore’ peaked at #2.
The last song I’ll feature as part of this year-end ‘What the Kids are Listening To’ installment is the 28th most popular song of last year, ‘Just Wanna Rock’ by Lil Uzi Vert.
Before I get to the song, I have to marvel at the fact that I somehow didn’t blog about 13 of the top 28 songs on the year-end Hot 100. When I did this exercise a year ago, I made it all the way to #27 before I got to a song I hadn’t featured.
The 27th most popular song of 2023 marks the third appearance of Taylor Swift on the year-end Hot 100, which is actually a pretty modest showing for an artist who had one of the most celebrated years in history (including becoming the first entertainer named as Time’s Person of the Year).
I’ve already featured ‘Karma’ on the blog (well, guest blogger Daniel did), but that was the album version. The version on this chart is the remix featuring Ice Spice, so I’m cleared to post it today.
Meet Me In Montauk 