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

Have I Told You Lately is a weak song in Van's hands. Some of his laziest writing. Imagine being a beloved artist, a gifted songwriter, a cultural icon to millions of people for three decades... and you sit down and say "gee, what rhymes with 'I love you'? Hmmm... I know: 'above you'! Damn, I've still got it!"

Of course it got a boost in popularity by being covered even more lamely by Rod Fucking Stewart, who let's just say has a lot to answer for.

I don't know where corrs unplugged is from but I wonder if there is some gap where e.g. Britishes (?) mostly know Steely Dan for Aja and the later audiophile jazz-pop? Bc that list of popular Dan songs is basically a list of the Steely Dan songs that get regular rock airplay in North America and have throughout my life.

― Feel a million filaments (Sund4r),Friday, April 17, 2020 3:34 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Speaking as A British, I don't know if I've ever heard Steely Dan in the wild.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNpMC4FslNk

as a britishes growing up in the 80s i heard reelin' in the years, ricky don't lose that number, do it again (#39 in the charts) and haitian divorce (#17) on radio 1.

Yes, those are definitely the four tracks people in the UK would be most familiar with - if they're familiar with Steely Dan at all - thread merely confirming that artists have different legacy songs in different markets (whodathoughit?)

'Peg' is the Dan track that I remember hearing first but that was probably as a De La Soul sample. They had a reasonable profile over here in the 70s and 80s but they weren't a ubiquitous presence or British AOR radio in a way that Fleetwood Mac or Dire Straits or Eric Clapton or The Eagles were.

Reelin' in the Years is also the theme tune to a long-running Irish TV show of (almost) the same name

I was assuming that 'Way Down in The Hole' would be the most popular Tom Waits song on Spotify, but it's not close

The fact that the US has had radio stations playing nothing but 'classic rock' for many more years than the UK is a major differece - I don't listen to radio so I'm assuming there are such stations in the UK now, I don't know how popular they are though.

Reelin' in the Years is also the theme tune to a long-running Irish TV show of (almost) the same name

It wasn't a hit or anything but there's a famous clip of them performing it that used to get shown a lot on UK TV, well on the Old Grey Whistle Test at least.

I used to hear 'Do It Again' on Capital in the late 80s but it was usually that Clubhouse medley of it with 'Billie Jean'. Capital Gold for all their other stuff by that point.

Of course it got a boost in popularity by being covered even more lamely by Rod Fucking Stewart, who let's just say has a lot to answer for.

― Fleetwood Machiavelli (Ye Mad Puffin),Friday, April 17, 2020 5:44 AM

Come now. Rod Stewart's version >>>>> VM's

move on up by Curtis Mayfield never charted in the US on original release - it did in the UK - but the song and its extended version are the top 2 Curtis Mayfield tracks on Spotify

Ike & Tina Turner's "Proud Mary" was never a hit in the UK. It's been my biggest, most failsafe and most ecstatically received floor-filler for the past year, especially with people in their late teens and twenties (its appeal dwindles sharply with older folk).

xp it was also featured v prominently in bend it like beckham (2002)

Not sure if we mentioned this but Public Enemy’s top Spotify track, with 50 million streams, double that of “Fight the Power” is some song from 2007 that seemingly gets used in sports docs or something

Not mentioning the title because I wonder if anyone knows it without looking it up

I don't know it and I don't use Spotify. Do tell.

Their #2 track is also surprising to a lesser degree.

Wow

Not that Low has hits but I would not have guessed their most popular song on Spotify and YouTube would be Lullaby, a track off their first LP. On YouTube it is particularly popular with people from Turkey ... to the tune of 17 million views.

ffs, tell me what it is! i don't use spotify!

sorry, xpost re: pe

Not sure if we mentioned this but Public Enemy’s top Spotify track, with 50 million streams, double that of “Fight the Power” is some song from 2007 that seemingly gets used in sports docs or something

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Monday, June 1, 2020 10:50 AM (two hours ago)

I don't know if they've been mentioned already but Public Enemy biggest song on Spotify is "Harder Than You Think"... I don't even know that song !
And their biggest hit is "Give It Up" apparently.

― AlXTC from Paris, Tuesday, October 23, 2018 8:02 PM

ahh! didn't recognize it by title, but i youtubed it just now and yeah: i actually remember this. it's decent, especially for newer pe.

also i remember 'give it up' being stupid popular summer of '94. wouldn't surprise me one bit if it's their biggest chart hit. i bought the cd single.

“Harder Than You Think” was the theme tune to the UK TV coverage of the 2012 Paralympics in London, and went to #4 on the pop charts on the strength of it. That Shirley Bassey sample was unavoidable for a few weeks.

