Introduction

I've always enjoyed music in the nerdiest possible way.

The weekly Top 40 radio show fascinated me. It mathematically ranked songs, sorted them, tracked their history, tracked the artists' histories, and reported specific statistics that would make sports reporters jealous. And I could root for my favorite artists to climb to the top of these statistics and create legacies.

I remember a period in the early 90s when I listened to Casey Kasem count down the Top 40 every week, hoping this would be the week that Mariah Carey would break the record of the most Number One songs by a single artist (although I'm now fairly certain I've misremembered that statistic). And I remember rooting against some really irritating songs that I hated.

But then my musical interests diverged from what was popular, and the Top 40 lost its fascination for me.

When Billboard announced recently that they had tracked their 1000th Number One song, and presented a full list, I remembered my old interest and looked over the list. And I found an intriguing mix of era-defining classics, timeless gems, songs that time forgot, songs that time should have forgotten, and songs I'd never even heard of before.

So I thought it might be fun to go through the whole list and write some reviews for each song. See what has passed the test of time and what hasn't, what I still enjoy and what I renounce ever enjoying, what annoyed me and what I've gotten over.