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Quick, what was the only No. 1 album by Jimi Hendrix? How about the first No. 1 by Billy Joel? Jackson Browne? Pat Benatar? Pearl Jam? Lady Gaga?   In all cases, the answer isn’t obvious—it’s not the album you know best, the one with the most hits on it. It’s the album after that classic that goes to No. 1. And there’s no better example than AC/DC, the Australian-by-way-of-Scotland hard rock band that’s sold more than 20 million copies of Back in Black. But it was their next album (can you name it?) that topped the Billboard album chart.   Chris Molanphy has coined a term for this weird chart phenomenon: He calls it The AC/DC Rule. Just as less-good movie sequels open better at the box office than classic first installments, follow-up albums often chart higher than their slow-growing but hit-packed predecessors. Some of the rock and pop legends who fell prey to this chart phenomenon might surprise you…might just leave you shook all night long.   Podcast production by Asha Saluja. Learn more about your ad choi

For more than a century, Hallmark has been a tightly-held, Midwestern business that’s mastered the art of turning feelings into revenue. But recently, it has run into trouble when it’s tried so hard to be inoffensive, it ends up offending. Can Hallmark succeed in an era when emotions might be getting too big to fit in an envelope? Podcast production by Jess Miller and Cleo Levin. Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts and bonus episodes of shows like Dear Prudence and Slow Burn. Sign up now to listen and support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For most of the last year, Clubhouse—the audio-only social media app—has been dominated by conversations about business, branding, and Elon Musk. But as users picked up the app around the globe, something extraordinary happened.   Censors in mainland China overlooked it. And for two weeks in February, it hosted a series of unusual, unfiltered conversations. Han Chinese, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, and Uighurs all flooded to the app to speak freely about authoritarianism, democracy, and propaganda.  Here’s what happened when the censors looked the other way.  Guest:  Melissa Chan, journalist with the Global Reporting Centre Host Lizzie O’Leary   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week, in response to protests by farmers outside New Delhi, India, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi restricted access to the mobile web in areas where the protests were unfolding. The move is the latest in the Indian government’s long history of throttling internet access and censoring speech online.  Why is the Modi government increasingly shutting down the internet and stifling digital dissent? And what does the party’s history of internet shutdowns tell us about India’s future? Guest:  Pranav Dixit, correspondent for Buzzfeed News Host Lizzie O’Leary   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For our series finale, Virginia Heffernan kicks off the show with Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at NYU, who talks about why and how journalists came to normalize the extreme wrongs of the Trump presidency. Trumpcast producer Melissa Kaplan then joins Virginia for a series wrap, or Trumpcast cast, remembering some of our best shows and lessons learned. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story of how GameStop went from the verge of a bankruptcy to a $15 billion market value isn’t an easy one to wrap your head around. But it helps to go back to the beginning; almost three years ago, in a subreddit called r/wallstreetbets. Guests:  Brandon Kochkodin, reporter at Bloomberg Host Lizzie O’Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most people thought developing the vaccine in record time would be the hard part. That, or shipping millions of doses at subzero temperatures to every corner of the country. But nobody--or, almost nobody--guessed that the biggest barrier between U.S. citizens and vaccination would be … online scheduling.  What went wrong with the vaccine websites? And what will it take to get them right? Guests:  Raphael Lee, director of USDR’s Health Program  Hana Schank, director of Strategy for Public Interest Technology at New America Jessica Allen Host Lizzie O’Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the penultimate episode of Trumpcast, Virginia Heffernan welcomes back Dr. Ibram Kendi, director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, to talk about his anti-racist work, the Biden era ahead, and a question that’s been on Virginia’s mind since Dr. Kendi came on the show four years ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hit Parade is back for non-Slate Plus listeners! Upcoming episodes will be split into two parts, released two weeks apart. For the full episode right now, sign up for Slate Plus and you'll also get The Bridge, our Trivia show and bonus deep dive into our subjects. slate.com/hitparadeplus. How can you tell disco didn’t really die at the start of the 1980s? Because half of ’80s pop owed its sound to one of disco’s most seminal acts. Chic—cofounded by guitarist Nile Rodgers and bassist Bernard Edwards—would be legendary if all they’d done was record the’70s disco smashes “Le Freak,” “I Want Your Love” and “Good Times.” Indeed, the “Good Times” bassline spawned a slew of copycats, from “Rapper’s Delight” to “Another One Bites the Dust” to “Rapture.” As if that wasn’t enough, over the next decade, the Chic masterminds became the secret sauce for a range of cutting-edge pop acts, producing and writing for everyone from Diana Ross and David Bowie to Madonna, Duran Duran and the B-52’s. Nile Rodgers even scored a h

