When most people think of novelty songs, they think of funny tunes with light lyrics. Classics like “The Purple People Eater,” “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” “The Streak,” and pretty much ...

Is there a music genre less respected than novelty music? Well, disco, but we weep not for the dead. The novelty song, which for our purposes here is defined as "a comical or nonsensical song," is ...

Randy Newman became a one-hit wonder with his 1977 track "Short People", something he would later call a "bad break." ...

In the ’80s and ’90s, nothing was a bigger cultural tastemaker than MTV. Long before it became the home to endless reality shows, it played nothing but music videos 24 hours a day. If you wanted to ...

Every October, a hopelessly kitschy classic rises from the dead to the delight (and occasional dread) of millions. Since its release in 1962, “Monster Mash” has become a beloved slice of mid-century ...

This is the third and infal article in a three-part series on the history of holiday music. The first article described the origins of holiday music and the second covered the 19th-century reinvention ...