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

Don't have iTunes right here, but just guessing on a few...

Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes (wasn't even a single from So)
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Lou Reed - Perfect Day

Bohemian Rhapsody was always Queen's biggest hit surely

"Bohemian Rhapsody" benefitted from the 90s re-release and Wayne's World, but it was always one of their biggest hits, I gotta veto that. xpost

Perfect Day? It must still be "Walk on the Wild Side"

Journey's only two top 5 songs in the US were "Open Arms" and "Who's Crying Now."

"Don't Stop Believing," meanwhile, is the biggest-selling catalogue track in iTunes history.

no way was bohemian rhapsody a bigger hit than "another one bites the dust" or "crazy little thing called love"

What about "Son of a Preacher Man" by Dusty Springfield?

obv I don't know the UK chart stuff much, but was that actually her biggest hit?

ooh good call, put a 3 on that. xpost re journey

"Bohemian Rhapsody" held a sales record in the UK for almost a decade and was Queen's first US top 10. I would say songs that establish a band on that level count as one of their biggest hits whether there are higher charting songs or not.

Bohemian Rhapsody was always Queen's biggest hit surely

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.)

The Romantics' legacy song is almost certainly "What I Like About You" (big jock-rock hit, right?), though in their lifetime "Talking In Your Sleep" charted way higher (No. 3, compared to No. 49.)

what about "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond....again, i'm a lil ignorant of his history but wiki says "Song Sung Blue" was a bigger chart hit

yeah that's really interesting, i don't think i've ever even heard "Talking In Your Sleep" but I've heard "Like" a million times. xpost

this icon should be next to all these songs in the iTunes store: http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-slowburner.gif

I think I've heard those 2 about an equal # of times--but I guess "Like" is more of a party song.

what about "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond....again, i'm a lil ignorant of his history but wiki says "Song Sung Blue" was a bigger chart hit

Yeah, I think "Sweet Caroline" and "Cherry Cherry" are both more famous today than "Song Sung Blue" or "Cracklin' Rosie" -- but they were all in the top 5.

Freebird? That's certainly Skynyrd's legacy song, but probably not their biggest iTunes seller (Sweet Home Alabama?).

(Meant to add "Song Sung Blue" and "Cracklin' Rosie" were his only two solo #1s.)

oh wow here's the ultimate one:

according to wiki, "Dancing With Myself" by Billy Idol only reached 102 on the U.S. charts and FAILED to chart in the U.K.

usually a soundtrack or placement in a television show will raise a song out of the bands "hits" into a totally different demographic

Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes (wasn't even a single from So)

This was released as a single off of the "Say Anything" soundtrack and received massive amounts of radio play.

oh wow here's the ultimate one:

according to wiki, "Dancing With Myself" by Billy Idol only reached 102 on the U.S. charts and FAILED to chart in the U.K.

― stank pony (M@tt He1ges0n), Friday, March 27, 2009 1:27 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah but "Rebel Yell" and "White Wedding" are both bigger iTunes sellers

i mean this could very easily turn into "early hits that established a band's identity but didn't chart as high as later singles when they were more famous" list and get away from the original idea

yeah that's true

i was more just shocked that that hadn't even charted at the time, being how catchy it was and all

"Should I Stay or Should I Go?"

Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes (wasn't even a single from So)

...

This was released as a single off of the "Say Anything" soundtrack and received massive amounts of radio play.

"In Your Eyes" was released as a US single, peaking at #26 Billboard Hot 100 and #1 Billboard Mainstream Rock in 1986.

Say Anything gave "In Your Eyes" a second chart run in 1989, but it peaked at #41. No Top 40 for you!

...and became PG's first certified Gold single in 2005 lol

"Only You" did marginally better than "Situation" on the US charts (67 vs. 73) and much better on the UK charts (2 vs. wasn't even released), but "Situation" seems much more like Yaz's legacy song.

"Born to Run!" Peaked at #23.

(Well, technically it's outsold by "Radio Nowhere" on iTunes, but I think that was thanks to some "Magic" promotion)

yeah acts with recent singles kinda skew this, but i think it's safe to assume "Born To Run" ultimately sells more than "Radio Nowhere"

Oh oh oh!

