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

On a Balearic beach counting money

Wow, they also wrote "Like a Virgin" (and "I Touch Myself") !

From wiki :

Kelly lost enthusiasm for songwriting in the mid-1990s, and went into semi-retirement in 1998. He remarried and had two more children with his second wife. As of 2011, he lives in Thousand Oaks, California near Sherwood Country Club where he enjoys playing golf regularly.

They wrote Heart's "Alone" as well. And "So Emotional" by WH.

Oh, interesting. Somehow I thought "Alone" was Diane Warren.

Aphex Twin and "Avril 14th".

recently billy steinberg also wrote excellent teenpop jams "too little too late" (jojo) and "give your heart a break" (demi lovato)

i have to say i really like "i'll stand by you". obv not for the reasons i like other pretenders songs, but just for what it is. i know for some people all one has to hear to decide one hates something is to know that it gets play on ac radio stations, but fuck that, really. (fun fact: "i'll stand by you" didn't reach the top 10 at ac radio during the time of its release, or even the top 20. same story for hot ac.)

this site linked earlier in the thread
http://poly-graph.co/timeless/

wow the 90s look completely dire when under the lens of what people listen to from them

I mean, to an extent the songs with the most plays are going to be the ones that aren't exemplary but have broadest appeal. Not too many people are going to point to any of these as a favorite song, they're just the ones that are going to get cycled through regardless of taste, right?

For example, in 1961, Bobby Lewis’s Tossin’ and Turnin’ spent 7 weeks at #1. For all intents and purposes, Bobby Lewis was the Beyonce of 1961. Yet, have you heard of it? Do you know who Bobby Lewis is?

Meanwhile, Etta James’ debut album dropped the same year, with At Last peaking on Billboard at #68.

Music historians will regard Bobby Lewis as a pioneer in rock and roll and R&B, yet whatever led to Tossin’ and Turnin’s popularity in 1961 has faded over time. His music, for countless reasons, didn’t persevere in the same way as Etta James’.

One hypothesis: Tossin’ and Turnin’s success had more to do than just the song...perhaps Bobby Lewis was a huge personality. Great looks. Amazing dancer. When we examine pop hits, popularity is so much more than song quality.

But future generations don’t remember Bobby Lewis’s dancing and good looks. Spotify only catalogues his music. And unfortunately, that quality didn’t endure in the same way as At Last. (And of course, we have not even considered the role of covers, samples, and movie soundtracks, etc. – a future project to undertake).

And for this reason, it will be weird to hear future generations reverently listen to groups such as Nickelback – the kids only know their music, not what they culturally stood for in 2015.

god this writing is just TERRIBLE, i wish this person would just stick to making cute data graphics and leave out the poor, circular attempts at analysis

omg later in the article he surmises that the longevity of onerepublic's "counting stars" on streaming services might be because it spread thru 'word of mouth' from 'indie music circles' to the general public lol

ppl who don't know the basics of how radio crossover works, esp on the adult-contemporary side of things (where as a general rule it's VERY slow and steady) should just... not bother with the hand-wavy explanations

wow that discussion of bobby lewis is reeeeeeally cringe-inducing. feel like basically any ilm poster chosen at random and asked "why is bobby lewis less well-known than etta james in 2016" could come up with something more educational and insightful with at most five to eight seconds to think about it.

anyway i'm getting off topic.

"still d.r.e."! that's an interesting revelation from the data-not-writing presented in that feature

tbh even at the time it felt much bigger than its pitiful hot 100 peak (#93) shows. the billboard chart from the time shows it was vinyl-only at the time it was charting, so i guess that partly explains why it peaked so low, but then again 1999 was kinda the start of the era when songs could chart (sometimes v highly) without even being physically released at all.

omg i keep going back to that article. the idea that the culture associations and baggage are shed from songs as time passes is so RONG and stupid lol. and it shows up in a paragraph talking about "at last"!!

ok really i'm done now

I'm surprised to learn that Island in the Sun is Weezer's highest ranked song on Spotify.

Yeah, that is pretty weird. per wikipedia it's also Weezer's most licensed song.

Came across a potential candidate for this thread today: Weezer's most popular song on Spotify by a wide margin is "Island in the Sun," the 9th highest charting single of their career.

