“Ooh, eeh, ooh aah aah/Ting tang, wallawalla bing bang!” They just don’t write lyrics like those anymore. Perhaps for good reason but, that snippet is from a No. 1 hit in 1958. More on that later but ...

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 ...

Alvin and the Chipmunks have been singing in their high-pitched voices since the 1950s, and the tiny animated crooners' names give a nod to their creation. The original animated boy band, Alvin and ...