I guess it’s only a matter of days until NWA’s « Fuck Tha Police » becomes their most popular song on Spotify (150 million against 180 million for their biggest hit « Straight Outta Compton ».

This is only tangentially related to the thread topic, but in the US the amount of actual classics from the catalogue of Sweet available on the service is seemingly so low that the "This Is Sweet" playlist includes several numbers from a 2012 covers album, including renditions of title track "New York Groove" (I can see it...), "Blitzkrieg Bop" (yeah...), and "Gold On The Ceiling" (!?!?!?).

Huh, why does a 2012 Elvis Costello song called “She” have more than double the Spotify streams of any of his other songs?

I think it's because it was on the Notting Hill soundtrack.

Oh I see it’s actually from 1999 and in a film with Hugh Grant

Weird. Frederik Ulling's recording "Klavierstuck V, Work No. 4" is the most-played Stockhausen piece on Spotify, with over six times as many plays as Kontakte. None of the other Klavierstucke make the top 10.

*recording of

Surprisingly, Whitney Houston’s biggest song on Spotify is not « I will always love you » but «  I wanna dance with somebody » although IWALY is by far her biggest hit.

I bet “Dance” appears a lot more often in ‘80s pop playlists, etc.

"Dance" is a millennial-approved '80s Jam.

"dance" gets played way more on the radio these days. the style/era of r&b balladry that "love" embodies is one that today's classic hits stations have been hesitant to acknowledge.

That doesn’t surprise me at all. IWDWS(WLM) has crossed over massively to millennials and Gen Z (in the UK at least) and it’s probably the most widely loved of all 80s floor-fillers.

This speaks generally to the fact that nostalgic playing seems to be focused on upbeat numbers maybe for dancefloor reasons, leaving ballads, however huge, to be forgotten, and hearkens back to the very beginning of this thread where Journey was mentioned -- who now remembers "Open Arms"? Their highest-charting single.

Pearl Jam's top two songs on Spotify are "Alive" and "Even Flow" neither of which charted in the US. "Last Kiss" reached #2 and even "Spin the Black Circle" made the top 40 in the 90s. (Which wow: both "Jeremy" and "Daughter" were unavoidable top 40 hits in Canada at the time;"Spin" did not chart and I barely even remember it.)

OK, both of those top 2 songs made the mainstream rock and alternative charts but were not their highest charting singles even on those charts.

Pearl Jam's chart stats are weird because most of their big ones did not have domestic physical single releases at the time they were big - for example "Jeremy" didn't get one until 1995 (and still charted!). The genre charts give a better picture, being airplay-based, than the Hot 100.

"Spin..." did get a physical release, and came out before Vitalogy, so there was a lot of interest. "Last Kiss" was a weird case of a charity single that also did crossover and reach a ton of cash-flush suburban teens of '99... if anything it belongs with like My Ding-a-Ling and so on --- "you'd be shocked to realize this now-forgotten song was technically their biggest hit!"

"Last Kiss" also had a big radio push after the Columbine shooting.

Weird. Frederik Ulling's recording "Klavierstuck V, Work No. 4" is the most-played Stockhausen piece on Spotify, with over six times as many plays as Kontakte. None of the other Klavierstucke make the top 10.

LOL I've got this. Fredrik Ullén btw. And it's on a CD with IX and Kontakte. Could someone have used in a film? Seems unlikely. Or (LOL) an advert.

I don't think "Last Kiss" is forgotten, though? It's their #5 song on Spotify and lots of younger people know it in my anecdotal music teaching experience.xp

color me pleasantly surprised that the youth know that song! i feel like i haven't heard it "in the wild" since the year 2000.

But that explains a lot re Pearl Jam. Someone probably explained that to me before but I forgot.xp

And sorry for getting Fredrik Ullén's name wrong. We should get to the bottom of this, though.

I’m youngish and am currently listening to Last Kiss for the first time ever

Pearl Jam's top two songs on Spotify are "Alive" and "Even Flow" neither of which charted in the US. "Last Kiss" reached #2 and even "Spin the Black Circle" made the top 40 in the 90s. (Which wow: both "Jeremy" and "Daughter" were unavoidable top 40 hits in Canada at the time;"Spin" did not chart and I barely even remember it.)

To me this shows the weaknesses of relying on chart position: as a guy who lived through the 90s as a US guy listening to music, "Alive", "Jeremy," and "Evenflow" and possibly to a lesser extent "Daughter" and "Betterman" were the canonical defining Pearl Jam songs always. xp Doctor Casino has the right take I think, I certainly remember radio ubiquity of "Last Kiss" in 99 (and it's a great song) but it was never seen as core to their work