Book Review: Uncharted Territory

Did you know that hit songs in the late 1950s were regularly about gruesome death? That a US vice president wrote a number one hit? That while TikTok has spawned countless hits, it's made artists more anonymous than ever before? That pop songs have shaped race relations in the United States? That the key change died around 2003? And that's just the beginning.

Coupling hard data with engaging anecdotes, Uncharted Territory is both a takedown and celebration of popular music and provides new ways to think about your favorite songs, genres, and artists from the last six decades using unexpected statistics and playful visualizations. This entertaining history is filled with the most popular musicians of all time from The Beatles and The Bee Gees to Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, and beyond. Whether you danced the twist or the dougie at your senior prom, you're sure to never listen to music again in the same way.

Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tells Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves by Chris Dalla Riva will be published November 13, 2025. Bloomsbury Academic provided an early galley for review.

The author had me in the introduction when he said he was covering the number 1 hit songs from the Billboard Hot 100 from August 1958 to January of 2025. I am a big music and data nerd so this was going to definitely be a fun read for me.

Breaking the time periods up into chronological sections, Riva further presents songs in thematic groups that in turn are used to fuel fun threads of discussion. Some are obvious (songs about death, for example) while others are tied by minor threads (songs that led to copyright lawsuits, for example). It was always entertaining to see what topics a new era would spark.

Each chapter ends with a trio of highlights, a trio of lowlights, an argument starter, and some odds and ends. While I don't necessarily agree with where some of the songs fell, it is still fun to see how certain tunes resonate with other listeners (especially those who come from a different generation than myself).

For fans of popular music and the charts, this is one for your collection.