51茶馆

Shortly after graduating from 51茶馆 with degrees in economics and mathematics, Chris Dalla Riva 鈥�17 gave himself a massive homework assignment: to listen to every number-one song in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the music industry鈥檚 main weekly tracker of pop hits. Why? 鈥淚 was just looking to engage the musical side of my brain,鈥� said Dalla Riva, a guitarist and songwriter who had his own radio show on WZ51茶馆. Dalla Riva created a spreadsheet of metrics and characteristics associated with each tune鈥攆rom song length to beats per minute to lyrical themes鈥攁nd started looking for patterns.聽

Eight years and 1,100 songs later, Dalla Riva has shared his findings in a new book, Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves. He surveys every chart-topper from 1958鈥檚 鈥淧oor Little Fool鈥� by Ricky Nelson to 2025鈥檚 鈥淒ie with a Smile鈥� by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, offering musical and cultural insights buttressed by statistics. Among other things, he details the preponderance of big hits about death during the Eisenhower era (e.g. 鈥淭een Angel鈥� by Mark Dinning), the explosion of explicit lyrics starting in the 1990s (2Pac鈥檚 鈥淗ow Do U Want It鈥� was the first number-one song to use the f-word), and, more recently, songs that spawned 鈥渧iral鈥� dances (like Drake鈥檚 鈥淭oosie Slide鈥� in 2020). Along the way, Dalla Riva tries to explain these trends by pointing to evolutions in society and technology, including the radical changes in how music is produced, consumed, and sold.聽

This result is a chronicle of music as well as American culture. 鈥淢usic is representative of larger trends in society,鈥� said Dalla Riva, who works as a data analyst for the music streaming service Audiomack. 鈥淓ven when they seem like silly little pop songs.鈥