It's almost twice as popular as "Say It Ain't So," their second most popular track ("Buddy Holly," which I would have pegged for #1, is third). It's their #1 iTunes song as well.

Not sure if it's their "legacy" song, but I was legitimately surprised that a song I pegged as "moderately well-liked" evidently towers over the rest of their catalogue in popularity.

― intheblanks, 12. toukokuuta 2015 3:51

Ctrl+f is your friend.

not sure if there's a separate thread for most played on Spotify, but a song I don't even remember from Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill has 1.4 million plays compared to just over 1 million for "Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping" (expected pick).

Despite not being as commercially successful as its predecessor singles, "The Kids Aren't Alright" remains the most-listened to Offspring song amongst Last.FM[5] and Spotify (where it also is the most popular song of the 90s)[citation needed] users, and still receives some radio play.

I've never heard of this song... Are they really claiming that it's the most popular song of the 90s in Spotify? Not just the most popular among the songs Offpsring released in the 90s?

In 2014 at least, their most popular 90s song was "Pretty Fly", as you'd expect.

I remember that song, it's a lot better than "Pretty Fly" but I'm still surprised it has 105,138,511 views on Youtube

never heard of it either

it's a bit the opposite to this thread, sorry, but I just noticed that "crazy in love" is far from being Beyonce's song with the most plays on spotify (far behind "7/11", "Drunk in Love", "Halo", all above 220M while "Crazy in Love" is only at 144M).
surprising.

Songs that were released and become hits in the Spotify era probably have a leg up on catalog songs

yeah, that's what I thought too but still surprised it's so far behind since it's (arguably) her legacy song.

I'd put her a lot closer to the Madonna category where one single legacy song just doesn't apply. So Crazy In Love would be her Material Girl or Like a Virgin - early-to-mid-career, huge hit, strongly associated with her, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Like A Prayer or Papa Don't Preach or Vogue or even Ray of Light were more popular on Spotify.

"like a prayer" far ahead (36M) with "material girl" 2nd (21M) ("like a virgin" very far behind with 16M).
Nah, like President Keyes said, it's clearly the difference between hits since spotify started/earlier hits.

Still D.R.E. has 300 million views on youtube

it is a perfect song, but surely G Thang was the bigger hit?

it came out at the exact time the first millennials were finishing high school and entering college

oh, I don't know if it's been said already but the Smiths have a good one : "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"
by far their most popular on Spotify (60 millions with "This Charming Man" second with 47 millions)... and it was not their biggest hit since it wasn't even a single (while the band was in activity) !

wtf when and how did this happen

It always seemed like There is a Light was THE the Smiths song, even if How Soon is Now got played on 120 Minutes a lot.

For me it's "Ask," it always was "Ask," it always will be "Ask"

Honestly, of the ones in the top 5 on Spotify, "Bigmouth" at #5 is the only one I truly think of as in the conversation for legacy song

Ooh La La

http://i.imgur.com/UjC1ssa.png

"The Weight"? Peaked at 63 vs. 25 for "Up on Cripple Creek," but five times the Spotify plays.

Aretha Franklin's 1969 soul music arrangement peaked in the U.S. at #19

but yeah that's a good example

oh and

Jackie DeShannon's 1968 pop music arrangement, debuting on the Hot 100 one week before The Band's, peaked at #55 in the U.S

"The Weight" is one of those songs that was an instant standard. Practically every interpretive singer who wasn't in the Sinatra school took a crack at it between '68 & '73-ish.

see also: covers that folk/rock/soul song-interpreters of the '60s and '70s would have on their records

Seeing that Faces 'Ooh La La' up above - surely there must be many Faces 'Stay With Me's attributed to Rod splitting the vote?

Seems preposterous to suggest Big Yellow Taxi is Joni Mitchell's legacy song, nonetheless it's her top streamer

Why preposterous? That song is much more likely to be known by the average person than any of her others.

"Help Me" was a bigger hit at the time, but agreed that at the least the "choooo bop bop" was probably what the average radio listener would conjure up if asked to do a Joni Mitchell impression.

Yeah help me has the chart placing but I'm guessing taxi has had more sales (it was rereleased) and certainly had far more radio play.

"Big Yellow Taxi" was in my Grade 7 English textbook!

I'd have guessed Both Sides Now would be her legacy song.