During the summer Sundays of my prepubescent years, I would lie awake in my sweaty sheets from 10 p.m. to midnight. To soften those seemingly endless hours, when a sleepless child can only recoil from the unknown darkness and despair in helpless boredom, I would listen to the golden-voiced Casey Kasem announce the week’s biggest hits on American Top 40. The first fifteen songs of Casey’s countdown served as white noise, a canvas for hasty depictions of the still-very-present anxieties of the preceding day. But my ears would focus when Casey arrived at No. 5. I cannot say that I enjoyed listening to these songs—in fact, I remember being confused and intrigued when I did like one—but I required myself to bask in their hegemony. [...]