"American Girl" was the second single off Tom Petty's debut album, after "Breakdown," but did not even chart.

Radiohead. Creep is their biggest hit, but probably not their "signature" song. NOt sure what is, though.

Bruce's biggest chart hit is Dancing In The Dark

"Creep" is Radiohead's legacy song to millions of non-Radiohead fans

I'm not sure what Bob Marley's legacy song is, but I have a feeling that "Roots, Rock, Reggae" (his only U.S. Hot 100 hit, peaking at # 51) isn't it. It might not even be in the Top 10.

(Well, Marley has lots of Legacy songs, obviously. Or at least an album full of them.)

Cheap Trick's only #1 is "The Flame." ("I Want You to Want Me" was #7, "Surrender" #62.)

What about remixes doing this with a song? Because Run DMC's It's Like That was just a b-side until it became like their biggest song (v. walk this way obv.)

Also presumably this must have happened by tunes that were sampled a bunch, although none come to mind immediately.

'Hallelujah' wins this thread, surely?

Run DMC's It's Like That was just a b-side

Not really. It was on side one of the 12-inch, and came before "Sucker MCs"; ditto with the instrumentals on side two:

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=257372

How do I find out Itunes sales numbers? Is there some page for them?

Talking Heads. Their biggest charting US single is Wild Wild Life. Biggest in UK is Road To Nowhere. Their signature/legacy song is clearly Once In A Lifetime, which never even charted.

I tried to a search for a specific tune on the Itunes store, but when I click on the song name, I'm thrown back to the Apple store home page.

Anyway, I suspect "Oh Yeah" by Yello is their biggest download seller, even though it wasn't their biggest hit.

Which of course is due to it being used in that movie.

i dunno how iTunes store works in your country, but here every artist page has their top songs listed. but what i've been doing is just googling "(artist name) top itunes sales" and going to the browser cache of the store page since i don't have iTunes on my work computer.

"Born to Run!" Peaked at #23.

(Well, technically it's outsold by "Radio Nowhere" on iTunes, but I think that was thanks to some "Magic" promotion)

I'm pretty sure "Radio Nowhere" was also the iTunes Free Single of the Week when it was released, and that iTunes counts free downloads as sales. (Or at least as volume for measuring popularity.)

One problem is that, with lots of these artists (Neil Diamond, Skynyrd, Billy Idol, Springsteen, Petty, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Radiohead), it's a real stretch to say they "clearly" have just one legacy song. (So with them, the formulation only really works if their biggest hit has been totally lost in the dustbin of history. "Wild Wild Life" might actually come close to that, though. "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Creep" definitely don't. Chuck Berry's only #1 "My Ding-A-Ling" probably does.)

I tried to search "Yello", but the Itunes home page doesn't even allow me to click the band name, so I don't know how to see the artist page.

(xx-post)

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. ("Bostich" will always be their legacy song in my house.)

Likewise, Boney M's only U.S. hit was "Rivers of Babylon," but the rest of the planet would presumably disagree.

I think in Europe at least "The Race" and "Bostich" were bigger hits than "Oh Yeah", maybe some others too.

It’s a bit catchier

Have heard "Lady Day and John Coltrane" many times over the years out in the wild and on the radio versus hardly ever for "Revolution".

I mean it’s probably on some popular Spotify playlist called “organic vibes” or something

GSH on Televised:

It was the only political piece on the album.... Very few people heard 'Save the Children', 'Lady Day and John Coltrane' or 'I Think I Call It Morning'. They just missed the point. The point became one of the 11 pieces. The least inventive one on the album was the one that was the most heralded.

"Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" will (please) never be Bruce Springsteen's biggest Spotify hit but... it's getting there

xp if "The Bottle" were on Spotify I'm pretty sure that would be GSH's most streamed track.

The top Doors song on spotify & itunes is "riders on the storm," with "people are strange" coming in second. Those are definitely hits, but I'm still a little surprised to see them besting "Light My Fire," which is their fourth biggest streamer on Spotify.

I would have bet on "Johannesburg."

