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

I had to clip that VW ad out of my post. That campaign reignited interest in loads of songs: "Mr. Roboto"; "Pink Moon", "Da Da Da"...

"Four Horsemen" by Aphrodite's Child has just turned up in a car advert over here.

John Mayer's top track is the 2018 single "New Light", which has more than 40 million spins than his #2 track...the live "Free Fallin'" cover (which itself is 22 million ahead of "Your Body Is A Wonderland").

Huh

In Mexico, the song reached number 1 and was the second best selling-single of 2018.

The biggest song on Spotify for Hall&Oates is "You Make My Dreams" (560 million), far ahead of "Rich Girl" (only 300 million), and it wasn't even one of their #1 hits (only #5).

it’s a long-standing thing apparently, this is from 2010 upthread: q]I'm not sure it's their "legacy song," but Hall and Oates's "You Make My Dreams" is their best seller on iTunes.

As some dude noted on the H&O thread:

it's weird, i never heard that song a lot in the past or thought of it as one of their signature hits, but in the past two years it's picked up some kind of zeitgeist appearing in so much different stuff (that Days of Summer movie and the keyboard cat clip upthread, Step Brothers, episodes of Glee and The Office, etc.).

― Zsa Zsa Gay Bar (jaymc), woensdag 29 december 2010 22:44[/q\

(so much for my formatting skills while in public transport)

This is probably more a matter of me being inattentive in 1992 but I'm impressed that Pale Saints' non-album cover of "Kinky Love" is an order of magnitude more popular on Spotify than every other PS track bar "Sight of You". (Which at least has about 1/2 as many million plays as the former.)

xpost ah thanks, I tried to cmd+F "Oates" here but didn't find that song.
And yeah, I like H&O a lot but I wasn't even familiar with that song, hence the surprise to find it's their biggest song now !

Weird I don't think I even know "You Make My Dreams". Except for "Out of Touch", I can instantly recall every song in the rest of the H&O top 10 on Spotify.

I feel like I hear it all the time somehow (and never intentionally (though it’s a good song))

every time this comes up i'm so shocked to think of ppl not knowing YMMD and loving it with all their hearts, and then i remember it's one i didn't really notice or dive into until like 2007 when i heard it once in a pizza place and became obsessed.

It feels like YmMD and Can’t go for that would be their most generation spanning songs

You Make My Dreams is kind of nondescript, which might account for its popularity. Could be by any number of acts really, unlike Maneater, Private Eyes et al which couldn't be by anyone else.

I think it appeared in The Wedding Singer, the most high profile usage of it I can remember.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2VGpqq2-I8

Those songs are all good. My favs are "Rich Girl" and "Private Eyes."

"Private Eyes" was definitely on my "fav song" playlist as an 8 year old. cos at the time i thought it was about cops

I always assumed part of "You Make My Dreams Come True"'s current appeal, is people realizing that it was clearly the basis for the theme song to Ducktales.

lol

I assume that H&O were reading Faraday’s Chemical History of the Candle when they wrote YMMD

OK, I listened to it and it sounds pretty generic so I'm sure I did hear it and didn't register it. (If it's in 500 Days of Summer, then I have heard it at least twice.)

Idk why this would be more popular than the rest of those singles, which are p much all great, but eh.

really sounds like an Elton John song imo

If it's in 500 Days of Summer

See my YouTube just upthread...

Oh, I did. Weirdly, I had no memory of the song, though, despite having seen the movie twice.

Apparently it’s the official song of the Toronto Maple Leafs (this reporter sounds dubious about it as well):

If you're coming to the Scotiabank Arena to watch the Maple Leafs play, you'd better like Hall and Oates.

For whatever reason, the Leafs game operations people have chosen the "You Make My Dreams Come True" -- the ear-worm hit from the 1980s duo -- as the team's goal song.

And if Friday's exhibition game against Detroit -- a 6-2 Toronto win -- is any indication, you're going to hear that song a lot.

The most-played Royal Trux song on Spotify (by far) is an Aerial P1nk remix of a song from their 2019 reunion album... kind of depressing.

haha as opposed to eras and formats in which royal trux album cuts were broad popular favourites?? cmon of course something like that is going to be top of their chart

I don't think morris is depressed that Twin Infinitives isn't huge among the maga / attempted insurrection fanbase

whew!!

Duran Duran’s biggest chart hit “The Reflex” has fallen by the wayside a bit. It’s about their 7th most streamed track. Insert ragged tiger joke.

highest (US) chart peak - but was it ever their "biggest hit?" like in terms of time spent on the charts etc.

put another way, even getting to know these songs from radio in the 90s, at that point "Rio" and "Hungry Like the Wolf" had already been cemented as their legacy songs, so i guess i'd be surprised to learn that "The Reflex" had a more robust showing originally. but it'd be interesting! cause in that case the shift would majorly predate iTunes, Spotify etc.

I think the shift definitely predated the streaming era - the Rio singles got regular play on my local radio stations in the 90s but I never heard the Ragged Tiger singles until buying the albums. If Ragged Tiger charted higher/sold more, it's a New Jersey

In more recent years, I do hear "The Reflex" on 80s playlists/stations, but Duran has a stronger rep nowadays and has been more thoroughly canonized imo

Ragged Tiger was totally a New Jersey

I just found out the most played track on Spotify for The Beach Boys is "Wouldn't it be nice" (320M) far ahead of "Good Vibrations" (250M) then "Surfin USA" (170M) while they had 12 songs that charted higher than "WIBN".

"WIBN" has been in a whole lot of movies, hasn't it?

it’s also the first track on their most famous album, and first tracks are always boosted on spotify

Yeah I thought about the first track explanation but still it's a very minor hit for them and I'm sure many people who only know the mainstream hits don't even know that song (at least in France) !

It's been used a lot in American films and TV, to the point of being iconic.

The earlier surf rock stuff has mostly fallen off oldies playlists ime.

oh ok. So it perfectly fits this thread then !

Yeah, it was a great example.

it's also one of their best songs, imo an example of the cream rising to the top. which is definitely not true of many of the entries on this thread

Why is "Man Of Oil" the second most played Animal Collective song on Spotify?

I dont like how much i care about it, but last year i heard this one hipster artsy girl at work likes animal collective, i got super hyped, and then i finally get to talk to her about it and shes like “yeah man of oil is a beautiful song” or some shit, and thats all shes heard, it was a little let down but still she likes anco.

Few months later i go to an anco concert and meet another hipster artsy girl and ask her about anco and she says the same thing as the other girl, “love man of oil, havent heard any of there other stuff”, and thats when i start to think “why the fuck is man of oil specifically getting around to all these hipster girls”, turns out she knows the girl i work with, crazy enough, so it makes a little more sense.

THEN few months later my hipster friends like “lets put on some animal collective!”... she puts on “man of oil”... “this ones great”...

My best guess is they all heard it in the “im not like most girls cause i listen to one anco song” playlist. seriously though am i missing something? it confuses the shit out of me annoyingly, why this one anco song seemingly randomly became super popular.

i don't like how much he cares about it either

The 2002 album track "Till I Collapse" is Eminem's second most streamed song on Spotify, just barely below (and gaining on) "Lose Yourself". Googling reveals that it's because it regularly features on popular workout playlists.

I wonder how many other non-singles have reached a billion streams?