Ep. 6.15 - Chris Dalla Riva

Ep. 6.15 - Chris Dalla Riva

From Yo! That’s My Jawn: The Podcast by Yo! That’s My Jawn

November 10, 2025 · 1h 17m · Season 6 · Episode 15

About this episode

Nate chats with songwriter Chris Dalla Riva about his book on the relationship between music and data.

Back with an all new episode, Nate chats with songwriter/author Chris Dalla Riva about his new book, Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves . They discuss the relationship between music and data, growing up, first songs on guitar, going to college and studying math, early songwriting, writing, Chris's viral key change article , starting the Billboard listening project that would become the basis for the book, letting the data speak, the data points he compiled, what surprised him to discover in his findings, the saxophone, the demise of bands/groups on the charts, songs that were number one that he did not remember, poptimism and fandom, the value of music in the streaming era, Life of a Showgirl , new favorites found while working on the project, the best decade for music, the lost art of the instrumental, cultural stagnancy, and the recommendation algorithm. Then, Chris crunches the numbers of The Jawntlet! Uncharted Territory Chris's Book Launch Event (tickets) Can't Get Much Higher newsletter Yo! That's My Jawn on Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the Y!TMJ Newsletter !⁠

People in this episode

Host: Nate

Guest: Chris Dalla Riva

Topics covered

  • music and data
  • songwriting
  • Billboard listening project
  • streaming era
  • cultural stagnancy
  • poptimism

Keywords

  • songwriter
  • data analysis
  • hit songs
  • music trends
  • streaming
  • viral articles
  • instrumentals

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Billboard, Can't Get Much Higher, Yo! That's My Jawn

Books & works: Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves, Life of a Showgirl

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