There are many more famous B sides that became hits. My favorite is a release by
Cliff Nobles called “Love is All Right”.
For the B-side the record label merely
used the instrumental track from the A side, minus Nobles’ vocals. They called it
“The Horse” and it became a top 5 hit. The song was credited to “Cliff Nobles & Co” although Nobles did not perform on it.
the are many beatles and elvis b sides that are awesome, but one of my all time favorites is ‘hey, hey, what can i do’-led zep
There are lots and lots of stories of B sides becoming the hits. “I Will Survive,” “To Sir with Love.” etc. were B sides. You even had “The Greatest Love of All,” and “Cold Hearted” were B sides that later went on to be issued in their own right and go to number one.
And let’s not forget perhaps the most famous of all “B” hits. The flip side of Handel’s Judas Maccabeus was The Messiah.
Can’t find a reference in a short search, but wasn’t Rudolph a B-side?
I guess space (or attention span) was limited, but Cecil failed to mention that sometimes there is no B-side or the B-side is the same as the A-side. I’ve got an old 45 that’s blank on one side and I’ve seen them where they are identical on both sides (not even remixes). Also, I’ve got a couple of 12 inch singles that play at 33.33 rpm.
This might warrant a new topic, but how do they say whether the B side was the number one hit rather than the A side? Don’t they use record sales to decide this? How do they know I really bought the “Don’t Be Cruel” single because it had “Hound Dog” on it?
Rav
Ditto Ravenous. I’ve been trying to figure that out for decades.
Any guesses out there?