Gotye - C or D

Ah yes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_by_Australian_artists_which_reached_number-one_on_the_Hot_100_%28USA%29

"Torn" didn't hit number one?

Wow, and INXS only had one number one?

Torn never made it to the main Billboard Hot 100 because of those crazy rules involving the Airplay Chart.

About which:

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2012/04/gotye_somebody_that_i_used_to_know_no_1_billboard.php

That is a great piece, diligently digging into the data to draw some interesting conclusions.

yeah chris was telling me about the piece yesterday, very excited to dig into it now

it's pretty excellent

I'm so used to reading opinion pieces that it's a real treat to see some proper, painstaking research.

man i need to check for chris molanphy more often, that's great stuff

Dude's a statistical hero!

This is why Dick Clark had to die.

Yeah, Molanphy's the best.

I mentioned this to him the other day, and he was like "Already working on it!"

LOL at headline

http://jezebel.com/5901437/americas-number-one-pop-song-reads-like-a-crap-email-from-a-dude

For the first time the top two songs are sung by two men whose voices repel me.

LOL at article, too

Chris is one of the handful of guys I know who read (a) read Paul Grein (b) read Paul Grein's column before glancing at the charts.

too many reads

it's a good piece, but there's an alternative theory that chris didn't really explore: millenials are getting older and more interested in the kind of adult-pop boomers liked as they got older. I don't hear "alternative" here, I hear Don McLean & the Outfield. While he hints at it later in the piece, it's possible the songs are more pop songs that cross-over to the piddly remainder of alternative rock radio than vica versa.

admittedly my perspective is tainted by the fact that I think both these songs are barf.

I'm pretty sure it isn't nostalgia talking when I claim "All That Money Wants" and "Peek a Boo" are more outré than anything coughed up by the late nineties modern rock chart.

Jezebel article reads song correctly, lambastes song as if it did that by accident

I imagine an Al Smith type pronouncing it GOI-TUH.

it's kind of stupid that Jezebel felt the need to write a female rebuttal to Gotye's lyrics in "Someone" since that's what the 2nd verse of the fucking song

is

Chris is one of the handful of guys I know who read (a) read Paul Grein (b) read Paul Grein's column before glancing at the charts.

Wow, how have I never come across Paul Grein until now.

it's kind of stupid that Jezebel felt the need to write a female rebuttal to Gotye's lyrics in "Someone" since that's what the 2nd verse of the fucking song

Even worse was the "oh I knew about the rebuttal in the 2nd verse, honest" comment the author posted after other commenters politely pointed out that this was a remarkably thick article.

lol

Finally heard this on a Top 40 radio station, but it's a different mix than the original:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRNcToysajw

@ Gotye's US label

"This won't work on radio"
"Can we...make it sound more like late nineties Sting?"
"Jackpot!"

Wow, how have I never come across Paul Grein until now.

Probably because he writes for Yahoo! and most of us don't usually turn there for quality writing about anything, much less music.

this song sucks

Probably because he writes for Yahoo! and most of us don't usually turn there for quality writing about anything, much less music.

For most of the eighties and nineties he wrote "Chart Beat" for Billboard though -- chart nonsense for non-sports nerds.

Pre-Fred Bronson?

mais oui!

this song sucks

rong

it is pretty good

into it

Well, that top 40 version is pretty lame.

It sounds good between Katy Perry and "Starships," i.e. ear relief but no more.

my top 40 station plays a remix too but it's even more dull than that one

For most of the eighties and nineties he wrote "Chart Beat" for Billboard though -- chart nonsense for non-sports nerds.

well that would have been precisely the time before i had regular access to Billboard, hence why i was unfamiliar with the name. i wasn't trying to knock him btw, his column seems good, just that i never expect to find anything of quality on Yahoo!

still keep reading this as "goyte"

good song anyways, not a favorite

Must've read Grein back when I was photocopying the Hot 100 at the library, but the name doesn't ring a bell. Not like Joel Whitburn (to whom I wrote a fan letter), at least.

Younger (not entirely young) co-worker playing Somebody on repeat this morning.

http://www.spin.com/articles/gotye-bummed-glee-did-him-wrong

aww crap just developed InstaCrush because of that picture

Just glad for him that he got to #1 before the Glee cover version could get these first.

There's something ironic about a song being so popular that they need to remix it to get it airplay on top 40 ...