“One Week” by Barenaked Ladies

"One Week" was the first single from Barenaked Ladies' 1998 album Stunt, and it's a breakneck blur of words that became the Canadian band's calling card in America. Ed Robertson wrote it and raps the verses at a dizzying clip, Steven Page takes the lead on the hooks, and the two of them share the build-ups in harmony.

The song is a rapid-fire patter of pop culture references, food and places, crammed so tight it sounds like a game of word association played at double speed. Behind them, Jim Creeggan's electric upright bass bounces, Kevin Hearn adds keyboards and guitar, and Tyler Stewart's drums keep the whole thing from flying apart. The band produced it with David Leonard and Susan Rogers.

It reached US rock radio on June 2, 1998, and went on to top the Billboard Hot 100, holding the number-one spot for, fittingly, one week. It got to number three on Canada's RPM chart and into the top ten in Iceland and Britain, and in the States nothing else they've done is as widely known. Apple even used it at MacWorld 1999 to show off Mac OS X Server on a wall of 50 iMacs.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.