best song that reached #1 on airplay but was never allowed to chart on the billboard hot 100 1995-1998

Rev! This song remains huge!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV1XWJN3nJo&ob=av2e

(I absolutely adore it and have never gotten tired of it)

"torn" is amazing. you'd think imbruglia is a classic one-hit wonder as i don't remember a single other thing she did that people cared about, but she seems to have built a decently successful career on it.

1. don't speak
2. torn
3. lovefool
4. men in black
5. i'll be there for you
6. iris

haven't heard sugar ray

xp i have no sound on my computer :/

"Lovefool" = "Don't Speak" = "Men in Black" > "Torn" = "Iris" > "Fly" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "I'll Be There For You"

haha Lex I am certain you will despise the Sugar Ray song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUtnwcv-quE

noisy cricket gettin wicked on ya

SUGAR RAY & SUPERCAT FLY TRIBUTE THREAD

Prince Guitar, Booty Girls, Fred Astaire Homage, Submerged Beasties Shot, and Mamma Love. It covers all the elements.

― Bobbi Peru, Thursday, February 21, 2008 10:32 PM Bookmark

^^^realest shit

It's between "Lovefool" and "Torn" for me.

i'm torn

ok that sugar ray thing is just gross

Iris!

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1 fly
2 iris
3 don't speak

who cares

1 torn
2 don't speak
3 lovefool
4 fly

no use for the others

seems so obvious that it is lovefool

seemed so obvious that housing prices never fall nationally once also

"Torn", "Iris", "Lovefool", then the rest, except for the Rembrandts song.

genuinely surprised by all the 'iris' love

Don't care at all for it. It should be noted that, for whatever reason -- perhaps because they weren't commercially available singles -- these songs received saturation airplay for months, years in the case of "Lovefool" and "Iris." I never saw a group of songs (include Alanis' hits too) get such undying radio love.

thus, I got sick of'em a lot faster than usual.

I appreciate that "Iris" is the kind of thing I'm supposed to hate, & yet I find it irresistible. I didn't hear it much at the time, I don't think, but since then it's gotten pressed between other big power ballads on the kinds of stations you hear at doctors' offices, & so it probably sunk in during some procedure or other.

oh shit! I'm confusing "Iris" with "Name"...

hahahahahahaha

really do love Name at any rate. altrock power ballad goodness.

"Iris" is... well it's just not "Name". sorry for the vote distortion.

feeling very alex in nyc about these

i swear to god i hear 'iris' at least once a week somehow, i have a coworker that loves them that had a come to jesus moment when 'left of the dial' popped up on my ipod. the only googoo dolls i have any real affection for is 'name'. but yeah alot of these still going strong on ac radio - i'd be willing to bet that 'iris', 'don't speak', 'torn', maybe even 'lovefool' (i think other sugar ray hits get more airplay now, at least on ac) dwarf the current airplay of whatever mariah/whitney/boyIImen was actually at number one at the time. i guarantee you a week hasn't gone by since they peaked that our local ac hasn't played them.

'iris' is the big sweeping strings googoo power ballad from the nic cage-meg ryan nightmare remake of wings of desire. that movie has a permanent place in hell's cineplex.

Lovefool, Don't Speak and Torn are all gorgeous and flawless and I can't choose between them.

Voting "Don't Speak."

I need to remember which rube praised Tragic Kingdom as the "Rumours of ska."

Don't Speak is clearly the best. I <3 the Cardigans but I can't understand how there's anyone on the planet who isn't 1000% sick to death of 'Lovefool'.

Lovefool by a mile.

I can't believe a single word Stefani sings on "Don't Speak." I find her a better vocalist now.

iris > lovefool > men in black > torn > don't speak > I'll be there for you > fly

really surprised by "iris" love itt

ppl love meg ryan!

Lovefool by a mile.

― a seminar on ass play for kids or something (Phil D.), Friday, September 24, 2010 7:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I cannot believe people are actually voting for Fly...

Lovefool > Torn > Don't Speak > I'll Be There For You > Men in Black > Iris > Fly

"Torn" > "Don't Speak" > "Iris" > "Lovefool" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> anything else on this list

lovefool > don't speak >>>> fly > i'll be there for you > torn >>>>>> men in black > iris

Hating on "Fly" is kind of like..."You know what sucks? Summer"-level to me.

this one time 2 years ago I was getting in a car with some friends and I made a comment about the radio stations being the type that'd play 'fly' and then we turned on the radio and 'fly' was playing. amazing song, I hated it when I was a kid though.

Well, it's not even my favorite Sugar Ray single.

"Fly" is way more packed with great things than their other hits, which all have much fewer ideas by comparison.

great things like Supercat

Voted Lovefool - sure it's played out, but isn't everything on this list? (bar Fly, which I'm not sure I've ever heard on this side of the world)

Gwen always sounds like a farm animal being slaughtered when she tries to do ballads. Torn and Lovefool are both great though.

i remember seeing an interview w/the sugar ray guy on tv when this song came out. he said something like, "yeah we've been wanting to work with supercat for a long time." I mean, I also want to work with supercat.

― Dominique, Friday, February 22, 2008 8:16 AM Bookmark

^^^one of my favorite ilm posts ever

'don't speak' was a better madonna ballad than anything madonna was actually managing at the time

In 8th grade art class we listened to top 40 radio all the time, and when "Torn" came on people made a big production of singing "frying bacon on the floor" instead of "lying naked on the floor."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The main problem about Gwen Stefani is that it's just too loud, plain, and simple.

Sarah Plain & Loud

I don't think I've ever heard "Fly" before, and I LIKE Sugar Ray.

How is this possible??

