the label didn't hear a single so they went back and recorded one

How many explicit examples can we find of songs written and recorded (often very quickly) with the intent of satisfying the label reps who "didn't hear a single"? And why do these songs almost always rule? Off the top of my head I can think of

Deftones, "Back to School (Mini Maggit)"
Fiona Apple, "Criminal"
Wilco, "Can't Stand It"
Korn, "Y'all Want a Single"

but surely there's a ton more. apologies if we've done this already but I tried a bunch of potential searches and came up empty

Not the label, but Jon Landau famously didn't hear a single on Born In The USA, so Springsteen put together "Dancing In The Dark".

I'm not sure George Harrison could claim the prize with the three songs the label asked him to substitute on Somewhere in England.

Blur, For Tomorrow and Chemical World

Wilco's Can't Stand It is probably about the situation itself

Weezer - Pork And Beans

The Boo Radleys - Free Huey

The Beach Boys - Sail On Sailor

Can only assume that Gorky's Zygotic Mynci had a few of these, even if they weren't necessarily requested by the label...

Sweet Johnny, Poodle Rockin', Mow The Lawn

Blur's "Modern Life Is Rubbish" is something like 50% potential singles they recorded when the label rejected it the first time

^^ true but, but the two they wrote were among the best and still didn't set the charts alight. Definitely worth doing though...

Mercury Rev's "Goddess on a Hiway," iirc

Ride - How Does It Feel To Feel

I thought Goddess On A Highway was song from 1989 that Jonathan Donahue went back to, as opposed to label pressure?

Nada Surf - Why Are You So Mean To Me

Velvet Crush - Why Not Your Baby (probably, see Ride)

QOTSA "The Sky is Falling"

Blur's Crazy Beat sounds like an attempt at a shoe-in hit, even if it didn't work

Smash Mouth "All Star"

There's no proof that I know of but The Beautiful South's 'Closer Than Most' screams of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzIn1eozbVQ

Useless re-tread of Perfect 10, the huge hit from the last album

Pretty much all of the stupid ballads on Aerosmith's "Get a Grip" came about due to Geffen saying they didn't hear a hit single and refusing the album.

As a result, we were deprived of shelved track "Yo Momma", though that latter song could be apocrypha

Many songs were written and recorded for the album that were either used as B-sides or never released. "Don't Stop" and "Head First" were released as B-sides, as well as "Can't Stop Messin'", which also appears on several special editions of the album as an addition in the track list. Other songs were listed on the official Aerosmith website in the late 1990s. "Black Cherry", "Devil's Got A New Disguise", "Dime Store Lover", "Legendary Child", "Lizard Love", "Meltdown", "Rocket 88", "Wham Bam", and "Yo Momma" were listed on the lyrics page of the website.

Not the label, but Jon Landau Clive Davis famously didn't hear a single on Born In The USA Greetings From Asbury Park, so Springsteen put together "Dancing In The Dark" "Blinded By the Light."

Looks like Bruce is your guy to go to in the clutch, eh?

Ha, forgot about that one! Landau also made him hold back "Hungry Heart" from the Ramones so The River would have a strong advance single.

Seeing some of those cover versions cited reminds me Elektra forced X to cover the Small Faces "All or Nothing" for Ain't Love Grand, which they hated so much it's been pushed over to the bonus tracks on the reissue.

I can't find any back-up evidence of this recollection, and it's not exactly what the thread is asking for (but still relevant), but iirc, "Time Warp" was written last-minute for Rocky Horror because they realized the musical was too short and they needed another number to pad it out

I'll allow it!

Not the label, but Jon Landau Clive Davis famously didn't hear a single on Greetings From Asbury Park, so Springsteen put together "Blinded By the Light."

Looks like Bruce is your guy to go to in the clutch, eh?

And "Spirit in the Night" too, right? Makes you wonder what his output would have been like if someone had done this every time he made an album.

Savage Garden - "I Knew I Loved You"
Sara Bareilles - "Love Song"

"Paranoid" by Sabbath was one they came up with because the record needed 3 minutes more to be done. "Funk #49" was another one done on the fly to fill out a LP by the James Gang. I have read a quote from Joe Walsh on that one something like "If I knew I was going to have to sing that song for the next 40 years, I would have spent more than 10 minutes writing the words..." or something of the like.