(re: GSH)

Article about when this happens due to TikTok

Weird with Ladytron cause I woudn't have guessed Destroy Everything You Touch was previously their biggest streamer, and Seventeen has always been their biggest song for me personally

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/dec/11/viral-hit-tiktok-gen-z-mother-ladytron-keane-miguel

lol "Forgotten bands" like Miguel

though--wow--"Sure Thing" has three times as many streams as "Adorn"

I've heard "Sure Thing" on pop radio way more often than I ever did "Adorn" in 2012

They both hit #1 on R&B, but Adorn made it to #17 on the Pop chart and "Sure Thing" was #36.

In my experience, I heard Adorn on the radio far more

"sure thing" reached #11 on the hot 100 last year

this year!

That's what I meant by my first comment if it wasn't clear.

Ah, I see. I had no idea it was re-released.

was it this year? damn

I don't have the proof, but I'm pretty sure "Seventeen" was always the biggest Ladytron song, and certainly (even before the Tik Tok thing) the track they're best known for in the US.

I read that article earlier this evening and had exactly the same response: I always thought Seventeen was one of their biggest tracks.

it's the only Ladytron song I know tbh

classic too

"famous because of a tiktok glitch" articles are kind of getting to the point of
OMG, People Buy Records? Vinyl In The News Thread

tbh I would've thought Playgirl and Destroy Everything You Touch would've been bigger, which wasn't a bad guess since they are 2nd and 3rd

not too surprised re: Ladytron, I know singles from their first two releases (in 2001/2002!) were probably their ILM peak, but they regularly knocked out albums for another decade with a pretty healthy fanbase

Little Richard's 3rd biggest track on Spotify (behind "Tutti Frutti" & "Long Tall Sally") is "Little Richard's Boogie", a Johnny Otis Collab from Richard's pre-Specialty period that is sourced from an early '90s Duke-Peacock Blues v/a comp.

"little dark age" by mgmt is on its way to become their #1 on spotify which makes no sense at all to me

those three oracular spectacular songs were everywhere back then, can't say I ever heard something from subsequent albums in the wild (although "me and michael" is my personal jam)

In late 2020, it experienced a resurgence in popularity due to a viral TikTok trend where hundreds of thousands utilized the song.[7] A report published in August 2021 by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that "Little Dark Age" was "by far the most popular Sound among extremist creators on TikTok" and was central to videos promoting "Hyperborea and a wider trend of esoteric Nazism."[8] The song has also been used in social media video edits glamourizing the Nazi Party and US Army

well then

They Might Be Giants' Istanbul is their most-streamed song on Spotify, 93.7m to Birdhouse's 39.5m. Afaict heavy licensing to TV and film is behind its popularity?

That one isn't too surprising to me. I think a lot of people know that song who might not otherwise be familiar with TMBG, especially since it is a cover. It feels like a standard, whereas "Birdhouse" feels rooted in early '90s college rock.

I heard a pop radio station play "Sure Thing" twice within an hour a couple months ago

Without checking any charts I would have guessed Istanbul is TMBG’s best known song. I remember MTV playing that video heavily in the early 90s.

"Hit The Road Jack" is the top Spotify track for Ray Charles, with over 100 million more spins than "I Got A Woman", which in itself shouldn't be surprising...other than that the former's only been available on the service since the late summer of 2021.

From the CVS thread:

Same place, today got "Heading For The Light" and whatever that Jim Croce song is about him walking to Georgia.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, February 3, 2024 4:29 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

"Walking Back To Georgia", surprisingly.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, February 3, 2024 4:30 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

His third biggest Spotify track for some reason.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, February 3, 2024 4:31 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

wow. maybe on some Georgia playlists or something.

― not the one who's tryin' to dub your anime (Doctor Casino), Saturday, February 3, 2024 7:40 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

That one wasn’t even a single.

More streams than “Operator”!

Huh, wow - that's not the way it feels at all.

when did “althea” become one of the most popular grateful dead songs? it’s not on a major album or any of the greatest hits, not one of the 50 most played according to jerrybase. yet it has 20 million more streams on spotify than “sugar magnolia.” what gives? is it a john mayer thing?