Brian Wilson’s “Caroline No” is almost never mentioned in discussions of Pet Sounds. It’s an outlier on the album, so much so that when it got released as a single it was credited to Brian Wilson instead of the Beach Boys. But it’s a gorgeous and haunting track.
Yeah, “Levee” is one of the many “hits” from LZ IV. It’s certainly not undiscovered. I’m not sure what the most played track on that album is (and I actually don’t think it’s Stairway), but it’s one of the usual spins along with Rock & Roll, Black Dog, and Misty Mountain Hop. The more “sleepers” on that album are Four Sticks for sure, and probably Battle of Evermore, though every song on that album gets played on the classic radio stations here.
How well known is “Before They Make Me Run” from Some Girls? I’m only a casual Rolling Stones listener, and I know that it’s known for being a song that Keith Richards sings lead, but I’ve never heard it on the radio here. “Happy,” yes. This one, no. At any rate, it’s one of my favorite Stones songs.
I think Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream is full of these. “Soma,” “Mayonaise” [sic], and “Geek USA” are all among my favorite Pumpkins song, but almost never get any radio play and I doubt that unless you owned the album you’d be familiar with them. Pumpkins fans will know them, though, for certain.
I agree with you about the quality of the song, but I’m surprised by your experience. When I talk with others about Pet Sounds, that is invariably one of the first songs mentioned. Of course, when I talk to people about Pet Sounds, I guess it’s people who are familiar with the entire album, not just the radio hits (though “Caroline, No” does get played on the radio occasionally still, and made the Top 40 upon its release, though it was released as a Brian Wilson single before Pet Sounds was released.)
Maybe not as “classic” as Lamb…, Genesis’s Duke had numbers in the top 20, but none of them at all compare to the shimmering Man of Our Times. The album’s intro/outro is mighty cool too.
Zep II - “Ramble On”
Zep III - tie between “Celebration Day” and “Out On the Tiles”
Rumours - “The Chain”
Let It Be - “I Dig a Pony”
Ziggy Stardust - “Hang On to Yourself”
Moving Pictures - “YYZ”
More Rush: Best I Can (one of few songs written entirely by Geddy) off Fly By Night
Such a great song!
Speaking of Genesis, their Invisible Touch album isn’t a classic, but it is one where the deeper cuts are, for the most part, superior to the radio hits that everyone is familiar with, IMHO.
I would have picked “Two Of Us” from Let It Be.
But really, when it comes to The Beatles, there’s not much that’s “undiscovered.” And the OP’s example of Sgt Pepper may be a bad example, because IIUC there were no singles released from the album (and in fact, “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” were left off the album because they had been released as singles); and because it’s one of those albums whose reputation for greatness rests on more than just the greatness of the individual songs that make it up.
Yes, for the Beatles not really possible. The best I can come up with is “Long, Long, Long” from the White Album. Here is a cover - https://youtu.be/GXotYFSpRhs
I hear the other hits – “God Only Knows,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” and “Sloop John B” – probably 10 times for each time I hear “Caroline No.” Heck, maybe 100 times.
And a song I hear even less than that is “Sunny Side of Heaven.” It’s a bright, beautiful instrumental that lifts the spirits every time, one of the great rock guitar songs. I’d bet most people don’t associate it with Fleetwood Mac and a lot of Mac fans wouldn’t remember which album it’s on, the great Bare Trees. They rarely play any Danny Kirwan songs on tour, or even Bob Welch’s, whose “Sentimental Lady” on that album was their most played radio song between the Peter Green and Buckingham-Nicks era.
Revolver is kind of a strange beast. Many people say it’s the best Beatles album of the bunch. To me it’s it doesn’t really feel coherent but it has some middle-tier hits, and some sings that I feel that are underappreciated. Here I’m thinking of And Your Bird Can Sing, I’m Only Sleeping, She Said She Said.
I’m sorry, it’s lame to mention Beatles and “unappreciated” in the same breath, but that’s the first thing I thought of.
I’ve never understood why Cream never played *Cat’s Squirrel * from *Fresh Cream *live. If memory serves me, may they have played it for one of their BBC appearances, but the only time it was ever even referenced was Clapton playing the opening riff in one the live *Spoonful *bootleg performances.
Ballad of Hollis Brown, on Dylan’s Times They Are A’Changin’ album. An amazing and gripping ballad. To quote critic David Horowitz:
Yeah, I admitted using the Beatles wasn’t a great example but it’s a classic album I’m familiar with, so…
Anyway, everyone knows the title track and “You Can Call Me Al” from Paul Simon’s Graceland, but I think the lesser-known “The Boy in the Bubble” might be the strongest track.
That’s another one with a few underappreciated tracks. I liked “Under African Skies” with Linda Ronstadt. Groovy rhythm, great lyrics, tight harmony.
“Thrasher” is my favorite song from Neil Young And Crazy Horses’ “Rust Never Sleeps”, but certainly not one of the most known songs from that album.
I also like"It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry" a lot, not normally regarded as a major song on “Highway 61 Revisited”.
“Rocks Off” from Exile. Never understand why that wasn’t a single.
“Dead Flowers” from “Sticky Fingers”. A country rock classic without ever being a single or played much in concert.
Ditto that. It’s what I came in to post. By far the best track Queen ever laid down.
We’re in agreement on The Prophet’s Song. I used to listen to that cut over and over sitting next to the record player so I could re-position the needle (my cousin’s LP).
Everyone knows Roundabout and most people know Long Distance Runaround. But I think the real star of Fragile is South Side of the Sky. That song is just fucking epic, it’s medieval battles and Vikings and dwarves and wizards and sorcery epic. It could have been on a Sabbath album. Well, until the piano bridge and vocal breakdown, but that part is intriguing in its own right.
“Rare” and “undiscovered” just means it wasn’t released as a single, and a lot of radio stations in the late 70s (at least in MY market) were “album-oriented,” so it would take a lot for a song to slip through all those cracks.
Give the People What They Want (1981) isn’t most people’s idea of a “classic” Kinks album (I would describe it as the first album of their third and final phase, with their “classic” songs all coming from their first two phases), but it has a lot of tracks that deserved a lot more airplay than they got, like “Better Things” and “Around the Dial.”
I would not disbelieve that, but my surprise was your observation that it never comes up in discussions of Pet Sounds. I don’t disbelieve that’s your experience, it’s just a bit different than mine. That said, it is not as well known to the casual listener as a couple other songs. For me, though, the sleepers on that album are “Don’t Talk” and “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,” which I honestly can’t remember hearing at all on the radio, and which I think are monumental compositions.
Yeah, with the Beatles… tough one. I feel like “Hey Bulldog” flew under the radar for awhile, but then got some hipster cred in the early 2000s. What about “There’s a Place”? Another one of my favorites, but probably not well known. (Looks like it only peaked at #74 on the charts.) Is “Things We Said Today” under-the-radar enough? That may be my favorite early Beatles song, period.