Hunh. I paid closer attention to the lyrics and damn if you arn’t right. I LOVE the theme of a guy who is with a perfectly good girl but isnt over another girl.( ill pretend he’s talking to himself and not actually telling his new girl these things)… Love the arrangement but yeah…the other lyrics are just kinda there to make it rhyme and need closer attention.
Huh.
I was into REM and listened to alternative rock stations a lot at the time and for some reason thought REM was pretty popular even then. Just living in my own bubble I guess.
This is probably my favorite REM song.
The first concert I ever went to was by Eddie Money, though it wasn’t exactly the reason I was going and I wasn’t all too familiar with his music other than what I passively heard on the radio. There ended up being some people shouting “Gimme Some Water”, but he didn’t play that song. Maybe Eddie just doesn’t like it all that much.
Higher than, “She Blinded Me with Science”?
You might be onto something there.
Apparently Starlight by the Supermen Lovers never charted in the US.
It should have. It’s rockin’
Also, Change by Daniel Merriweather.
I’m a sucker for a good piano riff…
Hyperactive went to #17, Science to #49, according to Wikipedia. And I hadn’t realized its tangled history. It wasn’t on the UK release of The Golden Age of Wireless.
The album only went to #65 in the U.K. The Flat Earth, containing “Hyperactive,” went to #14. MTV meant everything in those days.
It was when they went “mainstream,” regardless of what the charts looked like. They were part of an industry sector that wasn’t chart bound at that time anyway, and didn’t have that as their realistic desired goal. Fall on me was the break point, where they became the REM of the second and later parts of their career. .
Summer, Highland falls. One of Billy Joel’s best. It wasn’t a hit
Chaz Jankel’s original version of “Ai No Corrida” was poised perfectly to be a huge post-disco dance/new-wave hybrid hit in 1980. Jankel’s song was released in North America and Europe, but charted only in Belgium.
A year later, Quincy Jones’ faithful cover version hit #28 on the US Hot 100.
“Black” was my favorite track on Pearl Jam’s debut “Ten,” but never received airplay. I recall the band said at the time they didn’t want to give that song too much overexposure to “preserve” it for their fans. I am sure if they did a video and made it a single, it would have been fairly big.
Led Zeppelin had only 3-4 singles, and no real chart hits, but a number of songs that are still staples on FM radio. Still “The Rover” off Physical Graffiti is as FM radio-ready as any of their “hits.”
The Beatles had many songs that could have easily been hit singles. “Drive My Car” sounds made for radio, and “For No One” would have been huge too (instead, “Yellow Submarine” was the single off Revolver!). “With a Little Help from My Friends” could have been a #1 for Ringo too.
I don’t know if XTC ever had any promoted released or airplay in America, but “Life Begins at The Hop” a lot of their other songs deserved to be big hits. Indeed, the Clash also deserved recognition for a lot more than “Train in Vain” and their singles from /Combat Rock/. “Rudy Can’t Fail,” “Death or Glory,” or The Right Profile" could have made it. But they obviously were not pursuing hit singles.
Eleven Pond - Watching Trees. Instantly catchy synth pop from a band that was all set to open for Joy Division on their first American tour before Ian Curtis died.
Fred Schneider, like you’ve never heard him before! Bulldozer, from his solo album Just Fred, with members of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet, and Six Finger Satellite.
Pretty much anything by Quintron & Miss Pussycat. They’re kind of like the B-52s crossed with The Cramps. They’re the most fun you’ll ever have at a concert.
I Am the World Trade Center - Metro. Delightful twee-tronica. Having the world’s unluckiest band name probably didn’t help.
Black Tambourine - Throw Aggi off the Bridge. Fuzzed out, barnstorming dream pop.
The Flaming Lips - Frogs. A vertiginous sugar-rush of happiness and effects pedals.
Cocteau Twins - Carolyn’s Fingers. Also Lorelei. Indescribably beautiful perfection.
Most of the songs done by the kinks the were not hits should of been…
what about songs that should not of been hits ilike toosee this thread.
It wasn’t? I remember it being all over top-40 radio in Jan/Feb 1969. (Great song, btw.)
I have no sense of whether this was a big hit, or merely a fair-to-middlin’ hit at the time, but it got airplay then, and continues to do so. (ETA: Looks like this has been discussed a bit in the thread.)
Peter Wolf’s 2002 solo album Sleepless might have spawned a hit or two, but he decided to not release any singles.
Was The Negro Problem’s 1999 track “Repulsion (Show up Late for Work on Monday)” released as a single? In any case, it wasn’t a hit, but should have been.
This detailed articleputs it this way:
“‘Fall On Me’ was released as a single and managed to nose into the bottom ranks of the Hot 100, with an accompanying video that Stipe had shot at a Bloomington quarry, while the album rose all the way to number 21 on Billboard’s album charts–the highest ranking yet for an R.E.M. LP–and became the band’s first record to go gold, taking the band one step further towards mass popularity.”
And, I recall some R.E.M. album liner notes (Eponymous?) describing it as either a “near-hit” or a “near-miss.”
My nominee: Jimmy Buffett’s “The Weather Is Here (I Wish You Were Beautiful)” has been my favorite Buffett song since I heard it >30 years ago. Buffettworld.com has a list of the Buffett singles that have charted, and it’s not listed.
“Senses Working Overtime” was, by default, in rotation in the early days of MTV.
"Mayor of Simpleton" was a minor hit a decade later, and I still hear it sometimes on overhead music channels. And then there's "Dear God", which didn't get a lot of radio airplay outside of college radio due to its controversial content.p.s. I remember hearing “Black” all the time. Maybe it was because I was in college and listened to the free-form college station a lot.
In 1993, a band called the Candy Skins released a terrific album that got extensive airplay on that station. This is the only video I know of from it. Enjoy! (ETA: The song, not the video.)
