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

xp it was also featured v prominently in bend it like beckham (2002)

Not sure if we mentioned this but Public Enemy’s top Spotify track, with 50 million streams, double that of “Fight the Power” is some song from 2007 that seemingly gets used in sports docs or something

Not mentioning the title because I wonder if anyone knows it without looking it up

I don't know it and I don't use Spotify. Do tell.

Their #2 track is also surprising to a lesser degree.

Wow

Not that Low has hits but I would not have guessed their most popular song on Spotify and YouTube would be Lullaby, a track off their first LP. On YouTube it is particularly popular with people from Turkey ... to the tune of 17 million views.

ffs, tell me what it is! i don't use spotify!

sorry, xpost re: pe

Not sure if we mentioned this but Public Enemy’s top Spotify track, with 50 million streams, double that of “Fight the Power” is some song from 2007 that seemingly gets used in sports docs or something

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Monday, June 1, 2020 10:50 AM (two hours ago)

I don't know if they've been mentioned already but Public Enemy biggest song on Spotify is "Harder Than You Think"... I don't even know that song !
And their biggest hit is "Give It Up" apparently.

― AlXTC from Paris, Tuesday, October 23, 2018 8:02 PM

ahh! didn't recognize it by title, but i youtubed it just now and yeah: i actually remember this. it's decent, especially for newer pe.

also i remember 'give it up' being stupid popular summer of '94. wouldn't surprise me one bit if it's their biggest chart hit. i bought the cd single.

“Harder Than You Think” was the theme tune to the UK TV coverage of the 2012 Paralympics in London, and went to #4 on the pop charts on the strength of it. That Shirley Bassey sample was unavoidable for a few weeks.

I guess it’s only a matter of days until NWA’s « Fuck Tha Police » becomes their most popular song on Spotify (150 million against 180 million for their biggest hit « Straight Outta Compton ».

This is only tangentially related to the thread topic, but in the US the amount of actual classics from the catalogue of Sweet available on the service is seemingly so low that the "This Is Sweet" playlist includes several numbers from a 2012 covers album, including renditions of title track "New York Groove" (I can see it...), "Blitzkrieg Bop" (yeah...), and "Gold On The Ceiling" (!?!?!?).

Huh, why does a 2012 Elvis Costello song called “She” have more than double the Spotify streams of any of his other songs?

I think it's because it was on the Notting Hill soundtrack.

Oh I see it’s actually from 1999 and in a film with Hugh Grant

Weird. Frederik Ulling's recording "Klavierstuck V, Work No. 4" is the most-played Stockhausen piece on Spotify, with over six times as many plays as Kontakte. None of the other Klavierstucke make the top 10.

*recording of

Surprisingly, Whitney Houston’s biggest song on Spotify is not « I will always love you » but «  I wanna dance with somebody » although IWALY is by far her biggest hit.

I bet “Dance” appears a lot more often in ‘80s pop playlists, etc.

"Dance" is a millennial-approved '80s Jam.

"dance" gets played way more on the radio these days. the style/era of r&b balladry that "love" embodies is one that today's classic hits stations have been hesitant to acknowledge.

That doesn’t surprise me at all. IWDWS(WLM) has crossed over massively to millennials and Gen Z (in the UK at least) and it’s probably the most widely loved of all 80s floor-fillers.

This speaks generally to the fact that nostalgic playing seems to be focused on upbeat numbers maybe for dancefloor reasons, leaving ballads, however huge, to be forgotten, and hearkens back to the very beginning of this thread where Journey was mentioned -- who now remembers "Open Arms"? Their highest-charting single.

Pearl Jam's top two songs on Spotify are "Alive" and "Even Flow" neither of which charted in the US. "Last Kiss" reached #2 and even "Spin the Black Circle" made the top 40 in the 90s. (Which wow: both "Jeremy" and "Daughter" were unavoidable top 40 hits in Canada at the time;"Spin" did not chart and I barely even remember it.)

OK, both of those top 2 songs made the mainstream rock and alternative charts but were not their highest charting singles even on those charts.

Pearl Jam's chart stats are weird because most of their big ones did not have domestic physical single releases at the time they were big - for example "Jeremy" didn't get one until 1995 (and still charted!). The genre charts give a better picture, being airplay-based, than the Hot 100.

"Spin..." did get a physical release, and came out before Vitalogy, so there was a lot of interest. "Last Kiss" was a weird case of a charity single that also did crossover and reach a ton of cash-flush suburban teens of '99... if anything it belongs with like My Ding-a-Ling and so on --- "you'd be shocked to realize this now-forgotten song was technically their biggest hit!"

