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Saturday, December 11, 2010

Music Trivia Amidst Grading Tedium

Every once in a while I look at a music chart and I think, damn!, this popular music today sucks. So, magic of Wikipedia "discography," I checked for some historical context. Turns out that a lot of rock legends have had, shall we say, "limited" chart success.

To break up the tedium of grading, I present you the top 20 rock artists who never scored a #1 single on the US Billboard charts. Following each band will be their highest chart position, # of top 10, and # of top 40 singles. I rank them by # of hits in the top 10, then top 40, then chart position as final tie break.

20) White Stripes/Raconteurs (26//0, 1)
19) Radiohead (31//0, 2)
18) Elvis Costello (19//0, 2)
17) Dave Matthews Band (16//0, 4)
16) Smashing Pumpkins (12//0, 4)
15) John Mayer (12//0, 9)
14) Beck (10//1, 1)
13) Grateful Dead (9//1, 1)
12) the Clash (8//1, 2)
11) Nirvana (6//1, 2)
10) Talking Heads (9//1, 3)
9) Pearl Jam (2//1, 4)
8) Led Zeppelin (4//1, 6)
7) the Who (9//1, 16)
6) REM (4//3, 9)
5) Tom Petty (3//3, 16)
4) Bob Dylan (2//4, 12)
3) the Kinks (6//5, 11)
2) CCR (2//9, 11)
1) Bruce Springsteen (2//12, 19)

Did I miss anyone? OK, here are your trivia questions, answered below the fold: Which of those bands (there are 9) never had a #1 album in the US? Which (there are 2) never had a top 10 album?

1 Comments:

At 8:12 PM, Blogger tenaciousmcd said...

Bands that never had a #1 album: Petty, the Who, the Kinks, talking Heads, Beck, Clash, Elvis C., Grateful Dead, White Stripes.

Bands that never had a top 10 album: Kinks, Talking Heads.

 

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