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

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

Breathe was the Prodigy track featured on the Big Shiny Tunes 2 compilation here in Canada, which was government mandated that every teenager at the time should own a copy of alongside Our Lady Peace's Clumsy.

Yeah, "Breathe" was very big here in Europe, tho I dunno if it was bigger than "No Good" from the previous album... Tho I guess that's where the rest of the world steps in, since AFAIK anything they made before "Firestarter" didn't have much of an impact outside Europe?

Breathe was a number one hit in the UK, but only reached #26 in France and #8 in Germany.

how weird is this

not weird at all?

When faithful covers take over an artist's top spotify spot due to familiarity, threatening their legacy songs:

Siouxsie & the Banshees have a curious ranking on Spotify currently.

The Passenger (#41 UK) 15M Spotify, Hong Kong Garden (#7) 13M, Spellbound (#27) 12M, Dear Prudence (#3) 8M, Cities in Dust (#21, US Dance #17) 11M, Cities in Dust LP version 7M, Happy House (#17) 6M, Kiss Them For Me (Only US top 40 hit at #23) 7M, no others above 4M. Their cover of Passenger was recently in I, Tonya... so I checked in with Iggy, and Lust for Life is no longer his top track, The Passenger is by a huge margin, 178M vs 69M. Amongst its numerous licensings listed in wikipedia I am amused to see "intro theme music for the CNN program Anderson Cooper 360" and "Music on hold for some phone services of Deutsche Bahn, the German national rail service".

The Fall - Lost in Music has trended to the top spot over Totally Wired, although Wired still has a higher play count. I wonder what sort of playlist or algorithmic similarity their version of a Sister Sledge song is hitting? Maybe people are typing Lost in Music into the search bar and are playing it out of curiosity and liking it?

Elvis costello (non-attractions... amazing that Spotify still occasionally divides solo artists with artist-and-the-bands like this, cf Petty, Malkmus) - She (44M) over veronica (6M), alison (16M). As a huge Attractions fan I definitely have listened to this track before although I can't remember at all what it sounds like. I am also not sure if I have ever seen Notting Hill, the movie it was from, or the Charles Aznavour original, but if that is in english, I assume it's not my thing. Also, I need to check if the cover art for Costello's Look Now was added to that thread of horrible cover art - wow that's bad.

Pet Shop Boys - Always on my mind over West End Girls, which seems a little sad to me, although their sales figures might be equivocal. Always on my mind might be trending up, it is #6 on Elvis Presley's Spotify top 10 but has less than half the plays of tracks it is higher than, and it's also #3 on Willie's top ten, well ahead of On the Road again which has twice the plays.

Burrito Bros - Wild Horses over Hot Burrito #1 and Sin City surprises me but again, it shouldn't now that I am going to expect this pattern to sometimes hold. Wild Horses is still #2 for the Sundays but I won't be suprised if it overtakes Here's Where the Story Ends at some point.

A few other top spotify spots that caught my eye recently:

Psychedelic Furs - Is Love My Way now firmly ensconced as their legacy track over Pretty in Pink for its superior new waviness? I am pleased to note that the execrable 86 soundtrack version with more sax is not on Spotify, although that was their biggest hit technically.

Judybats - Pleased to see Native Son has 6 times the plays of their buzz binned Being Simple.

Sleater-Kinney - Modern Girl has double the play count of Dig Me Out.

Veruca Salt - Volcano Girls edges out Seether. I played it out of curiosity and forgot it cheekily cops the melody of Head like a Hole but is otherwise not what I'd call a worthy legacy song for them.

Reel Big Fish popular tracks on Spotify - 1) Take on Me, 2) Beer, 3) Sell Out.

I didn't know they had any other songs besides Sell Out. Sell Out is still #1 in overall listens though (29M vs 21M for Take on Me).