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

Justice!

There's a lot of talk of "This Must Be the Place" upthread, but Talking Heads biggest streaming song by far is "Psycho Killer", which equally fits the theme of the thread since it also wasn't a hit. (Granted, "This Must Be the Place" is #2).

Interestingly (at least to me), their biggest hit in the US was "Burning Down the House", which never was a hit in the UK and their biggest hit in the UK was "Road to Nowhere" which never was a hit in the US. Those are their #4 and #5 most streamed songs, also behind "Once in a Lifetime"

Back in the 80s it felt like "Once in a Lifetime" was their legacy hit, even though BDTH was a bigger hit. MTV played the video quite a bit even years after it came out.

"Road to Nowhere" spent eight weeks on the Mainstream Rock airplay chart, peaking at 25 (at a time when that chart meant more than it does today) but yeah, not Hot 100. That one, "Burning Down...", and "Psycho Killer" were the only songs of theirs I knew growing up.

https://www.billboard.com/artist/talking-heads/chart-history/mrt/

Here's a Spotify stat that surprised me recently. James Brown's most popular song by far, according to Spotify, is "Get Up Offa That Thing", which is not something I would have expected. I would have guessed "I Feel Good", "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", or "Sex Machine" to have led the pack. In fact, "I Feel Good" is surprisingly low for what I would have expected to be the mainstream popular choice for James Brown.

James Brown's music is split between two accounts: a 'solo' page and one for "James Brown & The Famous Flames", where "I Got You (I Feel Good)" is his overall biggest track.

That said, his numbers are probably extra-weird because of that catalogue split and also the shear # of different versions of songs and comps.

Haruomi Hosono's three most popular things now are: the collaborative album Pacific, the Muji BGM tape, and "Sports Man". The first two he doesn't even remember making, the third was hardly a hit at the time

“Psycho Killer” was a sizeable hit (#11) in the Netherlands in 1978, as part of the first wave of new wave/punk hits over here. It also reached the Belgian top 20.
It was a bigger hit than “Once In A Lifetime” in fact. They wouldn’t surpass it until the live version of “Slippery People” went top 10 in 1985 and they became certified hitmakers for the duration of one year.

there are songs that are chart hits but there are also songs that obviously have huge cultural cache. "psycho killer" may not have been a chart hit but it's not exactly weird that it's the talking heads' biggest streaming song. seems like this thread should be focused on songs that don't really fit into either of those categories, or at least that it's not obvious why the song has cultural cache.

I don't know. It fits that thread premise. Didn't we start off talking about stuff like Don't Stop Believin'?

fair enough

I think in the US it was the Stop Making Sense film that solidified several of those Talking Heads songs as de facto hits, even though they weren't initially. A live version of "Once in a Lifetime" was released as a single the year the film came out. "Psycho Killer" was memorable as the first song of the film.

Slightly surprised that "The Road to Nowhere" wasn't a big chart hit since I remember hearing it on the radio a lot. That was the first year I had a drivers license, so the lyrics resonated. I must have been listening to the "Mainstream Rock" stations (for probably the last time).

My AOR station in Miami played "Road to Nowhere," "And She Was," and "Wild Wild Life" well into the early '90s.

That's probably the station I was listening to, since I was living in that area in '85 and in the early '90s

!!!

WSHE 103.5 it woulda been

Yes, and/or WCKO 102.7, aka K-102

No, it must have been WSHE, as Wikipedia says K-102 switched over to an adult contemporary format in March 1985, about six months before "Road to Nowhere" came out.

“Road To Nowhere” was their biggest across the board hit, coming out as it did at their commercial peak, right after Stop Making Sense. It was a top 10 or 20 hit in many countries simultaneously, whereas their other hits were more scattershot in that respect. But no, not in the US. It just missed the Billboard Hot 100.

Your annual reminder that the world is a whole lot bigger than just the US and that those streaming numbers you see on Spotify et al cover the whole world, and not just the country you happen to be in.

I'm not sure "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" would be anywhere near the iconic song it is without the Stop Making Sense version.

I still remember seeing them on SNL in 1979. They seemed kind of menacing. They later became quirky.

I noticed a lot of MLB players using it as walk up music which is kinda lol considering the first line

So, these are all of the 20th-century songs with a billion streams:
1. Queen, "Bohemian Rhapsody" 1.59B
2. Oasis, "Wonderwall" 1.22B
3. Queen, "Don't Stop Now" 1.13B
4. Journey, "Don't Stop Believin'" 1.12B
5. Queen, "Another One Bites the Dust" 1.09B
6. Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" 1.06B
7. Toto, "Africa" 1.06B

― jaymc, Saturday, September 4, 2021 5:34 PM (one month ago)

Congratulations to The Police, who see have just joined this club

― Nature's promise vs. Simple truth (bernard snowy), Monday, October 18, 2021 9:00 PM (four months ago)

I know that “Get Down On It” was a very big hit for Kool & The Gang (deservedly so, it’s one of their best), but I would have never guessed that it’s level-pegging with “Celebration” as their most-streamed song on Spotify, miles ahead of all their other hits. (Get Down has 221.5M, Celeb has 216.6M, "Jungle Boogie" has 74.4M)

Celebration is one of those ubiquitous party/wedding type songs isn't it (and used in countless TV shows) so doesn't seem that surprising (to me anyway)

I think that’s what breastcrawl’s saying – the surprise was at Get Down On It being as highly streamed

that was of course what I’m saying, yes. it’s also what I wrote.

