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

xp it was for the reality bites soundtrack

Difford later said, "The reason this song (Hourglass) exists in my mind is purely for the video."

"Hourglass" got a shitload of MTV play in late '87, and they were CMJ/college radio mainstays through at least 1993.

it is ace beginning to end

So is Tempted! (/paulcarrackjoke)

Ha, beat me to it!

Tempted somehow manages to be the best Squeeze song without sounding all that much like Squeeze

it is their "what a fool believes"

Speaking of the Doobies, #11 "Listen to the Music" has twice as many streams as #1 "What a Fool Believes" which also loses out to "Long Train Runnin" by 50 million streams. Their other #1 "Black Water" is even further behind.

That kind of lines up with my experience w/them on Classic Rock radio, except "Black Water" is up there with the other two as songs I'd all hear multiple times before a single airing of "What A Fool Believes".

yeah WAFB's position at the top of Yacht Rock canon doesn't translate to classic rock radio spins

"lovergirl" was her biggest hit at the time, but now it seems to me like teena marie's most popular song is "square biz"

I doubt there will ever be another hit song with a phone number for its title now that phone numbers are 10 digits

logic's "1-800-273-8255" was a major hit a few years ago (tho the number doesn't appear in the lyrics)

Squeeze were big in NYC from the Cool for Cats through Babylon & On LPs (about 1979 to 1986) on the main rock station WNEW and 2 New Wave stations in the area. Besides tracks mentioned above, there was a good amount of airplay for If I Didn't Love You (a US single but not UK), In Quintessence, Is That Love, Messed Around, Annie Get Your Gun.

863-5937 was another US only single--the record label's choice; Difford & Tilbrook have both declared that they don't much like the song.

Labelled with Love was not a US single. Our Singles: 45s & Under drops that and adds If I Didn't Love You.

Another indication how important NYC was to the band--when they broke up the first time in 1983 (84?), their final tour ended by selling out Madison Square Garden.

*listens to "What A Fool Believes"*

What th--

That song is by the DOOBIE BROTHERS?

I would never have guessed that in 1000000 years. I think I just assumed it was a second-tier Hall and Oates song.

Anyway, the Squeeze comparison doesn't work because the best Doobie Bros. song is "China Grove."

eephus, not to be snarky, but it is pretty clear that it is Michael McDonald singing on WAFB. Like, it couldn't be anyone else.

Hmm. Michael’s voice is pretty unmistakable

xxxpost

I've been mistaking it for 40 years is all I can say

Gotta love Mike McD's devotion to not singing consonants

The Doobie Brothers package in this year’s RRHOF induction special was really good. (I loved that they used that Romancing the Stone clip.)

I admit that I now associate any Mike McD and Doobie-related stuff with 30 Rock.

"What a Fool Believes" is what I think of when I think of the Doobie Brothers. For me, it's weird that they also did "Listen to the Music."

iirc Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks don't repeat Pavement songs in setlists very often, but they played "Harness Your Hopes" a lot throughout 2014. I assumed its growth in popularity started around that time.

i think of two things: what a fool believes and "which doobie you be?"

woah-ohhhhh
we're the Doobies now

I was surprised to see that Marina's (& the Diamonds) most streamed track on Spotify is "How to Be a Heartbreaker"

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".

― MarkoP, Wednesday, February 4, 2015 12:37 AM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

TIC is at 952 million streams, seemingly his #2 track behind LY at 1.03 billion. Never a single. What's the story here?

Oh, about the European afterlife of “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” (see upthread) – this is a commercial from last year, for Douglas, a German perfume and cosmetics retailer. It’s currently being shown on Dutch TV. Let’s celebrate self-love!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG4lVP1Lvag

(in case you want hear the whole thing)

Given the “Topher Horn” person involved in the Douglas project, I thought it might be based on Tove Lo’s (posing as “Sue Ellen”) cover from 2009, but I guess not (or maybe it provided the necessary intermediate step):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddj0JKY6gqE

eh... in case you want *to* hear the whole thing

"How Soon Is Now?" was always the Smiths song that I thought everyone knew. It is their third-most-played song on Spotify, behind "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" (which I used to think of as one that only fans knew) and "This Charming Man" (which I'd thought of as their #2 song). It's #2 after "There Is a Light" on Apple Music.

Huh, "Girlfriend in a Coma" isn't even top 10 on Spotify. That surprises me.

This was meant for this thread:
Now that I look at the Apple Music list more closely, though, "How Soon Is Now" is listed three separate times since it appears on multiple releases, so that probably makes a difference.

Lucinda Williams: "Fruits of My Labor" from World Without Tears is her top solo track, with 15 million spins, about 6 million more than runner-ups "Car Wheels..." and an all-star rendition of "This Train's Bound For Glory" from a Woody Guthrie tribute.

DMX’s “X Gon Give It To Ya” is def the champ of the streaming era thanks to Rick and Morty and Deadpool

really? i would have guessed "ruff ryders' anthem" if it wasn't "party up"

(i could just check but i can't be bothered)

The Lucinda Williams one is weird--I guess that song was used in a movie called Lost Girls? She never had chart hits so streaming numbers are probably overly impacted by use in other media.

Not song, but artist based: Nina Simone has 6.5M monthly listeners, nearly twice what Joni Mitchell and Billie Holiday net, to pick two artists where I'd think there'd be similar listening patterns and esteem, and definately more influence on youtube singers. Maybe it's that the ambitious end of RnB leads so clearly back to Simone these days?

numbers from Spotify btw: Simone 6.5M, Holiday 3.2M, Mitchell 3.8M.

This is wild and makes me feel way less smugly advisory to the world.

Doesn't seem quite as surprising to me as Nina has more big/famous songs, many of which seem to feature every week in one TV show or another

Mitchell probably should invest in a Netflix biopic or something though. I feel like she might be missing out on a lot of young fans, not sure what avenues through which they might discover her.

Ellie Goulding's cover of Joni Mitchell's 'River' (which largely retained the style of the original) got to Number One in the UK in December 2019, so some younger listeners may have latched onto her then.

Doesn't seem obviously true to me that Nina Simone had more big/famous songs than Joni Mitchell. Dr Casino probably otm.

Wait until the kids see the cover of Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter

just looked that up. YIKES.

(i assume that's been much-discussed? i've just never dug into her narrative/body of work as a whole, beyond the couple of albums i know and like.)

There's a long, recent tangent about it and her questionable racial views from that time on one of the ILM Joni threads.

yeah casino otm, i dont think you can overstate how much a streaming biopic (or maybe these days a prestige podcast, too) impacts the visibility & legacy of artists like that with people these days.

ELO has a whole handful of legacy tracks, but Mr Blue Sky seems to have some increased presence over the years, even before the GOTG movies.

I first heard it in a 2006 Dr Who episode.

VW commercial