Now that we’re sufficiently nostalgic from doing a week on the Beatles, and sufficiently jolly from doing a week of Christmas songs, let’s do a…
Category: Music
Top 40 Philosophy: Nat King Cole, “The Christmas Song”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
According to the Billboard Holiday Albums chart (as I was writing this), we should do a song from Pentatonix’s first Christmas album. But we already…
Top 40 Philosophy: Darius Rucker, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
As of my writing this, we have done one song each from the top three albums on Billboard’s Holiday Albums chart. For today, then, we…
Top 40 Philosophy: Michael Bublé, “Silent Night”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
We’ve done a song from each of the top two “Holiday” albums this week, so on we move to the third: Christmas, by Michael Bublé. I’ve…
Top 40 Philosophy: Idina Menzel, “Do You Hear What I Hear?”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
Pentatonix has the #1 song on Billboard’s Holiday 100, and the #1 album on Billboard’s Holiday Albums chart. The #2 album is Idina “Adele ‘Elsa‘…
Top 40 Philosophy: Pentatonix, “Mary, Did You Know?”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
We spent the first week of Advent on the Beatles, which is not exactly appropriate. But it was the 50th Anniversary of Beatlemania, and we…
Top 40 Philosophy: The Beatles, “I Feel Fine”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
Beatles Week closes with the Beatles’ sixth #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1964 (and first #1 on the chart for 1965) “I Feel Fine.”…
Top 40 Philosophy: The Beatles, “A Hard Day’s Night”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
The fifth of six Beatles songs to go #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1964, “A Hard Day’s Night” is our next-to-last song this week.…
Top 40 Philosophy: The Beatles, “Can’t Buy Me Love”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
Beatles Week continues today, with “Can’t Buy Me Love.” This — the third of six Beatles songs we’re doing this week — was #1 for…
Top 40 Philosophy: The Beatles, “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
Fifty years ago (1964), “I Want to Hold Your Hand” became the first Beatles single to reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was…
Top 40 Philosophy Flashback: Ludacris, “Roll Out”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
Yesterday at the Tillman Family Thanksgiving Festivities, my brothers told me I should do a Ludacris song today. Tillmans communicate with each other almost entirely…
Top 40 Philosophy Flashback: Dido, “Thank You”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
Since today is Thanksgiving here in America, let’s flashback to Dido’s “Thank You,” from 1998. The song made it to #3 on the Billboard Hot…
Top 40 Philosophy: Jessie J, Ariana Grande, & Nicki Minaj, “Bang Bang”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
Okay, there’s no avoiding it this time. “Bang Bang,” by Jessie J, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj, is at #8 this week, and we’ve already…
Top 40 Philosophy: Hozier, “Take Me to Church”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, Theology, and Top 40 Philosophy
We’ve done all the other songs in the top 5 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, so today we’re jumping down to #6, Hozier’s “Take Me…
Top 40 Philosophy: Taylor Swift, “Blank Space”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
Alright, enough wallowing in the past. Back to the current Billboard Hot 100, where we find — surprise, surprise! — Taylor Swift again. Billboard tells…
Top 40 Philosophy Flashback: Boston, “More Than a Feeling”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
Kurt Cobain thought of “Smells Like Teen Spirit’s” chord progression as a rip-off of Boston’s “More Than a Feeling.” Nirvana even introed “Smells Like Teen…
Top 40 Philosophy Flashback: Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
Posted in Friendly Philosophy, Music, and Top 40 Philosophy
Yesterday we discussed heroes and the Foo Fighters. Today, let’s jump back even further in time to the song that introduced the world to the…