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

...or multiple curated playlists.

The gap between it and their other songs isn't as big, but a similar thing has happened with Sleater-Kinney & "Modern Girl".

And just because, I looked up Jeff Beck, whose top track is "Cause We've Ended As Lovers", which I wouldn't have thought would be that big.

What would you expect his top track to be?

must've been a movie or a show

― flappy bird, Thursday, June 13, 2019 4:03 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it was on the soundtrack to the Entourage movie lol

(not that I think this explains it)

XP Probably "Freeway Jam" or a Rod-era track.

Oh, that is interesting that it has more than twice as many plays as "People Get Ready", although idk how much life that one had outside the 80s. I don't see Truth on Spotify. I guess it didn't strike me as surprising that a Stevie Wonder song would be Beck's most-played song but Blow by Blow is almost what I listen to most by him, by far.

almost = also

that's crazy about "modern girl." is it an effect of brownstein's memoir using it for the title, or the other way around? i've heard it out in the world here and there but so weird to think of them even HAVING one single "legacy song."

could one make an argument for “good things” by the bodeans ? nearly tied with for spotify plays with “closer to free” — which i concede is probably the “bigger” song, though i feel it’s more closely associated with the TV show than the band, whereas “good things” feels very linked to the bodeans, this whole adult contemporary aesthetic, and the song is stamped into my memory for reasons i couldn’t explain (never released as a single, no ads i know of)

does anybody else remember this song, or have any insight into why it’s “big” ?

wiki says this:

Though not a single, the album's first track, "Good Things", achieved some success and became one of the band's best-known songs.

how / why ?

The most-played Pavement song on Spotify is not what I would expect.

― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r), Friday, July 12, 2019 1:01 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Seriously, was "Harness Your Hopes" used in a movie? It sounds decent on first listen but how did a B-side from the Terror Twilight era become so popular?

That is weird. I tried searching for answers, but just found a Reddit thread asking the same question (and requests for gtr tabs, etc.)

I'm not even sure I remember what this sounds like!

it's probably on some like 'erudite indie for studying' playlist or something

last.fm is a better arbiter of track popularity imho:

https://www.last.fm/music/Pavement/+tracks?date_preset=ALL

"Athena" was the Who's last top 40 hit in the US (#28, 1982), but "Eminence Front" (#68, 1982) is far more streamed/downloaded/well-known.

spotify also ended easy last.fm scrobbling within the client, so i imagine that there is a gulf between the stats on each

I know nothing about Pavement, but a word of caution about Last.fm play counts: because as a site it’s dwindled so much in popularity (far less users), those counts are heavily skewed in favour of older material and current real-world popularity is poorly reflected (though with Spotify numbers it’s the other way around to some extent).

xp

any Apple Music subscribers in the house? what do Pavement's top tracks on that service look like?

Pavement on Apple Music:

Cut Your Hair
Goldsoundz
Spit on a Stranger
Range Life
Shady Lane

Thanks, no real surprises there (other than maybe “Spit”; I didn’t know it was that popular).

Spit has added recognition due to the Nickel Creek cover.

"I want Candy" ny Bow Wow Wow.

The only thing close to a single hit that Jeff Buckley ever had in his lifetime was "Last Goodbye".

That Cohen cover was never even a single, although it was a huge digital downloads hit ages later.

No one loves anything from Slanted & Enchanted?:(

« Grace » was a hit single, wasn’t it ?
That’s the first thing I heard from him anyway.

I think I Want Candy was BWWs only hit in America

"Go Wild in the Country" beat "I Want Candy" by two places in the UK chart but otherwise IWC was by far their biggest hit internationally.

No one loves anything from /Slanted & Enchanted/?:(

A lot of prog acts belong obv. Their best known "song" usually too lomg for single relesse.

For instance, I am pretty sure ELP are better known for "Tarkus" than for "Fanfare Forthe Common Man".

Who can resist the unstoppable cultural juggernaut that is Nickel Creek?

The citizens of Lake Wobegon?

reddit tried to figure out this Pavement mystery a while back, but there are no real clues here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pavement/comments/6qkzgs/harness_your_hopes_is_currently_pavements_top/

i have to say, i do think this is a very strange thing and worth wondering about. can't imagine any way that "Harness" would *organically* be higher than "Cut Your Hair" or "Summer Babe" or "Range Life"

Damon K out of Galaxie 500 noticed this phenomenon in respect of his band, and has a theory on this (via Glenn McDonald of this parish):

https://internationalsadhits.tumblr.com/post/174724188743/the-previous-post-about-galaxie-500-streaming-song

That is interesting^

“Play Galaxie 500″ may really come to mean, “Play the song by Galaxie 500 that most resembles songs by others.”

It may well be Spotify-related. Your Alexa doesn't have its own music, it's linked to whatever streaming service you've chosen to link it to.

I thought it draws from Amazon Music (and prompts you to sign up for Premium to play certain things)?

You can choose it to draw from Amazon Music, but you're not obliged to. Mine only draws from Spotify.

My conspiracy theory is that it plays the song with the smallest publishing fees (to be rather honest I have no idea how any of this works, just that this is the typical 2010s "disrupt" tech biz-model).

the royalty rate is the same per play for every song

how weird is this
https://i.imgur.com/ur7EpGU.png

When I only knew Dan from the radio those were the songs I knew

interesting, surely Aja and Gaucho outsold CBaT many times

'Creep' is still BY FAR Radiohead's most played song. Maybe not surprising, but considering their popularity you'd thing there'd be some runners-up.

Not sure why 'Bike' from Incunabula and 'Altibzz' from Quaristice seem to far outlead other tracks by Autechre. Do people get two tracks into Incunabula and then give up? I don't remember Quaristice being a particularly popular album either.

OIC, it's a pleasant ambient tune, so it's probs been on tons of playlists

Bike is presumably on a load of twinkly curated playlists, same with Avril 14th.

Take out Dirty Work and put Peg at #5 and that’s a list of Dans top charting songs

I was a bit puzzled that the Prodigy’s most popular song was one I’d never heard of, but I guess Breathe was a hit outside the US

it was an airplay hit in the US - #18 on the alternative chart plus a lot of MTV play.

but massive in europe, yeah

I only heard Firestarter and SMBU