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

"Creep" is No. 1 in American iTunes

Stone Temple Pilots' "Creep" is their No. 3
TLC's is their No. 2
Mobb Deep's is their No. 81

Lust for Life

Where do Roxy Music fit in this equation? ("Love Is The Drug" their only U.S. Top 40 ever; "Dance Away" just missed; "More Than This" not even Top 100.)

I think post-1980 Roxy Music have been all but forgotten in US+Canada, but people still remember "Love Is the Drug". So IOW, their biggest hit is also their legacy song.

but for THAT SONG to have like 3x the nearest challenger is just fkn sickening imo and indicative of where a huge proportion of radiohead 'fans' are coming from, i.e. fake-macho-sensitive 'alt-rock' hell

But this is the thing, Louis, that the people who are buying "Creep" are more than likely not Radiohead fans at all. And I don't mean that in the sense of "they're not TRUE fans!", I mean that that may be the only Radiohead song they've heard, and they're buying it because they suddenly got nostalgic for the alt-rock they used to listen to in high school and so they used the iTunes gift certificate they got for Christmas to buy that and "Today" and "No Rain" and "All Apologies."

xp I dunno about that -- Here are the top 20 streams on Roxy's rhapsody page. (I have no idea what several of those highest placed songs are, but then again I stopped paying attention to new stuff by them at some point.) (Somebody else can check itunes):

More Than This (4:30) Lyrics
Avalon (4:16) Lyrics
Love Is The Drug (4:11) Lyrics
India (1:44)
To Turn You On (4:16) Lyrics
Tara (1:43)
Take A Chance With Me (4:42) Lyrics
The Space Between (4:30) Lyrics
Virginia Plain (2:58) Lyrics
The Main Thing (3:54) Lyrics
While My Heart Is Still Beating (3:26) Lyrics
True To Life (4:25) Lyrics
Dance Away (3:46) Lyrics
Ladytron (4:26) Lyrics
Jealous Guy (4:57) Lyrics
Over You (3:27) Lyrics
Same Old Scene (3:58) Lyrics
If There Is Something (10:37) Lyrics
Re-make/Re-model (5:14) Lyrics
Is There Something (6:34)

More Than This (4:30) Lyrics
Avalon (4:16) Lyrics
Love Is The Drug (4:11) Lyrics

This is the exact order of their top 3 songs on iTunes as well. I think "More Than This" got a big boost from Lost in Translation.

Wes Anderson/Sofia Coppola movies do magic for the Stuff White People Like axis of iTunes downloads

LL Cool J:

1. Control Myself ft. Jennifer Lopez
2. Headsprung
3. Going Back To Cali
4. Doin' It
5. Mama Said Knock You Out.

But I guess his "legacy song" is up for debate

And "Control Myself" was probably one of his biggest hits

His "legacy song" is up for debate, but it's certainly not either of the top two

And "Control Myself" might be one of his highest-charting songs, but it seemed like a hit for about two weeks, where a bunch of his earlier hits were ubiquitous for months if not years.

it's pretty fucked up that "Control Myself" is 3 years old and still up there imo

i would think if anything "Luv U Better" would be the highest seller of his last few albums

I don't hate "Lose Control" or anything, it just seems bizarre.

xp: I probably hear "Headsprung" more than anything else from the past decade.

"Lose Control" "Control Myself" lol

wtvr, practically the same song

"Around the Way Girl" is his legacy song in my heart.

I mean that that may be the only Radiohead song they've heard, and they're buying it because they suddenly got nostalgic for the alt-rock they used to listen to in high school and so they used the iTunes gift certificate they got for Christmas to buy that and "Today" and "No Rain" and "All Apologies."

I feel sorry for them. Not in a superior "these songs suck" kinda way, but it sounds like the soundtrack to suburban kid turns 30, marriage/long term relationship breaks up, and loses job. I feel sorry for the life circumstances that in my mind has inspired this nostalgia.

I think post-1980 Roxy Music have been all but forgotten in US+Canada

wtf I hear "Dance Away" and "More Than This" a lot more often than "Do The Strand" and "Virginia Plain."

Jaymc I was talking about "High And Dry" which came top of popularity in Britain for some reason :-/

x-post Totally, I almost never hear pre-"Avalon" Roxy on the radio, and certainly plenty of "Jealous Guy."

Flaming Lips "Do You Realize?" is arguably their legacy song, though not a "hit" like "She Don't Use Jelly."

xp Ha, I misread.

like i say, i'd have no problem with 'creep' being top of r-head downloads, and that's how it seems to be in the usa...maybe i didn't go to the right page or something

"High and Dry" sounds like U2's "Stay (Faraway So Close)."

Same progression, I guess. But the chorus of the U2 song is more interesting (not to mention the verses).

wtf I hear "Dance Away" and "More Than This" a lot more often than "Do The Strand" and "Virginia Plain."

I wasn't referring to 70's Roxy Music in general -- I don't ever remember a time when 70's Roxy Music received much airplay with the *exception* of "Love is the Drug".