"Last Kiss" also had a big radio push after the Columbine shooting.

Weird. Frederik Ulling's recording "Klavierstuck V, Work No. 4" is the most-played Stockhausen piece on Spotify, with over six times as many plays as Kontakte. None of the other Klavierstucke make the top 10.

LOL I've got this. Fredrik Ullén btw. And it's on a CD with IX and Kontakte. Could someone have used in a film? Seems unlikely. Or (LOL) an advert.

I don't think "Last Kiss" is forgotten, though? It's their #5 song on Spotify and lots of younger people know it in my anecdotal music teaching experience.xp

color me pleasantly surprised that the youth know that song! i feel like i haven't heard it "in the wild" since the year 2000.

But that explains a lot re Pearl Jam. Someone probably explained that to me before but I forgot.xp

And sorry for getting Fredrik Ullén's name wrong. We should get to the bottom of this, though.

I’m youngish and am currently listening to Last Kiss for the first time ever

Pearl Jam's top two songs on Spotify are "Alive" and "Even Flow" neither of which charted in the US. "Last Kiss" reached #2 and even "Spin the Black Circle" made the top 40 in the 90s. (Which wow: both "Jeremy" and "Daughter" were unavoidable top 40 hits in Canada at the time;"Spin" did not chart and I barely even remember it.)

To me this shows the weaknesses of relying on chart position: as a guy who lived through the 90s as a US guy listening to music, "Alive", "Jeremy," and "Evenflow" and possibly to a lesser extent "Daughter" and "Betterman" were the canonical defining Pearl Jam songs always. xp Doctor Casino has the right take I think, I certainly remember radio ubiquity of "Last Kiss" in 99 (and it's a great song) but it was never seen as core to their work

Hm, OK, I like "Evenflow" but it never seemed like a crossover hit to me in the 90s, although it's the one I always hear on classic rock radio now. "Daughter" and "Jeremy", otoh, would have been known even to non-alternative listeners, at least here. I thought comparing the charts to the legacy was part of the point of the thread, though? "Don't Stop Believin'" was never obscure or minor, I don't think?

90s charts are pretty unrepresentative tho, given the move away from physical singles. Those first three PJ videos were massive on MTV. I doubt Last KISS even had a video.

Airplay charts don't make a stronger case for "Alive" as their biggest hit. If Wikipedia is right, "Alive" peaked at 16 and 21 on the mainstream rock and alternative rock airplay charts, respectively. "Daughter" topped both (which seems consistent with what I remember).

re: Last Kiss, one wishes their other charity compilation cover of a 60s collector's item had done as well. From Music For Our Mother Ocean, the surfer comedy "Gremmie Out of Control":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ1wLIiv4Cc

Cowabunga!

Is Stockhausen's "Klavierstuck V" on there too by any chance?

lol

Silverchair made an attempt, but the label wasn't feeling it and made them go with "Surfin' Bird."

i still hear "last kiss" every now and again

the interesting thing about pearl jam's physical singles (in the us) is that the reason they were released at all was because "yellow ledbetter" ended up getting a lot of unsolicited airplay at alternative stations in 1994 and 1995. that song wasn't available to buy except as the b-side on the "jeremy" single that was released internationally, which consequently became a hot item as an import. stock of the import dried up before demand for "ledbetter" abated, so pearl jam's label finally decided to release the retail singles that had been available internationally stateside (not just "jeremy," but also basically all the hits from ten and vs.). this is why pearl jam's hot 100 stats in the 90s look so weird, with multilple of their hits not even charting until years after they were first popular

riiiiiiiiight! i knew there was something about imports and b-sides involved but totally forgot it was "yellow ledbetter" --- which probably still gets more airplay than many of the above-mentioned songs.

I don’t even know what “Last Kiss” is (and faintly remember “Spin the Black Circle”), but I saw the videos for those older songs a hundred billion times in high school. I’m not surprised those would be the ones with cultural staying power.

The Billboard Airplay charts should be used to measure how popular a song was in the ‘90s. Fuck a Hot 100.

Tbc, I think "Alive" > "Daughter"/"Jeremy" is more significant than "Alive" > "Last Kiss". xp As shown by airplay charts, yes, exactly.

Yeah, “Daughter” is the big & forever PJ song in my mind.

Anyway, I think we’ve established ITT that Spotify’s rankings seem to heavily reflect playlist inclusion and possibly other algorithm triggers that don’t necessarily reflect listener “choice”? I’d be interested to see the top PJ songs on Apple Music or Tidal.