LOL, "Love Song" might be the only example of the relevant artist writing a song about not wanting to succumb to record label pressure to write a hit song (see Korn; also LCD Soundsystem's "You Wanted A Hit" though I'm not aware of that being written in response to any specific pressure) and yet still executing the brief so perfectly that the resulting song is far and away their biggest hit and the only one most people will remember them by/for.

I must hang out with too many musical theater nerds, I was thinking "wait, the woman who wrote Waitress had a hit single?"

Blur, For Tomorrow and Chemical World

nb that the UK label didn't a single so they wrote For Tomorrow, and the US label still didn't hear a single so they additionally wrote Chemical World

Paranoid wasn't so much a "label didn't hear a single", it was "album was too short".

After recording some of the new songs for radio presenter Bob Harris's Sounds of the 70s as the newly dubbed Spiders from Mars in January 1972, the band returned to Trident that month to begin work on "Suffragette City" and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide". RCA executive Dennis Katz had complained that the album did not contain a single, so Bowie wrote "Starman", which was completed on 4 February 1972.

After a few listens, the top brass at RCA reportedly did not hear a single on Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, requiring Lou to hastily book studio time to quickly write and record "Metal Machine Music, Part 4." Thanks to Lou's determination to kick up some serious downtown dirt, RCA was able to release the album in July, just in time for the Captain Daryl Dragon "randomly-placed locked grooves" remix of "MMM, Part 4" to enter 1975's competitive battle for Song of the Summer.

Guided by Voices - "Chasing Heather Crazy"

hahaha xpost

White Whale Records was bugging the Turtles to record more stuff like "Happy Together" instead of the Pysch-stuff they'd put out on some subsequent singles, so Howard Kaylan bashed out "Elenore" as a joke, 'the dumbest Pop Song ever', and ended up with one of the band's last big hits.

75% of these answers are made up, right?

The Metal Machine Music one is 100% true, iirc

After submitting Master of Puppets, Metallica were told they needed another Beatles-esque Top 40 jaunt like the previous album's "Trapped Under Ice", so they went back into the studio that night and banged out the skiffle classic "Damage, Inc". Daryl Hall was in the studio next door so he lent his backing vocals

silver "wham bam" (at least according a statement in the wikipedia article, w/ no source attached)

i am sometimes skeptical of these claims, because they make good stories/pr. not as good of pr as the claims that no one at the label/at radio/etc. believed the song would be a hit, but still. (this was recently claimed about "havana", lol)

I wish more bands would do this.

Missy Elliot, Get Ur Freak On. She tweeted about it recently, not sure if it was label motivated but definitely a classic 'we need one more, let's throw this together quick'.

Ween's "Japanese Cowboy" was one of these.

They worked with the legendary Ben Vaughn on 12 Golden Country Greats, who heard the demos and "I don't hear a single here". so Dean & Gene went back to their hotel room and wrote "Japanese Cowboy" in about an hour, subconsciously plagiarizing the Chariots of Fire theme. apparently they didn't even notice until Vangelis sued them (and won, he now has an official writing credit on that song)

given the way singles (and albums) are released these days, i get the feeling that the majors are severely lacking in people who have any idea whatsoever what's likely to be a hit or not

Suede's Trash could work here. The band thought that Beautiful Ones or a couple of other songs could be the lead single from Coming Up, but people at the label thought they still hadn't quite found the song that would work as their big comeback statement. When they later came up with Trash, it was immediately seen as the one.

"Living With A Hernia" from Polka Party! was one of these

Always preferred James Brown's version

Lauryn Hill - Can't Take My Eyes Off You

Smash mouth “all star” and “walking on the sun” both

Kokomo ended up on Still Cruising, but I think they only made the rest of that album after they stumbled into a #1 hit.

Except for the three old songs they tacked on to the end of that album, to bring up the running time to an acceptable 33 minutes. It was my favorite album when I was 8.

re: Free Huey - it's such a shame because Kingsize is more or less a legit good album AND also a couple of tracks too long. Programme-out 'Free Huey' and it's really consistent. I was convinced it was not the case at the time.

