Number One With A Bullet

When you're weary, or feeling small, just put on this podcast about a sad little guy who missed his tall friend so much that he wrote a number one song about it. Andrew and Dan learn all sorts of stuff about that sad little man's musical journey, and still find time to discuss Bob Dylan's wild 17-minute JFK song. What an episode!

It's only been a few weeks since the boys visited the Billboard charts of 1989, but boy how the world has changed! Debbie Gibson is the past, the Bangles are the future. Hear the story behind this stripped down ballad that became a surprise hit, and also hear a 20-minute synopsis of the film '13 Going on 30.'

Heart isn't really a band. It's more like 6 or 7 bands that existed at various times over the course of 20 years. This week, Andrew and Dan travel back to the year they finally topped the charts. All it took was a complete revamp of their look, sound, and hairspray use. 

Finally, we've reached a number one hit from an artist that was genuinely created in a lab. Thanks to the hard work of Dr. Dre and honorary doctor Eminem, the world was treated to the brief and bright career of the young 50 Cent (one half dollar) and his bopping iconic anthems for the very club! What a time it was!

At the dawn of a new decade, America decided to get swept up in the magic of cinema. Or, more specifically, the magic of cinematic music. What led this peaceful, instrumental track to become one of the most dominant singles of the 1960s? Literally nobody knows! But it happened, and we're here to talk about it.

This week Andrew and Dan travel back to the year of Dan's birth to see who the hell decided to let a 17-year-old produce their entire sophomore album. Regardless of what reckless parent was at the wheel, it seemed to work out ok for Debbie Gibson, so she may still be lost somewhere in those eyes. Also, we debut a new Oscar's-adjacent segment!

1969 was a tumultuous time in the United States. People were angry, people were sad, people were tired of being told to dance to the music. Luckily, funk/soul/psychedelic rock band Sly & The Family Stone were ready to deliver a new message. But does that message hold up half a century later? Only we can answer that!

The stars were out tonight! As promised, Andrew and Dan are taking a brief break from their regular discussions of popular music from the past to talk about this year's Oscars. Recorded just moments after the ceremony ended, you're getting their genuine reactions, fresh off the presses, directly into your ear holes.   We'll be back in a week with regular episodes!

With the Oscars right around the corner, Andrew and Dan are having a little trouble focusing. Luckily, late-80s Madonna is here to bring things back into focus and get their little booties on the dance floor. Things discussed in this episode: Sean Penn, grown women kissing little boys, and Madonna's transition from teeny bopper to sexual icon.

How many more times will Andrew and Dan have to discuss wildly successful pedophilic rock songs that topped the Billboard charts? Probably many more times! But at least this one is out of the way. Sorry Ringo, you're going to jail for the rest of your life. Peace and love!

The Oscar nominations are hot but the musical discussion is cold. Sometimes that's how it goes when the content of your podcast is dictated by a random number generator. Perhaps Andrew and Dan have cursed themselves with their own premise, hoisted themselves by their own musical petard. Or maybe this song performed by Andrew's Sisters is actually not bad. Who can say?

Make sure your body guard is on standby during this episode, because this one's a killer. The indomitable Whitney Houston is once again up for discussion and this time she's making us feel always loved with this 1993 number one smash hit. Will it be just as big of a success with Andrew and Dan? Only this episode will tell!

This is what we call in the biz a classic "bait and switch." You bring people in with a famous Beatles tune and then you pull the rug out from under them, forcing them to sit down and listen to you talk about Elton John for nearly an hour. Here at Number One With A Bullet, we just call that the '70s. Enjoy!

What better way to kick off the new year than listening to an hour and half of two people reminiscing about the previous year! This week, Andrew and Dan break with format once again to discuss their personal top ten albums of 2018. Enjoy the new music recs! We'll be back next week with normal programming.

As is tradition, Andrew and Dan are capping off the year with a look back at the past 12 months of popular music. Recently, Billboard released their official year-end list for 2019 and, folks, it's a weird one! It's got Spider-Men, DJ's with bucket heads, and some bad guys going sicko mode. Strap in and enjoy the holidays!

In an odd turn of fate, Andrew and Dan are returning to the year 2004 almost exactly one year after the last time they did. But rather than discussing Usher's Boo, they're talking about one of the most ubiquitous songs of the 2000s. The song that taught America to drop their bottoms to the floor and then taught them to love again. 

Long before the Avengers claimed to have the biggest crossover event in history, one of the greatest bands in 1940s entertainment got in the studio with one of the biggest voices in jazz. You know we're talking about that Ink Spots/Fitzgerald collab! This one's for all you Fallout fans out there. 

This week, Andrew and Dan get a chance to talk about some real Jersey Boys, and no we're not talking about Tony Soprano and the gang. Get it? Because they're from Jersey. Anyway, Frank Valli kind of sounds like a muppet on this one but if you're interested in the history of this song, this episode is for you!

Right around the time Dan was graduating from high school and Andrew was graduating from kindergarten, Alicia "Piano" Keys jumped back to the top of the charts with a song that truly came from the lips off God. Unfortunately, God didn't send along a decent backing track to go along with it. Don't be mad at us! Listen for yourself!

As part of a early promotional push for the new Star Wars movie, Andrew and Dan invest far too much time into discussing the life and career of Carrie Fisher's father, Eddie "The Fish" Fisher. As a popular singer from the 1950s, his career is, needless to say, familiar! Still, we manage to have fun here!

This week, Andrew and Dan learn that the 1970s was an incredibly horny time in America. Things were so horny that we had to import sex symbols from the UK just to satiate our completely debauched, sex-crazed minds. In 1976, Rod Stewart took on that burden and delivered a song that, in retrospect, is actually pretty damn gross and possibly a crime. Yikes!

Just a few scant weeks after spending some unwelcome time with Johnny Cougar, Andrew and Dan return to the year 1982 to discuss another number one hit. This one courtesy of a handful of movie executives who knew they wanted something romantic but not very expensive. What they got was a stone-cold banging power ballad.

In honor of Halloween next week, Andrew and Dan sat down to discuss a song that will scare you with how boring it is. This episode is also marked by a complete lack of any tangible song information, which leads to tangents about the Monster Mash, weird comedy songs that went to number one, and better versions of this same song. Enjoy (if you dare!)

Hey, friends can't agree on everything. And this week, Andrew and Dan can't seem to agree on whether or not "Sugar Shack," a sickly sweet rock hit from the early 60s, is any good. But who cares what they think when history itself has already declared this the number one song of 1963! Or has it?? Controversy!

This week, Andrew and Dan venture back to the era of "and his Orchestra" groups to see what the hell was going on with this song "To Each His Own." Everybody and their dang mother was recording a version of this thing, but only one of them made it to the top of the charts! Ok... three of them did. But still!