CHART SWEEP! No. 1, 1958

Several years ago I stumbled across two MP3s from the Evolution Control Committee entitled "chart sweep." Together they comprise short clips from every single to reach the number one spot on Billboard's Hot 100 chart from 1958 to 1992. It's glorious. I'm still unsure of the provenance -- I doubt ECC created it, because it sounds like it was recorded over the radio. I'm also not sure if it's still up at their site, but you might poke around to find out.

Anyway, after obsessing over this gem for about a week, I forgot about it. A while ago I rediscovered it with a vengeance. Since then I've been inspired to give it a facelift -- the sound quality of the MP3s are pretty bad. (Like I said, recorded off a radio.) But not only am I improving the sound -- and not only am I bringing it up-to-date (to 2007) -- but I'm doing it all in video form.

So without further ado, introducing the first installment of my chart sweep project, every #1 single of 1958, beginning August 3 when the Hot 100 era officially began.



Fun fact: during the Teddy Bears song, the guitarist to the right of Annette Kleinbard is a very young Phil Spector. The Teddy Bears was his first band.

Also, just to put this in perspective, there have been 937 #1 singles on the hot 100. So if you want to see me finish this, donate to the American Diabetes Association.

"Together Let us Run"

And where does he want to ascend, unless to heaven? What does "to heaven" mean? Does he wish to ascend to be with the sun, the moon, and the stars? Certainly not. But eternal Jerusalem is in heaven, where angels are our fellow citizens, from whom we are absent as pilgrims on earth. On pilgrimage, we sigh with longing; in the city, we rejoice. We find companions, however, on this pilgrimage who have already rejoiced who said, "I was glad in them who said to me: We will go into the house of the Lord." Brothers, remember in charity how, for example, on a festival of martyrs, when a holy place is named, when crowds flow together on the appointed day to celebrate the solemnity; how those crowds stir themselves up, how they admonish one another and say, "Let us go! Let us go!" And they ask, "Where are we to go?" And the answer comes, "To that place, to the holy place." They talk together and, though they are kindled one by one, they make a single flame, and a single flame made by the give-and-take of those drawing near seizes them up to the holy place, and holy thought sanctifies them. If, therefore, holy love seizes them thus to a worldly place, what sort of love ought it to be that seizes into heaven those who are of one accord and say to one another, "We will go into the house of the Lord"? Therefore, together let us run, let us run, because we will go into the house of the Lord. Let us run and not be weary, for we go to that place where we shall never tire.

Augustine of Hippo, Enarrationes in Psalmos III, 2.