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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Highlight: The Top 100 songs of each year!, May 28, 2000
Fred Bronson is a chart trivia columnist for Billboard magazine and his love of the charts shines through in this book. It consists primarlity of lists of songs from the Billboard Hot 100, either by artists, producer, label, year or topic. So you get the top 100 Beatles songs, the top 100 Motown songs, the top 25 songs written by Diane Warren, the top 100 songs of 1979, etc. It keeps the biggest for last: a 5000 song chart of the biggest hits of all time. The only problem is that all lists are based on equally weighted weeks from the history of chart music. So the 50's (where songs were fewer and chart life longer), and the 90's (where singles were largely abandoned and those that were releases remained on the charts for over a year) tend to dominate many of these lists. More than half the top 100 of all time are from 55-57 or the 90's. Is 'A Blossom Fell' by Nat King Cole really a bigger hit than Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean"? It is here. In fact, with the fast turnover of hits in the 60's only "Hey Jude" makes the top 100. Pity there wasn't some way to balance this info, possibly by factoring in Top 40 listener stats or total singles sales by year as a way to adjust for historical imbalances. The saving grace of the book is the Charts by Year section. Here the songs have an even playing field, so you can compare songs like "Love Will Keep Us Together" with "Jive Talkin" in 1975, or "Sunshine Superman" and "Hanky Panky" in '66, or "Wind Beneath My Wings" to "Love Shack" in '89. If you want more specific info on a song, you should also check out Fred's Billboard Book of Number One Singles, a treasure trove of musical trivia.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect fun, April 28, 2003
By A Customer
This book is essential for music trivia and popular culture fanatics. The most interesting part is reading the Top 100 hits of each year, year by year. It is a fascinating study in shifting trends in public taste, and you literally "see and hear" the changes in U.S. history, reflected through its music, over the coarse of five decades. From the Elvis Presley, Perry Como and Doris Day era of the 1950's, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the 1960's, Donna Summer, Abba and Bee Gees in the 1970's, Madonna in the 1980's and Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Mariah Carey, this book is fun and fascinating from start to finish. Good job Fred!
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
SWEET INSPIRATION, February 28, 2003
This review is from: Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits, Updated and Expanded 3rd Edition (Paperback)
The above title is charted as #4631 of the Top 5000 singles of the rock era and also the feeling one gets when thumbing through this absolutely essential book--absolutely essential for any individual with the slightest interest in popular music of the past 47 years all the way to the deepest trivia buff, anyone who has ever had a taste of list-o-mania. Along with Mr. Bronson's "Billboard Book Of Number One Hits" and Joel Whitburn's "Top Pop Singles", this is the one of the three necessary reference items for any home library with a section dealing with pop music. Mr. Bronson covers the songs, artists (sections for Elvis, Elton, Abba, Aretha, Beatles, Stones, Sinatras, etc.) producers, songwriters and record labels, that have spun around our turntables. cassette decks and CD players since 1955. Specialized sections deal with such diverse subjects as music from motion pictures, names of girls and boys, food, animals and the calendar. It is not just the list that make this book essential; it is the historical articles which feature thousands of little known facts. The ultimate list is the Top 5000 songs of the rock era (1955-present). Some fine illustrations accompany the text. Some readers will take offense that most of the biggest songs of the rock era are from the 1990s. However, Mr. Bronson explains how chart methodolgy created this situation (For instance the highest ranking Beatles song is #41). For those 1960s (or other decades)purists , there are sections devoted to each decade. For the statisticians, the author has revised his methodology to emphasize high chart position, a significant improvement. This book will settle many arguments about popular music and related pop culture issues. In summary, buy it.
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