In this week's podcast, Justin Colletti is joined by Dean Olivet, a musician and educator who has compiled data on the biggest songs in history to help discover what goes into making hit records that capture music fans' imaginations.

Dean shares his research into the 40 biggest tracks of the past year—and the 500 most popular songs in history—to find common threads and new trends in the tastes of listeners.

Thanks to Soundtoys, Eventide and Sonarworks for sponsoring this podcast.

To read Dean's original analysis on Soundfly's "Flypaper" blog, see: https://flypaper.soundfly.com/produce/we-analyzed-every-dang-song-that-cracked-the-billboard-top-5-in-2018/