Sorry, I thought Sugar Ray was the band that did "Every Morning" and "Closing Time" but it transpires that "Closing Time" is by someone else. And it seems "Fly" was just as big as "Every Morning," which for me was kind of inescapable. I guess I listened to more radio in 1998 than 1997.

Closing Time=Eve 6= I WANT TO VOMIT OUT OF MY EARS

closing time is semisonic

I don't like "Closing Time".

lol. they're so generic I confused the two bands.

cardigans over natalie over no doubt

closing time is better than all these songs

"Closing Time" is fantastic

I like "Closing Time" too! But now that I know it's not by Sugar Ray I'm not sure how much I like Sugar Ray.

Lovefool by a mile.

The main problem about Gwen Stefani is that it's just too loud, plain, and simple.

That too ;)

too many notes

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

It seems so obvious now. Figured 'Iris' would do better.

glad it didn't

"Fly" votes count 8x.

And it seems "Fly" was just as big as "Every Morning," which for me was kind of inescapable. I guess I listened to more radio in 1998 than 1997.

I'm the total opposite! "Fly" was inescapable for me, while I never knowingly heard "Every Morning" until a few months ago.

All around this poll, faith in ILXors crumbled for me.

I went to a 90s dance like a year ago "dressed as" mark mcgrath (white tanktop, saggy 90s jeans, spiked hair which I was unfortunately not dedicated enuff to frost the tips of). fairly well-received. feels like people miss the 90s "good old days" more than they r willing 2 let on.

Then feel free to visit OC anytime. It's like a goddamn Ren Fest for that era around here.

ha

I never liked "Torn." When Ms. Imbruglia started working as a makeup model for Cover Girl or some other drugstore chain, I thought, that's a career that makes a lot more sense for her. The first time I heard "Torn" on the radio, the DJ introduced it by spending a very long time (for non-drivetime radio) describing her amazingly piercing and gorgeous giant blue eyes. So, if your eyes are better than your music, maybe you should be doing something with them. I hope this doesn't sound mean, as she is very pretty, and she seems like a pleasant person, but her music is just dullsville.

And it seems "Fly" was just as big as "Every Morning," which for me was kind of inescapable. I guess I listened to more radio in 1998 than 1997.

I'm the total opposite! "Fly" was inescapable for me, while I never knowingly heard "Every Morning" until a few months ago.

― jaymc, Tuesday, September 28, 2010 6:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i totally missed 'fly' & remember hearing 'every morning' constantly (although maybe not as much as 'someday'

My favorite thing about "Fly" is the little Gilbert O'Sullivan reference.

i heard "fly" (and "someday") way more than "every morning".

torn was one of my first favourite songs i think. i remember being i guess seven years old & on a schoolbus and having vague emotional feelings not at all really related to being torn or in love or anything but just feelin things prompted by this song. i love that sprawling guitar line at the end

fly and lovefool are so great, too

hrrm i don't mind "lovefool" but the cardigans' early tweeness was severely testing (i think good lyrics save this one) - when they made the shockingly good long gone before daylight album it kind of rendered everything before it inconsequential

"fly", dammit. what the hell.

what the hell is wrong with "fly"

No-one knows it in the UK?

The only song Imbruglia's recorded as good as "Torn" is last year's "Want."

most of natalie imbruglia's music may be dullsville but that doesn't preclude "torn" from being terrific, nor do her fantastic eyes.

she is smash city for sure

(a fandom which culminated in a photo being mailed to her of mark mcgrath on a date with soleil moon frye???)

ridiculously slept-on display name fodder

<I>-but anyway, the song's got a spanish guitar solo and that counts for something

-did this really count for something in the 90s?

-There was a lot of flamenco-y sounds in late 90s R&B.

-Fastball's 'The Way'
Fly had that forementioned Spanish guitar flourish that goes off the rails...</i>

"Front man Nick Sjobek once played bass in the Goods, which evolved out of an outfit called Electric Cool-Aid that featured (at various times) Sugar Ray's Mark McGrath and Fastball's Tony Scalzo on vocals"

Source and I believe they toured together as well.

Early NSync as well as South Korea's latest late 90s revival attempt prominently features Spanish Guitar as well. And there were tons of attempts to crossover pop stars from Latin America like Enrique Iglesias as well.

"Torn" for me.

hw tghe fuck did "Lovefool" win this?

There's quite a few songs from the late 90s with vaguely spanish guitar sounding solos that get mixed up in my head "Don't Speak", "Two Become One", "Truly Madly Deeply".

I saw "Lovefool" covered a year or so ago by some ATL hipster band. They also covered a NIN song. Not gonna name the band cos they suck.

Hahah i just watched "Fly" for the first time since it was on the Box in the late 90s. I don't think you could possibly create a music video that screamed LOS ANGELES more.

was sure OMC "How Bizarre" belonged in this club, but its #1 showing was only on the Mainstream chart, and no way was it quite as big as the monster hits in this poll, but still, i feel it's somehow not gotten its proper due in the pop historical imaginary.

it's a great fun song, i don't hear ppl talk about it or whatever but ppl seem to recognize it

I’d like “Torn” a lot better if it went “i don’t care, i had no luck. I don’t really give a fuck.” No, instead it’s “I don’t miss it all that MUCH” which barely even rhymes.

“Lovefool” is great.

Is “Iris” the “I Don’t Want the World to See Me” song? Man they play that a lot on the radio these days.

name >>>>> iris

XP Yeah, and it was a soundtrack song (City of Angels, a US RomCom remake of Wings of Desire...no, really) which didn't get a physical single release because they wanted to sell CDs of the soundtrack album (a common practice at the time, as evident with "Men In Black" and "Lovefool" also appearing in this poll).