Charts, Stories & Uncharted Territory: A Conversation with Chris Dalla Riva
Talking with Chris Dalla Riva about Uncharted Territory and the stories behind the world’s biggest hits
Ever wondered what the Billboard charts really say about us? I talked with author Chris Dalla Riva about his new book Uncharted Territory to find out. Leave your thought below in the comments!
There’s something truly fascinating about the charts. Some people obsess over them, trying to push their favorite artist as high up as possible, while others claim not to care. Whether we like it or not, they have shaped the music scene like little else. Whenever we talk about eras or decades in music we tend to highlight the hits first - the Number Ones. And so the charts say a lot about us, the listeners and the world around us.
That - and much more - is covered in Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves by author Chris Dalla Riva: a data-driven, well-researched look at every Billboard No 1 hit in history. For those looking for good music literature and wanting to learn more about how popular music reflects its times, this could easily be your next favorite book.
A huge thanks to Chris for allowing me an early read of Uncharted Territory. Coincidentally, that happened while I was lying sick with the flu and bored in bed all day - or as we should perhaps call it, the perfect time to read. And I must say, I couldn’t have found a better read than this.
I’ve been searching for good literature about music for a while and Uncharted Territory turned out to be exactly that. One thing I noticed after reading multiple chapters was how this isn’t just about the Number Ones - it’s about the stories, the events and the Zeitgeist of those times as well. Each decade gets a deep dive into its innovations - like the album cover.
The album cover? Yes - something we take for granted today wasn’t always so common. Getting from generic label designs to today’s expressive visuals was a long journey and Chris explores that evolution while highlighting the timeless hits that accompanied it.
Another moment that stuck with me was the introduction of SoundScan and how it changed the way Billboard measured chart data. The effect was massive - before SoundScan, 31% of Number One songs were by Black artists or groups with at least one Black member. After the switch, that number jumped to 72%. Those and many other topics - from chart fairness to creative innovation - are covered throughout the book.
For those more interested in modern music, the book has that too - from the streaming era to why songs have become sadder, there’s a lot of fascinating insight to explore.
Did I know the story of album covers or the introduction of SoundScan before? No. But I’m glad I do now - it gave me new things to research and made me understand music’s evolution in a much deeper way. We often don’t realize how much happens before Song X reaches Number One. Even more, we rarely hear the stories behind Song Y that almost did.
Uncharted Territory does a great job of bringing those stories to life - explaining the culture behind the music and how the charts themselves helped to shape it.
To learn a bit more about the process behind Uncharted Territory, I had the chance to ask Chris a few questions about his work and the book.
Listening to every Number One hit in Billboard history is quite some work. What made you decide to explore this topic and what did you hope to discover?
When I graduated from college, I was working a very corporate job while still pursuing music on the side. This listening quest began as a way to try to write better songs. And I do think my songwriting improved during this listening journey, but I started noticing some trends as I was going and felt compelled to write about them. Turning it into a book was almost an accident.
In your book, you don’t just briefly fly over the No. 1s - you actually dive deeper into the trends and events happening at the time. Was there anything you were surprised to learn?
I was surprised constantly! That’s why I felt compelled to write. The initial trend that sparked this whole thing was noticing many songs from the late 1950s and early 1960s featured very macabre themes, sometimes involving teens perishing in car wrecks (e.g., “Teen Angel” by Mark Dinning). I didn’t just imagine this. It was a real trend, sometimes denoted “teenage tragedy songs.”
I could point to an oddity in nearly any decade, but more broadly the thing that surprised me was that music is often downstream of technological evolution. Engineers, for example, figure out how to get microphones to clearly record softer sounds and you get the croon of Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Technology is not deterministic of musical trends. But in every era, we see new technology emerge and artists interact with it to push their art further.
As David Byrne notes in his book “How Music Works,” art is often made to fit formats and solve practical issues.
Something that really stood out to me was your section about the introduction of SoundScan - which I honestly didn’t know about before. You also talk about how this exposed years of undercounting Black artists. It’s shocking to see how much the system back then affected minority artists. Based on your research, do you think the industry has gotten better at this, or do those inequalities just show up in new ways today?
Billboard is much more equitable in how they measure things today because much of the process is automated, meaning there is less of a place for human bias.
Ultimately, Billboard has a very hard job. They want to name the most popular record in a given week by looking at every source, from streaming and digital downloads to TikTok and vinyl purchases. There’s no good way to equate all of those things, so Billboard has to take a guess. A certain number of streams, for example, is equated to one physical sale. No matter what they decide, there’s a bit of arbitrariness to it, which naturally leads to biases. I don’t think anything is as egregious as in the pre-SoundScan era, though.
We’ve come a long way in how music is promoted - from the days when performing on The Ed Sullivan Show could make you a star, to now when one viral TikTok can do the same. Where do you see things going from here? Obviously, social media has played and will continue to play a huge role, but are there any trends you’ve noticed in how artists break through in recent years?
Social media will continue to be important in artist promotion, but it seems we are beyond the world where a pop star can just release music. They need to shape narratives and create interactive experiences for their fans. No longer can you just release an album and watch it sell.
Throughout the decades, labels have held a lot of power and you talk about this multiple times in your book. Whether it’s about cover art, shaping the charts to their preference or defining an artist’s sound and image - they’ve always played a huge part. I’m actually writing about this in an upcoming piece, so I’d love to hear your take: with so many opportunities open for independent artists today, do you think we’re moving toward a more label-free future or will traditional label systems still dominate in shaping the charts?
In some sense, we are already in a post-label world as the biggest labels don’t do much artist development anymore. They seem to swoop in once you’ve built momentum. I think I now view labels more as investment firms. They manage large amounts of intellectual property, often going back decades. And then they pour money on artists who are on the cusp of something larger. They have their place, but they aren’t gatekeepers like they were a few decades ago.
Finally, is there anything you’d like readers to know before they dive into Uncharted Territory?
Despite the fact that we spend much time these days listening to music alone, music is a fundamentally social art that should be experienced with others. If you read my book and feel compelled to tell someone about a song or trend you’ve learned about, I’ll consider it a win.
I really enjoyed this conversation and hope you did too. Uncharted Territory releases November 13 and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves music history, data and good stories. Find more of Chris below:
Buy now your copy of Uncharted Territory
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Thanks for having me! This was a ton of fun. Grab a copy of the book if you enjoyed our convo
Book sounds very interesting and I am very hungry for good books about music industry since I only read Retromania year ago. Any other recommendations?