Last year I decided to embark on a massive project: To review every single #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, and call the blog "The Hit Hammer". This idea was not my own, as I was inspired to do this by a music writer/critic Tom Breihan, who is doing the exact same thing on a website he writes for called Stereogum.com. (At the time of me writing this, Breihan is currently in about February of 1980) What he does, is he writes about the artist, their backstory in life and the making of their chart-topper, and of course, his personal opinion of the song. At the end of each post he gives a grade of 1-10 with 10 being the best a song can get. Unfortunately I found myself disagreeing with Breihan time and time again, and after seeing some serious disrespect to some of my favorite songs, and high grades (sometimes even 10s) to songs that honestly just don't deserve them, I figured why not try it myself? I am a HUGE music fan, so a massive project like this doesn't seem overwhelming or time consuming. In fact, I'm in 1965, and I'm still having a blast doing this. I'm well aware of the fact that this will take me several years to complete, but I'm still going strong, and still very much plan on getting to the present days with this. Even though I disagree with Breihan a lot, I still recommend you check out his column called "The Number Ones", cause I likely wouldn't even be doing this if it weren't for that. (If you don't mind some pretty vulgar language at times that is) I don't quite go in to as much depth as Breihan, but I mostly do the same exact thing he does. I talk about the backstory of the song I'm writing about, and of course, my personal opinion of the song. At the end, I will also give out a grade 1-10. The goal is to write a post every day, but obviously this isn't always possible due to a variety of different reasons. But if this is something that may interest you, I always appreciate the views on my posts, and feel free to leave comments, as I'd love to know what you guys think of the songs as well. There is still a long, long way to go!
Ryan Paris
Comments