Didn't "Love Me Do" come about because George Martin didn't think their songs were strong enough to be singles, and sourced "How do you do it" for their first a-side? He wasn't all that convinced by "Love Me Do" either, but noticed the lack of enthusiasm in their rendering of HDYDI, so went along with it "for now"

― Mark G

lewisohn tells the story a little differently. i don't remember the details precisely, but the writer of "how do you do it" was not in emi's good books by the time of the recording session - there was some sort of financial deal they were going for with the songwriter but it didn't work out, which meant that any incentive they had to release that writer's songs as singles was significantly diminished. "love me do" (which was not a new song, having been recorded with martin at the band's demo session in june with pete best) seemed to martin to at least have some small potential, particularly the novelty of the harmonica.

at the sessions for their next single they brought "please please me" which martin found much more impressive.

Except for the three old songs they tacked on to the end of that album, to bring up the running time to an acceptable 33 minutes. It was my favorite album when I was 8.

― Frederik B, jeudi 16 janvier 2020 11:08 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

eheh. I have to confess I still have a soft spot for "Getcha Back" for that reason !
When I think the first BBoys tracks I loved were that one and "Kokomo"... (the rest came much later, being french, their 60s output was not as part of the global culture as in the US, I guess)...
I think there's a thread about that kind of situations where you only knew very MINOR songs from a band/artist before the big hits.

fred b and i don't always see eye to eye but I love that he, too, dug "still cruisin'" as a kid. "somewhere near japan" and "in my car" are both jams imo.

re: the producer being annoyed about band holding out ---- not to bring anybody down but this has the sound to me of something told as a chuckling, mildly embellished anecdote in a VH1 special and then reported po-facedly in wiki text years down the line. i agree tho that it's better as written.

thread question is a classic ILM puzzler in that i would have sworn i knew fifty of these but, on the spot, can't think of a single example.

also now i have "couldn't get it right" stuck in my head

i'm sure I read this somewhere about Talk Talk's Life's What You Make It. Can't find the source but it's mentioned uncited on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life's_What_You_Make_It_(Talk_Talk_song)#Conception

Same as Boo Radleys- Free Huey, which ruins Kingsize in many ways.
― doorstep jetski (dog latin),

Ah, thanks for the reminder about Kingsize. I think that album is way overdue for a revisit.

Also loving the amount of Weird Al discussion in this thread.

we need a weird al poll

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes)

lewisohn tells the story a little differently. i don't remember the details precisely, but the writer of "how do you do it" was not in emi's good books by the time of the recording session - there was some sort of financial deal they were going for with the songwriter but it didn't work out, which meant that any incentive they had to release that writer's songs as singles was significantly diminished. "love me do" (which was not a new song, having been recorded with martin at the band's demo session in june with pete best) seemed to martin to at least have some small potential, particularly the novelty of the harmonica.

at the sessions for their next single they brought "please please me" which martin found much more impressive.

― revenge of the jawn (rushomancy), Thursday, January 16, 2020 5:36 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is what I remember from Lewisohn's bio, too. The Beatles were essentially signed for their material, so that EMI/Parlophone could own/control some song publishing. The Beatles as recording artists were forced on Martin as punishment for him having an affair with his secretary. I believe Martin still pushed for "How Do You Do It" after "Love Me Do"'s success -- he was sure it would be a #1, and it was later for Gerry And The Pacemakers -- but changed his mind after hearing their new sped-up arrangement of "Please Please Me."

Oh god, Free Huey *is* bad. I can't say this is one of the songs I remember from the album.... it seems like the label asked them for a "Song 2"

Does anyone remember an interview with Lily Allen in '07 or '08, where she said that she didn't like "Take What You Take" from Alright, Still because it was basically pushed on her by producers or label honchos as a peppier potential single? At least she prevailed in regards to single selection (it didn't get slated as one).

Kingsize is indeed a great album, possibly their best IMO. Think I'm the only person who likes Free Huey

xxpost My recollection of the Boston s/t story (from the liner notes of the 2006 remaster) was that Tom presented the album completed to the label. The label, knowing they were recorded in his basement, insisted they were demos, and told him he had to rerecord it in a studio. Tom refused, saying (correctly) that the sound quality was already comparable to what he would get out of studio recording. I don't recall if it was a compromise, or if it was a decoy as suggested by Tarfumes, but the only song they actually recorded in LA was "Let Me Take You Home Tonight," which was the one song on the album Scholz did not have a writing credit on. And they didn't record the whole song, iirc: the electric guitars were recorded in Scholz's basement, and Tom himself did not attend the LA sessions.

