songs that weren't a bands biggest hit, but have gone on to be their legacy song and biggest iTunes seller

Huh, I never knew that Lemon Interupt = Underworld. (I once owned a mid-90s "trip-hop" comp with a Lemon Interupt song on it.)

Head East, "Never Been Any Reason" (only their third highest-charting pop hit, weirdly, behind "Love Me Tonight" and "Since You Been Gone.")

I'm not sure it's their "legacy song," but Hall and Oates's "You Make My Dreams" is their best seller on iTunes.

As some dude noted on the H&O thread:

it's weird, i never heard that song a lot in the past or thought of it as one of their signature hits, but in the past two years it's picked up some kind of zeitgeist appearing in so much different stuff (that Days of Summer movie and the keyboard cat clip upthread, Step Brothers, episodes of Glee and The Office, etc.).

how are we gonna look back on eminem based on this criteria? or does "love the way you lie" qualify as his biggest hit ever now

I don't think you can really use it for artists who are currently active.

yeah, i was talking more about speculating for the future

i actually wrote a whole long thing about the "You Make My Dreams" revival on my blog shortly after that ilx post: http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2010/04/you-make-my-dreams-and-retconning-of.html

Good post.

I didn't actually know about "You Make My Dreams" being #1 on iTunes until I took this quiz:
http://www.sporcle.com/games/thevelocirapper/mostpopularsong

im sure ethan linked a few of us to this right
http://www.facebook.com/pages/If-you-lovedknew-Eminem-before-not-afraid-or-love-the-way-you-lie/153893614638489

feelin mad old

re: thread OP, heard that song played @ neo in chicago (local goth club gr8080 took me to once) & it was a big floor-filler. s&m undertones probably give it a big cult following in addition to random ppl being all 'omg bitch' & 'omg ridic video'

Not in the U.S., where No. 1 hits "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" (!) and "Another One Bites The Dust" both charted higher. (So did "We Are The Champions," at first, but then "Rhapsody" came back in 1992 and hit No. 2 off of Wayne's World; it had only hit No. 9 on its original release.)

"Bohemian Rhapsody" was surely a bit too complex for American radio i 1975 to be able to reach number one. It was easier in the UK, where airplay was never a factor. It is surely very much established as Queen's most well-known song, maybe besides "We Are The Champions"/"We Will Rock You", a double-b-side consisting of two songs which never hit #1 on either side of the Atlantic, but who have both gone on to become standards in sports stadiums all over the world.

Do Christmas songs count? Because I am pretty sure "Driving Home For Christmas" is pretty much established as Chris Rea's most well-known and popular song today.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" reached #2 in 1992 in part because it was by then considered a novelty song. It got played on radio formats that would never otherwise have touched it, solely because it was the silly centerpiece of a scene from a hugely popular movie.

fwiw, "Oh Yeah" (at #51) was the only Yello song ever to chart in the U.S. No idea about the rest of the world, where I assume they were bigger.

"The Race" was by far their biggest European hit. They were well-established before that point, but not really as a mainstream chart act. "Bostich" was the breakthrough hit, but really not much more than a minor hit in mainstream terms.

And I think the "Baby" album may have been their bestselling album, with some of the songs from that album still riding high among their best-known ones. "Drive/Driven" is still the one used to test stereo sets.

I am pretty sure "Driving Home For Christmas" is pretty much established as Chris Rea's most well-known and popular song

Not in the U.S., where the only Chris Rea song almost anybody has ever heard is "Fool If You Think It's Over" (and very few Americans could identify it, never mind who did it.)

In Europe he was pretty much established as an album act for a while. "The Road To Hell Part 2" was probably his biggest hit, but these days the festive one is the one that keeps him in the spotlight. Kind of funny is hasn't caught on in the US as the lyrical theme is obviously very American (Driving home for Christmas in the UK usually doesn't take ages)

Frank Black - I Heard Ramona Sing.... Los Angeles was his biggest hit, but upon Scott Pilgrim vs. The World's movie release the song exploded: much to the dismay of hundreds of high-schoolers, who found that once the initial guitar solo ends the rest of the song sort of becomes irrelevant.

Primal Scream - Can't Go Back.... Did this album really have a hit single? Kick-Ass boosted this song to exponential heights, whereas aforementioned high-schoolers - once checking out the rest of Screamadelica - found themselves woefully disappointed with the complete lack of songs that would sound good enough to post on their Facebooks in hopes of repping indie-cred.

My Bloody Valentine - Sometimes Once again, movie-soundtrack inclusion propels the song to never intended heights. While the scene in Lost In Translation in which Sometimes is cued is utterly, absolutely perfect.... it never received the treatment of a music video, as Soon and Only Shallow did. One could argue that Only Shallow is the more accessible.

"Staiway To Heaven" folks!

I mean, it was never a single, so technically no hit either.

Also, "Yesterday". Even though it topped the world in a lot of countries including the US (never a single in the UK), it was hardly the biggest hit by The Beatles. It has since been established as the most recorded song ever, but The Beatles' actual version has not been their most popular before.

Primal Scream - Can't Go Back.... Did this album really have a hit single? Kick-Ass boosted this song to exponential heights, whereas aforementioned high-schoolers - once checking out the rest of Screamadelica - found themselves woefully disappointed with the complete lack of songs that would sound good enough to post on their Facebooks in hopes of repping indie-cred.

