In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.
Most of what we’ve heard about drummer Zak Starkey’s firing, re-hiring, and re-firing from the Who has come from Starkey himself. The son of Ringo Starr initially chalked up the drama to miscommunication between him and frontman Roger Daltrey, who’s still aboard the Who’s farewell tour despite his age and health threatening to get in the way. Guitarist Pete Townshend briefly chimed in on the ordeal, though it sounds like he’s just as confused as the rest of us. Now Daltrey has weighed in, but he’s a little less forgiving of Starkey.
An Oasis fan died on Saturday night after he fell during one of the band’s Wembley Stadium concerts. The AP reports that a man in his 40s was pronounced dead at the scene after sustaining “injuries consistent with a fall” from an upper tier of the stadium at about 10:20 p.m., which is shortly after the time Oasis would have finished performing.
Last week Burial returned with two new songs called “Comafields” and “Imaginary Festival,” which are both quite good. Burial is a fan of samples, as is the Swedish musician Jens Lekman. Apparently one of those new Burial songs includes a sample of a Jens Lekman song.
David Roach, lead vocalist for the Los Angeles heavy rockers Junkyard, has died. “After a courageous battle with cancer, David passed away peacefully last night at home, in the loving arms of his wife,” his bandmates wrote on Instagram Saturday. According to Express he was 64, though Rolling Stone says he was 59. Roach had gotten married just two weeks before his death.
Lookalike contests — they’re still happening. It all started in October of last year when New Yorkers yearned for Timothée Chalamet copycats, but the trend has taken the world by storm. Yesterday knockoff Conor Obersts gathered in the Bright Eyes frontman’s hometown of Omaha. Like at the Chalamet competition, the singer himself showed up, but he did not win.
Dancer are back with another post-punk banger to preview their forthcoming record More Or Less. We’ve heard “Just Say Yes” and “Happy Halloween,” but the newest offering “Baby Blue” is the most invigorating one yet.
Last year, Caroline Polachek performed a beautiful rendition of Radiohead’s “True Love Waits” at Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. On Thursday (July 31), the experimental-pop musician covered Nick Drake’s “River Man” at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado as part of the inaugural AIR festival.
Erik Wunder, the leader of the black metal band Cobalt and the dark folk rock group Man’s Gin, has died. The news was shared by Nachtmystium’s Blake Judd and Abigail Williams’ Ken Sorceron yesterday. He was 42.
Lucy Dacus is living her best life on her Forever Is A Feeling Tour, officiating fans’ marriages, bringing out Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan, and covering Fontaines D.C. Last night she played Montreal’s Osheaga festival, and the singer-songwriter joined the Killers’ set for the Sam’s Town cut “Read My Mind.”