http://www.ubu.com/sound/keesing.html
This is amazing and well worth the time to download and listen through for anyone who's has grown up with and/or is interested in the history of pop music. This guy compiled short snippets of *every song* that went to number one starting in the 50s up through 1990.
It's fascinating to hear how pop music evolved over the years, and really amazing when one of those game changers comes along, like The Beatles. You can really hear how everything gets knocked on its head and the landscape is irrevocably shifted. That said, you can also hear how there are some constants to successful pop music: strong vocals, simple but memorable melodies, plus everything tends to fall within a certain bpm envelope, with danceable music dominating the first 20 years or so of pop music and the influence of other forms starting to make itself felt in the mid 60s. But then disco explodes in the mid 70s and it's all about the beat again.
Anyways, really fascinating stuff. I'd love to hear what others think about it.
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