This is what I remember from Lewisohn's bio, too. The Beatles were essentially signed for their material, so that EMI/Parlophone could own/control some song publishing. The Beatles as recording artists were forced on Martin as punishment for him having an affair with his secretary. I believe Martin still pushed for "How Do You Do It" after "Love Me Do"'s success -- he was sure it would be a #1, and it was later for Gerry And The Pacemakers -- but changed his mind after hearing their new sped-up arrangement of "Please Please Me."

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat)

right, yeah, that played into it too - that's what i enjoyed about lewisohn's bio, he pushes past all the polite half-truths and reading it honestly gave me a new respect for causality. the actual story of how the beatles got to a point where they could record "please please me" is even more interesting and god-plays-dice-with-the-universe than all that stuff about george martin's tie is!

A large chunk. of the Boo Radleys' single tracks sound forced and out of place on the albums I think. It's Lulu is ghastly. What's In The Box and C'mon Kids are irritating attempts at punky fun times but just come off shrill and unimaginative compared to the rest of the album

i just read about that Martin affair elsewhere; apparently Giles Martin won't speak to him

(him being Lewinsohn)

All in the same vein. All horrible. All break up the flow of the album.

― doorstep jetski (dog latin)

wait hold on, did you just say "sweet johnny" was 'horrible'?

right, yeah, that played into it too - that's what i enjoyed about lewisohn's bio, he pushes past all the polite half-truths and reading it honestly gave me a new respect for causality. the actual story of how the beatles got to a point where they could record "please please me" is even more interesting and god-plays-dice-with-the-universe than all that stuff about george martin's tie is!

― revenge of the jawn (rushomancy), Thursday, January 16, 2020 8:48 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

otm. "I heard them, and they were a mediocre band, but funny as people, so I signed them!" isn't an amazing story, and also makes absolutely no sense whatsoever: one of the largest recording companies in the world doesn't sign untested artists because they joked about someone's tie.

I heard that "Laura" by Bat For Lashes was one of these.

The first PIL album, Warner USA didn't hear any hits so refused to release it unless the band rerecorded it.

So, they did. But nothing has been heard apart from the new "Fodderstompf" which became the b-side of the "Death Disco" 12"

And obv, WB didn't release the album. They did go for "Metal Box" though.

All in the same vein. All horrible. All break up the flow of the album.

― doorstep jetski (dog latin)

wait hold on, did you just say "sweet johnny" was 'horrible'?

― revenge of the jawn (rushomancy)

I love Sweet Johnny. Poodle Rockin' too. Mow The Lawn is bad though, although that album in general isn't up to much.

A large chunk. of the Boo Radleys' single tracks sound forced and out of place on the albums I think. It's Lulu is ghastly. What's In The Box and C'mon Kids are irritating attempts at punky fun times but just come off shrill and unimaginative compared to the rest of the album

― doorstep jetski (dog latin)

I do like It's Lulu. Find The Answer Within however is the worst song on Wake Up and I'm not surprised it killed the album campaign. Reaching Out From Here, Twinside or Stuck On Amber would have been much stronger singles. What's In The Box is great. It was the song that really changed my mind about them. I can see what you're saying about the title track, but What's In The Box is much more imaginative IMO.

As for Kingsize, I remember reading that Martin first approached the label with The Future Is Now and saw it as the lead single (Alan McGee hated it and said they were barely writing B-sides, he also hated Wake Up). Great song, but it wouldn't have worked as single. That album is filled with songs that sounded like hits, but it did feel too late. I'm not sure that songs as commercial as Comb Your Hair or Eurostar would have done anything. Didn't Martin say he couldn't stand the thought of Comb Your Hair becoming a single? Agree with the Free Huey comments. Such a terrible misfire. In the sleevenotes for their best of, Martin defends it and says, "it still sounds like a hit to me".

Sweet Johnny and Poddle Rockin' are great, even if they are forced single attempts. Mow The Lawn is bit less so, formula a bit tired by then though.

I read some horrible article in Shiding recently which goes by the idea that they were pop sellouts after John Lawrence left, becoming "the Euros Childs show" afterwards, which is kind of laughable

^ particularly when you consider when the lead single from the follow-up full-length album was the incredibly great Stood On Gold written and sung by Richard James
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah5FpgT6N4E

He left after Gorky 5 didn't he? The next three albums are so lovely. I wouldn't exactly call The Blue Trees a pop sellout album in any way.

