Tom Breihan is the senior editor at the music website Stereogum, where he writes "The Number Ones," a column where he reviews every #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. He's written for Pitchfork, the Village Voice, the AV Club, GQ, and the Ringer, among others. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and kids. He is seven feet tall.
"Breihan displays a keen eye (and ear) for identifying landmark
moments.... Breihan will have you building out playlists and diving
down new musical rabbit holes, but he will also leave you
questioning how many times you've dismissed something as a passing
trend."--The New York Times (audiobook)
"The engaging, illuminating, and exhilarating The Number Ones:
Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop
Music....Breihan brings a laser-like focus and fan's sensibility to
stone-cold classic No. 1 hits....Perhaps nobody writing about music
today is better equipped to grapple with those questions....Whether
in his column or The Number Ones, Breihan unearths fascinating
nuggets about even the most pedestrian songs. Like a Russian
nesting doll, his writings contain multitudes.... Breihan has
penned a work that resembles some of the indelible hits he
spotlights: memorable, timeless and worth revisiting again and
again."--The Los Angeles Times
"An ideal way into the larger story of pop, and all its
relations."--The Current
"A rich critical history of pop at its most universally
revelatory."--Rolling Stone
One of Variety's Best Music Books of 2022 "Ripe with opinion and
spiced by peppery humor....Breihan's book also lovingly looks into
deserving artists (e.g., Dylan, Bruce Springsteen) who have never
topped the singles charts."--Variety
"The Number Ones is a tour de force of Breihan at his most nerdy,
intricate, and enjoyable....No one parses the stories or puts the
popular songs that have defined generations into perspective better
than Breihan, who has delivered on the promise of his crazy column
idea."--The Aquarian
"The Number Ones remains a breezy read, packed with interesting
facts and historical context....[Breihan] also found creative ways
to weave into the narratives stories about acts that never made it
to No. 1, including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and the Backstreet
Boys."--The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A LitHub Pick to Bring on Weekend Travels
"Briskly written, a pleasure to read, The Number Ones is a musical
treat."--The Wall Street Journal
"For longtime readers of Breihan's work, the tone will be instantly
familiar: affable, conversational, and always funny, with
surprising insights and ear-catching phrasings gliding in from
every direction....The jokes, asides, and loping digressions all
mimic the texture of conversation, pointing to Breihan's enduring
strength as a critic: when you read him, it feels like he's talking
to you."--Pitchfork
"The book [is a] fascinating look at the last six-plus decades of
popular music through the prism of Billboard's signature songs
chart, digging into the nooks and crannies of both the music and
the chart itself as the subject requires."--Billboard
"This fantastic overview carries loads of fascinating trivia. Great
fun for any music fan."--Booklist (starred)
"Trying to capture the last seven decades of popular music through
20 songs sounds daunting, but this breezy history is gripping and
entertaining...he attacks his subject with an engaging mix of
clever facts and savvy observations.... For those looking for more
conventional commentary, Breihan offers plenty of interesting
insights into hits from the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Prince, and
Mariah Carey, but the surprises are where he shines brightest. A
fun, buzzy history that effectively uses context and criticism to
explain the effervescence of pop music."--Kirkus Reviews
(starred)
"Tom Breihan is an absolutely crucial chronicler of the hit parade,
a madman scholar digging deep in the vaults. The Number Ones is a
revelatory celebration of pop history in all its glorious
weirdness, the way only Breihan could tell the tale. These are
classic tunes that everybody knows, but Breihan brilliantly blows
away the dust, and makes them sound fresh and new. A hell of a
storyteller, and a hell of a T-Pain fan."--Rob Sheffield
"Tom Breihan's The Number Ones is a glorious rabbit hole dive into
the biggest hits in popular music, analyzing the very physics of
how they became hits and taking a forensic look at what made them
'pop.' It's massively enjoyable when you love the song in question,
and perhaps even more so when you don't. One of the most enjoyable
books on pop to ever roar up the charts."--Edgar Wright
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