After Facebook and Twitter banned thousands of accounts in the wake of the Capitol riots, fringe groups are flocking to platforms like Signal and Telegram. With the inauguration just days away, and government officials warning of violence, QAnon believers and Stop the Steal protesters are now communicating in encrypted spaces. What, if anything, is being planned?  Guest:  Will Sommer, politics reporter at the Daily Beast Host Lizzie O’Leary   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Virginia Heffernan talks to former Trump troll David Weissman about his experiences overcoming trauma as a war veteran, his relationship with white supremacist personality Baked Alaska, the right-wing calls for civil war, the different factions of MAGA, and what’s going on in the minds of the insurgents. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Joshua Geltzer, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council under President Barack Obama and the founding executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law. He also wrote this piece in February of 2019.  Podcast production by Sara Burningham. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, in the wake of violent protests at the Capitol, the social media platforms took unprecedented steps to rein in the president. Facebook banned his account at least through Inauguration Day. Twitter removed tweets and locked his account for 12 hours. Will these measures really make a difference? And how is it that two CEOs came to have so much power over the president’s reach? Guest:  Danielle Citron, professor at UVA Law School and vice president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative Host Lizzie O’Leary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this emergency episode reviewing today’s violence against Congress, we reached out to historian Joanne Freeman, author of The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress & the Road to Civil War. Dr. Freeman and Virginia Heffernan review the history of political violence in Congress and why these events had a different implication. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Virginia Heffernan talks to cyberwarfare expert Molly McKew, author of the Great Power newsletter, about the Russian SolarWinds attacks, digital spies, 5G, lizard people, and other conspiracy theories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Larry Kramer always made sure you heard him, loud and clear. He was a playwright and a novelist, but he was perhaps best known for his work as an AIDS activist. In the 1980s and 1990s, Kramer sought to alert the world to a plague that was killing millions of people. He woke up the world -- through provocative demonstrations, fiery essays, and righteous anger. Kramer died in May.  Guest: Mark Harris, a journalist and writer at New York Magazine. For a closer look at the history of ACT UP, check out United in Anger: A History of ACT UP. We’re re-running some of our favorite episodes from the past year. This episode originally aired in June, 2020.  Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Stephen, Dana, and Julia present the Culture Gabfest’s annual listener call-in show, originally recorded live and streamed on Facebook and YouTube. They answer questions like, “Would you live in a muder house?” and “Are there any ways in which you are a snob about the culture you partake in?” In Slate Plus, the hosts field more questions from their live audience via Facebook and YouTube.  Click here for the video version of the show.  Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Rachael Allen. Live show production by Faith Smith and Britt Pullie. Outro Music: "200 Dont's" by Conditional Slate Plus members get a bonus segment in each episode of the Culture Gabfest and access to exclusive shows like Dana Stevens’ classic movies podcast Flashback. Sign up now to listen and support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Friday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away at the age of 87. Her work as a lawyer and a judge forever changed how women are viewed under United States law. As the nation mourns, her absence sparks a fight in the senate about who is going to choose the next Supreme Court Justice.  Guest: Dahlia Lithwick, host of Slate’s Amicus podcast.  This episode originally aired September, 2020. Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the summer, comedian Laurie Kilmartin took to Twitter to joke about something that wasn’t funny: Her mom was dying. JoAnn Kilmartin, Laurie’s mother, had contracted the coronavirus in her nursing home and was on her deathbed only a few miles from Laurie’s home in southern California.  Guest: Laurie Kilmartin, comedian and author of Dead People Suck: A Guide for Survivors of the Newly Departed. We’re re-running some of our favorite episodes from the past year. This episode originally aired in June, 2020.  Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to The Authority, Slate’s deep dive into the world(s) of HBO’s His Dark Materials. Each week, Slate’s scholars of experimental theology Dan Kois and Laura Miller discuss the HBO series and Philip Pullman’s original trilogy. This week, they cover the Season 2 finale, “Æsahættr”, in which Will finally meets his father, Lee Scoresby visits the Alamo, and Mrs. Coulter puts a kid in a trunk. Plus: an interview with Jack Thorne, the adaptor-in-chief of Philip Pullman’s books. Email: asktheauthority@slate.com Podcast production by Phil Surkis. Dan Kois on Twitter: @dankois Laura Miller on Twitter: @magiciansbook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices