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

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Ah ha

Terrycoth Baphomet (bendy), Thursday, 13 April 2023 21:23 (one year ago) link

one month passes...

Looks like the most listened-to Anthrax song on Spotify is "Madhouse", apparently due to being on the soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It has 53 million plays, about a 15-million play edge over #2, their cover of "Got the Time" by Joe Jackson.

The song I expected to #1 by a long way, their version of "Bring the Noise" with Public Enemy (which was on the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 soundtrack), is #4, with 27 million plays.

Their highest-charting U.S. single, "Only", is somewhere around the bottom of the top 10, with only (haha) about 7 million plays.

Kinda weird.

JRN, Wednesday, 24 May 2023 19:15 (eleven months ago) link

Anthrax is a weird one. I mostly associate them with “I’m the Man” which wasn’t a hit but a song everyone knew. And the only video I remember was for Indians, which kinda sucks.

INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Wednesday, 24 May 2023 19:56 (eleven months ago) link

three weeks pass...

"Me & Magdalena" is the 3rd biggest Monkees track on Spotify.

I mean, there's no way that happened because people actively chose to listen to it.

In my Spotify ignorance, how popular are Spotify-generated playlists? And do record labels push Spotify to put focus tracks on their Playlist?

If something like "Me and Magdalena" ends up as the 3rd most played Monkees song, the you really can't use those play counts to determine actual popularity.

Hideous Lump, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 06:04 (ten months ago) link

Okay, “Me and Magdalena” is a fine song but really.

Holly Godarkbloom (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 20 June 2023 06:18 (ten months ago) link

Is it being used in a sped up version for a tiktok meme?

Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 06:52 (ten months ago) link

I think the top playlist for many artists wouldn't be a specific playlist but the "radio" playlists/auto-play

corrs unplugged, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 06:55 (ten months ago) link

Is it being used in a sped up version for a tiktok meme?
haha a key question indeed

corrs unplugged, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 06:55 (ten months ago) link

Bowie's been mentioned: most of his signature songs didn't chart as well as you'd expect (and lots of huge hits have all but vanished from popular memory).

His second most-played song on Spotify is "Starman" (#10 UK, #65 US), the third-most played is "Heroes" (a borderline flop that actually hit most of its chart peaks in 2016 after Bowie died), then there's "Rebel Rebel" (#5 UK, #64 US), "Space Oddity" (#1 UK, but with a complicated release history, hitting its high-water mark five years after it first appeared), and "Moonage Daydream" (never released as a single, at least not under the Bowie name).

Not present are "Dancing in the Streets" (#1 UK, #7 US), "China Girl" (#2 UK, #10 US) "Ashes to Ashes" (#1 UK), "Fame" (#17 UK, #1 US), "The Jean Genie" (#2 UK, #71 US), "Golden Years" (#8 UK, #10 US), "Blue Jean" (#6 UK, #8 US).

(His most-played song by a huge margin is "Under Pressure", which I'm ignoring because of crosstalk with the Queen name/brand).

Coagulopath, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 07:37 (ten months ago) link

And for what it's worth "Breathe"/"Firestarter"/"SMBU" are all basically neck and neck on Spotify.

Coagulopath, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 07:39 (ten months ago) link

I mean, there's no way that happened because people actively chose to listen to it.

I get the impression there's plenty of genuine affection for the song. eg. there was a live cover of it on an TV program recently on my side of the world, in a segment that leans towards to safe, tasteful choices, if not outright 'standards'.

Nag! Nag! Nag!, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 09:03 (ten months ago) link

In my Spotify ignorance, how popular are Spotify-generated playlists? And do record labels push Spotify to put focus tracks on their Playlist?

It isn't so much that people explicit choose to play Spotify playlists, but like with YouTube videos, after your actively user-picked song ends, the service automatically continues playing more songs in roughly the same style - labels pay Spotify/Tidal/Apple/Google/etc to have their songs inserted in those queues, and well-promoted artists can rack up huge streaming numbers that way. I mean, this also happened in the old days where labels pushed their stuff onto radio so it's nothing new.

Essentially streaming stats are a combination of the old sales charts and airplay charts. Only the streaming sites themselves know how the numbers break down of course.

Siegbran, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 09:30 (ten months ago) link

The fourth highest played track on Spotify by the Lovin' Spoonful is "(Till I) Run With You", the sorta title track from their post-Sebastian album.

Essentially streaming stats are a combination of the old sales charts

if you remove all aspects of sales and remuneration

serving bundt (sic), Tuesday, 20 June 2023 16:50 (ten months ago) link

xpost Used in a tv show last year, I guess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjfbZtP9uHU

INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Tuesday, 20 June 2023 16:52 (ten months ago) link

streaming stats are a different animal entirely because, to my understanding, it's the total number of times a song's been played since the day the streaming service started tracking streams. maybe some of the services reset or baseline the numbers occasionally, but I haven't heard of it

so sales charts tracking how many copies an album's sold since the day it was released might be a point of comparison, but that's still off. radio charts are plays per what, a week/month/year, and nearly all songs that were released as singles?

mh, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 17:00 (ten months ago) link

I mean a combination of sales as in, something activey initiated by the listener, and airplay as in, something pushed onto the listener.

Siegbran, Tuesday, 20 June 2023 21:45 (ten months ago) link

a really cool spotify mod/feature would be if you could change the default artist view from highlighting most streamed songs to highlighting "best" songs, as in, songs preferred by fans most acquainted with said artists catalog (or smth)

corrs unplugged, Wednesday, 21 June 2023 07:24 (ten months ago) link

two weeks pass...

with over 62m streams "when the sun hits" is slowdive's biggest song on spotify, beating "alison" handily.

meg white's superior technique. (Austin), Friday, 7 July 2023 02:57 (nine months ago) link

Not sure that counts, as such. Slowdive never had any hits. More than 99% of people would never have heard of them, and of those (like me) who are/were fans, I don't think many would be able to confidently say "*this* is their biggest tune" about any of them. I would have had absolutely no idea what the number one would have been.

Nasty, Brutish & Short, Sunday, 9 July 2023 21:02 (nine months ago) link

Strangely enough it seems Renegade is the big audience favourite rather than Come Sail Away or Mr Roboto or whatever, certainly at the Northern Wisconsin State Fairgrounds.

Read this with disbelief and went straight to Apple Music, where, indeed, Renegade is Styx's most streamed song! What on earth? I wouldn't have guessed it was in the top 5.

Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 18 July 2023 22:03 (nine months ago) link

(oh sorry that post is from the Kansas thread, not this one)

Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 18 July 2023 22:03 (nine months ago) link

"Renegade" was/is a huge Classic Rock radio staple, mainly because it's one of the only big Styx songs in hat actually rocks out.

The opening lines are like the definition of Classic Rock

It hits this spot right in the middle of Queen and Bon Jovi

Honestly yeah the inbred-looking extended family of Wisconsonites in the row in front of us all went "yissss!", pumped their fists and began filming on their phones when Tommy Shaw sang the opening lines.

I fell asleep at kabuki (Matt #2), Tuesday, 18 July 2023 23:45 (nine months ago) link

Also the 3rd best utilization of Styx on Freaks and Geeks.

Tony Bennett's top Spotify track is his duet w/Amy Winehouse on "Body and Soul".

https://i.imgur.com/gmco70l.jpg

Alba, Friday, 21 July 2023 14:48 (nine months ago) link

lol

"Entourage" star Tony Bennett dies at 96.

Yeah, for most people with a detectable pulse, he is the guy who did duets with Lady Gaga and Billy Joel and he may have been in an Austin Powers movie. Sorry.

Exit, pursued by a beer (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 21 July 2023 15:23 (nine months ago) link

Interestingly enough, the 2nd biggest Bennett track on Spotify is a version of "The Way You Look Tonight" from a 2012 rarities collection, a recording I assume blew up because of a movie/tv synch or something.

^^My Best Friend's Wedding

This is a funny one: "Let's Twist Again" is Chubby Checker's top Spotify song, beating "The Twist" by around 40 million spins.

you can only Twist once, but you can Twist Again many times

frogbs, Monday, 24 July 2023 03:09 (nine months ago) link

“The Twist” plays are vote-split btw the Checker, Fat Boys, and Hank Ballard & The Midnighters versions.

Empty Tushy Fills (morrisp), Monday, 24 July 2023 03:34 (nine months ago) link

is this a safe space to admit that i actually really love the Fat Boys version

frogbs, Monday, 24 July 2023 03:37 (nine months ago) link

Am I right that "Let's Twist Again" was technically the bigger hit, by some metrics? It's certainly the one I heard more as an oldie growing up.

got it in the blood, the kid's a pelican (Doctor Casino), Monday, 24 July 2023 03:49 (nine months ago) link

Seems it was in the UK.

Empty Tushy Fills (morrisp), Monday, 24 July 2023 03:56 (nine months ago) link

It's certainly the one I heard more as an oldie growing up.

Same here, going back to the days when they had to play those tracks off tapes because they weren't on CD yet.

I can even remember a period when the local station would only play "Let's Twist Again" and "Limbo Rock" from him.

four months pass...

Bread

Their biggest hits were "Make It With You" (#1) and "Baby I'm-a-Want You" (#3) but "Everything I Own" (#5) is their most streamed song by a 28 million stream margin.

Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Monday, 27 November 2023 21:17 (five months ago) link

And yet, the first two get played on Sirius's Yacht Rock station constantly, and I've never heard the last one there (or anywhere else, really)

active spectator of ecocide and dispossession (Eric H.), Monday, 27 November 2023 21:37 (five months ago) link

The Ken Boothe and Boy George cover versions were huge in the UK though

groovypanda, Tuesday, 28 November 2023 10:35 (five months ago) link

Goldfinger's "Superman" is by far their biggest song and definitely their legacy song (Thanks to THPS) even though "Here in you bedroom" I think was their biggest hot at the time.

husked, tonal wails (irrational), Tuesday, 28 November 2023 16:51 (five months ago) link

on further reading, I see they were mentioned already, forgot to see all messages before I did my ctrl - F

husked, tonal wails (irrational), Tuesday, 28 November 2023 19:22 (five months ago) link

Do Metallica belong here now, post Stranger Things?

chap, Wednesday, 29 November 2023 00:15 (five months ago) link

That’s an odd case, since MoP was a legacy song before they started having hits.

Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Wednesday, 29 November 2023 00:17 (five months ago) link


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