Can't Go Back was on the album that came out 17 years after Screamadelica, which had several hit singles

What are you talking about? "Born Slippy (NUXX)" reached the #2 spot in the UK single chart in 1996, and it was a big hit in many other countries too.

Okay, it wasn't a big hit in 1995 when it was originally released (though it wasn't totally obscure either, I remember hearing it on a techno comp in '95), but it took only a year for it to become Underworld's legacy song.

(x-post)

It has often occured that a major song by a British act for some reason has not managed to really become a hit on American radio. Thus, not managing to perform very well in American hitlists in spite of a generally good reputation among fans and critics.
The latter reputation means more in terms of downloading, because radio DJs have less power over that.

Can't Go Back was on the album that came out 17 years after Screamadelica, which had several hit singles.

You are right. When BBC6 had that weeklong Primal Scream week, I remember them playing a live version of this and naturally assumed it was part of Screamadelica (which I don't own because I find it to be somewhat unlistenable).

Not exactly on-topic, but: Wang Chung's #1 on Spotify, with 3,883,144 plays, is "Dance Hall Days"... while "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" hasn't even got half as many plays. I still think the latter is their "signature song" but what's up with that?

I wonder if the GTA Vice City placement has anything to do with it...

"Stairway to Heaven" was never even released as a single back in the day, right? But nowadays it's not just the best-known tune by the band, but one of the most famous tunes of the 1970s.

Zep's a weird case in that they did not release singles in their home country, and nearly all of their "hits" are such in airplay terms only. My sense from accounts of 70s radio is that "Stairway" was unquestionably an enormous "hit" on AOR and would probably have been their "signature" song for many people even then.

Johnny Cash - Hurt

It may not be his biggest selling single but it's definitley one of his signature songs now.

Good one, which really points up different constituencies/listener groups over time. "Hurt" on Spotify has nearly 50 million plays vs. 20 for "Folsom Prison Blues" - which is fucking nuts, and unthinkable in a world where boomers and country fans generally use Spotify as much as the youth of today. Doesn't necessarily mean "Hurt" is actually better-known, but it suggests that in a few years, it probably will be, even as At Folsom Prison continues to be the one hyped in "1,000 best albums" lists.

Does "Making Plans for Nigel" or "Dear God" possibly fit the bill for XTC? Surely these were not the big hits, were they?

dear god is XTC's best known song in the US.

Eminem's "Till I Collapse" seems to be more popular on iTunes and Spotify than a lot of his hits from that time period, aside from "Lose Yourself".

Making Plans For Nigel was a big UK hit, and is the song that usually ends up on punk/new wave compilations.

According to Billboard Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" was not a chart hit in its original release (though Judy Collins' version was Judy's biggest hit) and nor did it chart in the re-recorded version off her 2000 album of the same name.

It's that re-recorded song that is her biggest hit on iTunes, though, and certainly the song is now her "legacy" song.

I'm guessing that the former fact is certainly, and the latter fact at least partly, due to the use of the 2000 version in Love, Actually.

maybe right but i'd've guessed that Joni's legacy song in terms of performance is "Big Yellow Taxi"

On Spotify Both Sides Now comes behind Big Yellow Taxi, A Case of You and that Janet Jackson hit that sampled Big Yellow Taxi. But it's true it wouldn't even be in her top 10 without Love Actually.

On iTunes it goes:

1) Both Sides Now (2000)
2) Big Yellow Taxi
3) River
4) A Case Of You

then several more Blue songs then the original Both Sides Now at 9.

But I'm not sure it owes is position entirely to Love Actually - wikipedia says it's her most covered song by some distance.

The enduring rep of "A Case Of You" is perhaps even more remarkable given it was never even released as a single by anybody.

I feel like it was also a big part of an Olympics opening ceremony not too long ago

David Bowie - "Heroes"

ah it's already been mentioned.

Oh I see - Both Sides Now has been covered recently by Susan Boyle, Idina Menzel, Carly Rae Jepsen, Ronan Keating, Michael Ball and John Barrowman. I knew it was a folk standard in the 60s but I didn't realise it had become a showbiz one.

River gets the Christmas song vote I guess.

Glen Campbell does an absolutely majestic version of Both Sides Now. It's actually my favorite song of his, perfect for his voice.

dear god is XTC's best known song in the US.

― akm, Tuesday, February 3, 2015 11:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know about that. Even though it was a cover version by Crash Test Dummies, "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" was included on the soundtrack to Dumb & Dumber, so almost certainly more people have heard that one.

"I Can See For Miles" was the Who's biggest US hit (#9), but "Baba O'Riley" (not a single in the US) and "Who Are You" (#14 in Billboard) are their top iTunes songs.

Dear God beats Making Plans for Nigel on Spotify fwiw

Baba O Riley is another one that's had TV and film soundtrack help i guess; it's been used in The Newsroom, CSI, Summer Of Sam, One Tree Hill.. all sorts.
pretty amazing that Won't Get Fooled Again and Pinball Wizard are somehow less popular these days. i barely knew Baba.. growing up but you couldn't escape The Hits.

A bit like that Badfinger song "Baby Blue", yeah?

yeah, never heard it before The Departed aye.

I blame the decline of Pinball machines for Pinball Wizard's decline in popularity.