High-selling singles that never entered the Billboard top 40

rick ross

"hustlin'": #54, platinum
"you the boss" (ft. nicki minaj): #62, gold

speaking of nicki...

"did it on 'em": #49, gold
"beez in the trap": #48, gold
"high school": #64, gold

blake shelton's got plenty of gold singles that reached the 40 to 50 range but more interestingly he also has one that didn't reach the hot 100 at all: "ol' red"

miranda has some impressive singles sales too:

"kerosene": #61, platinum
"famous in a small town": #87, gold
"gunpowder & lead": #52, 2x platinum
"only prettier": #61, gold

plus 3 gold singles that made it to the 40-50 range

The Caesars - Jerk it Out (#70, gold)

Bon Iver - Skinny Love (did not chart, gold)

beyonce "countdown" (#71, gold) :)

another one that's been in a lot of ads:

the ting tings "shut up and let me go" (#55, platinum)

death cab for cutie:

"soul meets body" (#60, gold)
"i will follow you into the dark" (did not chart, gold)

Brad Paisley:

Whiskey Lullaby (#41, platinum)
Waitin' on a Woman (#48, gold)
Water (#42, gold)
Beat This Summer (#46, gold)
River Bank (#54, gold)

a$ap rocky "wild for the night" (#80, gold)

My Chemical Romance

"I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" (#86, gold)
"Teenagers" (#67, gold)
"Sing" (#58, gold)

should have included pistol annies "hell on heels" (#55, platinum) w/ miranda's :)

kreayshawn "gucci gucci" (#57, gold)

The Weeknd, "Wicked Games" (#53, platinum)

limp bizkit "behind blue eyes" (#71, gold)

frank ocean "novacane" (#82, gold)

oh and i lied about yael naim's "new soul," it has been certified gold after all (the riaa site's search function is annoying)

anyway this game is fun but i'm prob done for now :P

OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS THREAD

i kind of can't believe 'i'm in miami bitch' didn't go gold, but maybe the franchising hurt sales of the original

'sorry for party rocking' is gold and peaked at no. 49

foo fighters "everlong" (did not chart [#42 hot 100 airplay]*, gold); "times like these" (#65, gold); "doa" (#68, gold)
the offspring "you're gonna go far, kid" (#63, gold)
red hot chili peppers "californication" (#69, gold); "tell me baby" (#50, gold)
coldplay "yellow" (#48, certified gold but has sold over 2 million [as of this week!]); "the scientist" (did not chart, gold), "fix you" (#59, gold)

* this was from the time when songs that weren't released to retail weren't eligible for the hot 100; it was a promo-only single in the us

never heard the temper trap and two door cinema club songs before today and now am kind of fascinated by that genre of Hip Electronic-Infused Indie Pop-Rock that isn't critically acclaimed. feel like i have a soft spot for lots of stuff in that vein. like i found several of the songs i posted above from a last.fm "RIYL Passion Pit" page.

like phoenix would the respectable version of this stuff. but someone make me a mix of temper trap, two door cinema club, foster the people, grouplove, etc.

like it's Hip™ for basics

the more mainstream end of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indietronica

i've never heard the two door cinema club song but the temper trap one was in a ton of commercials and movies (it plays in 500 days of summer like AT LEAST three times). hip for basics is an apt description lol.

Hip Electronic-Infused Indie Pop-Rock that isn't critically acclaimed.

this is definitely a huge thing rn, really big on the festival scene afaict. kinda feel like that should be a thread tbh

like all the bands that ripped off MGMT that that bands' fans moved to when MGMT suddenly decided they only wanted to make wibbly tuneless psychedelia

Hip™ for basics

otm / big lol

and yeah, this stuff is huge, selling out sizable venues everywhere. detestable.

Capitol Cities "Safe and Sound" is another example of it breaking the top 10 other than Foster the People although I secretly fux with that song (and it rips off M83 instead of MGMT)

Totally.

The Romantics "What I Like About You" stalled at #49. That must be gold by now if not platinum.

the weirdest thing about "What I Like About You" peaking so low is that it's so much more famous than their #3 hit "Talking In Your Sleep"

Not unlike the fact that "Pray" is MC Hammer's biggest hit.

and a long-haired dude named Michael Morales took a cover into the top thirty in late '89.

Not unlike the fact that "Pray" is MC Hammer's biggest hit.

Ha. Stranger still is that he has three other songs with higher peaks than "U Can't Touch This."

These sorts of anomalies seem to crop up quite a bit when a band's breakthrough hit is followed by a bigger hit now that the band is known and radio jumps in on it at the same time, whereas the first hit had to slowly build up momentum and thus didn't chart as high. For example, Romeo Void's biggest hit was - no, not "Never Say Never", but rather "A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)". But which song does everyone remember?

both!

I prefer "A Girl" too.

actually "A Girl in Trouble" was their only top 40 hit.

I like them both too, but I'd venture "Never" is better known today

Neither!

Here's a case in point in the opposite way:

Pigbag's best known hit is "Papa's got a brand new Pigbag", which sold steadily over about a year without making the chart. Subsequent singles made the charts, but lower down.

So, the company withdrew the single from shops for about two months, rereleased it, and it made number three.

So, their best known song is, again, their biggest hit.

Washed Out "Feel It All Around" must have gone gold?

xp Oh come on, "Never" is def known better. I assumed they were a one-hit.

Not unlike the fact that "Pray" is MC Hammer's biggest hit.

Ha. Stranger still is that he has three other songs with higher peaks than "U Can't Touch This."

― jaymc, Thursday, October 30, 2014 7:50 AM Bookmark

This one has not just the factor that Lee626 mentions, but also the fact that the only single format "U Can't Touch This" was released on is 12" (it likely would have gone to #1 otherwise), whereas later Hammer singles were released on more conventional formats.

You can pretty much add every 'Indie' popular songs in this category. I don't know if they don't chart since most of the labels they have are not affiliated to the RIAA.

Back in the day, they were just sold in non-chart shops.

I think "Where's Captain Kirk" was one years' top indie seller, and would have come pretty high up a year-sales chart if such a thing could have been compiled.

it's nielsen that compiles data for charts, not the riaa. the data they collect isn't obtained from labels, but from retailers and radio research. most popular 'indie' songs are not really selling that much.

don omar "danza kuduro" (#82, 5x platinum)

should be noted that it got all its 2-5x platinum certifications at the same time as soon as riaa decided to incorporate streaming numbers into certification for singles (may 9, 2013). a glance at its youtube numbers will make it pretty clear that it's an absolute monster in that regard, so it probably hasn't sold 5 million. but before that point it had already been certified gold and platinum, so evidently it has sold at least a million, which is pretty major for a song that only reached #82. (also it was certified under the standard 'digital' category, not the 'latin' category which has lower thresholds for certification.)