Anyway, xhuxk's list suggests that I was wrong about 80's RM, because "Avalon" songs at #1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 = loads of people still like that album.

I'd still argue that "Love Is the Drug" is their legacy song. You don't hear "The Main Thing" in pubs too often, for example.

Josie Cotton, "Johnny Are You Queer"

(undeniably her legacy song -- the only song she's really known for; #81 on VH1's '80s One-Hit-Wonders countdown -- but unlike "He Could Be The One" and "Jimmy Loves Maryann," it never hit the Hot 100.)

Dunno if Jeff Buckley really had "hits", but "Hallelujah" was never a single, from my knowledge.

John Lennon's "Imagine"

I'm not sure what Loudon Wainwright III's legacy song is (his top two on Rhapsody are "Daughter" and "Grey In L.A."), but I feel there's a good chance it's not "Dead Skunk" (which was his only hit -- went #16 in 1973).

George Thorogood, "Bad to The Bone" or "One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer," neither of which charted (whereas his only Top 100 single ever was a version of "Willie And The Hand Jive" which hit #63 in 1985.)

Yeah that is really weird. One would expect that constant MTV play would've propelled it at least into the Top 100 and that it's subsequent use in films and TV would've done even more for it. Maybe it was just ubiquitous on screens and no one who dug it felt compelled to buy the 7" (which did exist according to Wiki). Or maybe it was too early in MTV's existence for constant rotation to matter.

David Bowie. He's had 2 #1 singles in America, Fame and Let's Dance. In the UK, he's had 5: Space Oddity, Ashes to Ashes, Under Pressure, Let's Dance, & Dancing In The Street.

Heroes has sort of emerged as his legacy song. But it's highest chart position was 24 in the UK, and in the US it didn't chart at all.

xpost "its" not "it's"

I don't know about Bowie. The three Let's Dance singles still get plenty of airplay.

In America certainly XTC's "Dear God" is their most famous song, despite not charting at all.

"High and Dry" sounds like U2's "Stay (Faraway So Close)."

to me "high&dry" has always sounded like prince's "slow love"... I've never understood how anybody could not see that !

Not sure what Rachel Sweet's legacy track is (probably something from her debut, like "B.A.B.Y" or "Who Does Lisa Like" or "I Go To Pieces," or maybe "I've Got A Reason" from her second LP which was included on a Stiff comp a few years ago, or maybe "Hairspray" from the movie), but it's probably not "Everlasting Love," which was her only Top 40 hit (as a duet with Rex Smith in 1981.)

So what is the Pogues' legacy song? And what song, if any, by them got the most radio play in the U.S. when it was new? They never placed a song in the Billboard 100; never got an album higher than #88. Which must make them one of the most famous bands in retrospect ever to experience so little chart action when the albums actually came out (and definitely the band who must have the highest jukebox-play-to-chart-position ratio in U.S. history, at least if Irish bars count.)

Anyway, I'm thinking "Fairytale of New York" is probably their best known song, though Rhapsody is listing "Love Till the End" higher (and I can't even think of how that one goes.) Then "A Pair Of Brown Eyes," then "Streams Of Whiskey," then "The Body Of An American."

how famous are the pogues, really?

i mean that doesn't really surprise me tbh.

"Tuesday Morning" hit #11 on the US Modern Rock chart, so technically that's their biggest hit here -- but the chart debuted in 1988, so it's hard to say whether anything from before then would have charted higher. I think "Fairytale of New York" is without a doubt their best-known song, though. The Discography section of the Pogues' Wikipedia page, for instance, has subsections for Albums, Singles, and "Fairytale of New York."

xp I dunno, I feel like they're sort of household names, in certain households. Plus their songs sure seem to get onto show like Rescue Me and The Wire a lot. And I always hear them in bars, and I don't even go to bars very often these days. But maybe I overestimate their fame, who knows.

According to Wikipedia Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" did not chart at all in the US when initially released, though it was a big hit in Europe.

("Body of an American" is a TV effect, I would guess. But that's the thing about TV use, especially those two examples you give -- Pogues are used to signify "ethnically Irish blue-collar civil servant milieu," which isn't the kind of thing that makes viewers aware of the Pogues specifically. It does the opposite, really; it turns them into just background "Irish music.")

I lol'd when The Wire had cops revelling to The Pogues in cop bars. But maybe I'm just naive.

They seem to get played a lot in scenes where people are pouring out their whiskey after a Catholic buddy dies. So if anything, it turns them into a certain kind of Irish music. But I'd be surprised if a good number of viewers haven't figured out who does those songs, by now. I'd be curious about how well their songs do itunes-wise. Also bet they're not having trouble drawing people to these comeback shows now. (Don't have a good idea who exactly their American fans are, besides Irish expats. Bet it's not all aging '80s Modern Rock fans though.)

I mean, don't the Dropkick Murphys supposedly have a dedicated following among cops, firemen, and Bruins fans in Boston? Or is that just a myth I've been gullible enough to believe? I'd think their audience must be only a fraction of the Pogues' audience, though.