Lawrence is on Spanish Dance Troupe but he doesn't contribute any songs, or they weren't included in the final tracklisting. That article says that he quit over the recording of Poodle Rockin' being included. I remember it being mentioned being in live reviews of gigs not long after Gorky 5 was released, prior to him leaving

Poodlen rocken

"songs that inspired a band member to quit" would be another good topic

That could be Russell Senior with Pulp's Help The Aged

it's true that i don't like the post-gorky 5 stuff nearly as much as the lawrence-era stuff but calling euros childs a "pop sellout" is, uh, a fairly severe mischaracterization of the man i'd say

shame that the "hush the warmth" single never came out - there's a nice cover of richard thompson's "poor ditching boy" that was intended as a b-side. that could be another thread, b-sides the label didn't release because they pulled the single... i know ultrasound originally recorded "goodbye 25" as a b-side to something or another but that single was never released.

B-sides they didn't release because the label pulled the release?

"Superintendent" and "Tomorrow (from Bugsy Malone") from the last Boo Radleys single "Kingsize" - I had to visit MVE daily until I got the promo!

Lauryn Hill - Can't Take My Eyes Off You

― fetter, Wednesday, January 15, 2020 3:32 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

nope, it was previously recorded for the movie Conspiracy Theory then became a radio hit that summer before the album's release. they tacked it onto the end of Miseducation because it was already a currently popular song of hers

“Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” reached No. 2 on the Billboard Rhythmic Songs chart despite never officially being pushed to radio. According to Williams, it was never meant to be a commercial single.

“It was originally recorded for [the soundtrack for the movie] Conspiracy Theory and ended up on the radio, became popular, and that’s how it ended became a bonus track,” Williams explained.

I read some horrible article in Shiding recently which goes by the idea that they were pop sellouts after John Lawrence left, becoming "the Euros Childs show" afterwards, which is kind of laughable
― PaulTMA, Friday, January 17, 2020 10:02 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Don't know about "pop sellouts" (wrong decade), but they certainly took a sharp right turn around that time.
"Euros Childs show" is understandable, though basically amounts to giving JL all the credit for their previous David Bedford-inspired lunacy which strikes me as dubious (but I wouldn't know).

I’m straining to imagine a world where Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci was ever considered anything like a commercial proposition.

The 90s really were a long time ago, weren’t they?

Patio song got a fair bit of daytime radio play

Funnily I just happened upon a Netflix documentary about Clive Davis where they tell exactly this anecdote about Clive "not hearing any singles" from Bruce, and Bruce therefore obligingly going off to write "Blinded by the Light" AND "Spirits in the Night."

The implication being, of course, that Springsteen is apparently a talented enough songwriter to quickly write songs of the quality of "Blinded by the Light" and "Spirits in the Night," sure, BUT the true visionary genius in this story is the pudgy bald guy in a suit who told him to do it.

"and then old Clive Davis said he surely gonna make us a star, he gonna make us a star"

If Gorky's didn't refuse to play the double-formatting game, then most of their singles from Patio Song onwards would have made the top 40 with ease.

There was a little story about the Commodores on Decades last night, and they said "Brick House" was sort of one of these (producer told them they needed one more song).

Mac Demarco - "Let Her Go" is one of these

superdrag - "do the vampire"

p sad that "Living With A Hernia" appeased them - worst song on the album and possibly Al's all-time worst single

You can go straight to hell.

i will admit that after listening to the album again it rose a bit in my estimation, there's some good lyrics. i'd have to look thru his singles discography to see what could go below it tho.

This thread title makes it sound like the label got fed up with the band and recorded the hit single themselves, incognito

While on tour in 1968, the band (Ohio Express) found out they had a new single, "Chewy Chewy" when they heard it on the radio and had to deal with fans yelling for a song they didn't know at their concert that night.

Heat of the Moment by Asia!

“It was an afterthought,” Downes told Prog in a new interview. “We were going to lead off with ‘Only Time Will Tell,’ but the label said, ‘Do you have anything else?’ So John [Wetton] and I came up with ‘Heat of the Moment’ in one morning. Literally, the bones of the song were written in maybe a couple of hours.”

checks out