Lol, completely misread your post.

Looking at Tunefind, Get Down On It has certainly enjoyed it's fair share of tv & movie appearances too

The real travesty is that "Too Hot" is not anywhere in the top 10.

I know he's not really a singles artist, but Jack Johnson's most streamed song by far is "Better Together", the fourth single and fourth biggest hit from his 2005 album "In Between Dreams", and his second most streamed song (also by a big margin over #3) is "Banana Pancakes", a non-single from the same album.

#1 on this list I've just arbitrarily googled xp:

https://returnofrock.com/kool-the-gang-songs-ranked/

Guess this new video belongs here, too (we've discussed the song in this thread):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Ww_O3ceKU

When I think of KC and The Sunshine Band, I automatically hear "That's The Way I Like It" or "Get Down Tonight", both huge #1 hits. But his most streamed song by a wide margin is "Give It Up", which only went to #18 on the Billboard chart.

Boogie Shooes (#38) also has more streams than his other #1 hits.

“Give It Up” may not have been that big in the US hit, but it was a huge international hit - #1 in the UK and Ireland and top 5 in Australia, NZ and Belgium, for instance.

as for “Boogie Shoes”: the fact that it’s on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack might go a long way in explaining its enduring relative popularity.

I know he's not really a singles artist, but Jack Johnson's most streamed song by far is "Better Together", the fourth single and fourth biggest hit from his 2005 album "In Between Dreams", and his second most streamed song (also by a big margin over #3) is "Banana Pancakes", a non-single from the same album.

Sunday morning is a primo letting music fill the house time for me, as it should be for everyone. I'm a little embarrassed to type this but I have in the past searched Spotify for "pancakes" to see what comes up when I am, uh, making pancakes. As a result I have been one of the spins for this track. It is not good. I may be projecting but I wonder if a similar sequence has played a not insignificant role in its rise up the Jack Johnson charts.

A friend had a strong 90s gen-x kitsch / nostalgia obsession with KC and the Sunshine Band and bought a greatest hits cd. We knew all the really obvious disco songs but neither of us had any idea that "Give It Up" that we vaguely remembered from our childhood was by the same band until it came on.

"Boogie Shoes" also features prominently in Boogie Nights.

“Get Down On It” is one of my failsafe guaranteed floor fillers, and young people seem to know it well.

"Give It Up" is the KC recurrent I've heard most the last 20 years in South Florida.

Fun fact: I have literally seen KC and the Sunshine Band at a corporate party, 2002

Okay back to the hot takes on Jack Johnson, which is really what I come here for

Well, it's not really a hot take but "Better Together" is about as aggressively mediocre as the rest of his output, but it's currently sitting at over half a billion Spotify streams. What a world.

Noticed a few funny artist listings in Spotify where the top "Popular" song for a vocal artist is a song where they are basically not on the song... Nico's top song is Sunday Morning, which I suppose has become algorithmically useful for mellow morning-themed playlists. Of course there's an alternate universe where Lou let her sing it... Also, Billy Bragg's top song is California Stars, which is a Wilco song, he doesn't sing on it I think (the backing vox don't sound like him to me anyway).

Any others you've seen?

Nico's top 10 is basically the first VU album and two Chelsea Morning songs

It totally makes sense! I was just surprised that it wasn't Femme Fatale or These Days. Also, nice freudian slip, Nico could have done a nice cover of Chelsea Morning (in the style of the Fairport version, right?)

You can't expect someone to be paid to correct little random metadata things like that very consistently. Possibly what should happen would be to designate some super users to submit metadata fixes about things that annoy them in return for a free account or boosting the reach of their profile/playlists. I get the impression the two big metadata problems are the "fake" artists using the same name as existing artists, and algorithmic playlists that have 2 copies of the same song popping up because the 2 identical versions were on two popular releases.

A lot more artists are going to pull their music from Spotify when they find out how racist German models are getting shafted on metadata

gang starr thread made me look them up. "full clip" is number one with 25 million more than work. i know that it was the title of their greatest hits collection, but it never charted, even on the rap songs. i wouldn't have expected it to be that much more popular than "work" or "mass appeal" or "you know my steez"

*rap songs chart

seems like Soliloquy would be up there, too

Gang Starr is an interesting one. They never had a big hit--their only two singles that made the US pop charts were "Mass Appeal" and "You Know My Steez" but neither hit top 40. Their only #1 rap single was "Take It Personal." But they have a bunch of iconic singles: "DWYCK" "Above the Clouds" "Work" "Just to Get a Rep" "Ex Girl to the Next Girl" "Step in the Arena." I'm not sure why "Full Clip" is so far ahead of the others.

it really might be a result of it being the first rack on the best of.