Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia - The White and Nerdy Edition Part 2
Novelty songs were a tough way to make a music career. Until one self-proclaimed Weird guy turned parodies into pop classics.
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Show Notes
Sped-up voices. Wacky instruments. Songs about cavemen, bathtubs, bikinis, and mothers-in-law. From the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll through the 1970s—the age of streaking, CB radios, disco and King Tut—novelty songs could be chart-topping hits. But by the corporate ’80s, it was harder for goofballs to score hits on regimented radio playlists. Until one perm-headed, mustachioed, accordion-playing parodist who called himself “Weird” rebooted novelty hits for the new millennium.
In the second part of this encore episode of Hit Parade, Chris Molanphy explores the history of novelty hits on the charts.
Podcast production by Justin D. Wright and Kevin Bendis.
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