I listened to rock radio until I could name almost anything they played, and sometimes the year of release. I had to hear Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” on Ricky Gervais’s podcast, because rock radio doesn’t play it.
What are the great missed radio tracks? Nominate your own.
We Love You, The Rolling Stones
September Gurls by Big Star
A couple of my favorite bands have “missed” tracks on their album and it drives me nuts. Especially when it causes an album to be viewed as less successful because they picked the wrong singles to promote as singles.
First example: Live — The Distance to Here. They promoted “Dolphin’s Cry” as the major single from this album when it should have been “They Stood up for Love” a far far better song. Listen to both and you’ll agree.
Second example: Silversun Pickups — Neck of the Woods. This amazing album never got the credit it deserves. It is every bit as good as their original blockbuster album “Carnavas” but someone majorly flubbed this when they decided to promote the song “Bloody Mary” as the primary single. This song is the worst on the entire album IMO and it ruined the whole album’s chances of taking off. Anything would have been a better choice but I would have chosen “Mean Spirits” as the primary single to promote. “The Pit” was promoted as a secondary single for a while and it was a much stronger song choice but the well had already been poisoned by “Bloody Mary”.
I’d disagree with the premise that “rock radio” missed Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” – it wasn’t ever released as a single, so it never got the airplay of some of the other songs from that album (particularly “Born to Run”), but I’ve heard the song regularly on album-oriented rock / classic rock stations for decades.
He’s a Whore by Cheap Tick is a great rock song that I can’t recall hearing on the radio in DFW, even when it was new. Granted, it was never released as a single, and its start blends with the fade from the song before it, so it’s a pain to play on the radio without making a cart for it.
I didn’t find out about Harry Nilsson’s Jump Into the Fire until a local psychedelic band started covering it and a friend told me who did it originally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3c2WUVZ9NQ
Silver Train by The Rolling Stones is a great boogie/rock track. Great execution. Wonderful guitars throughout, Mick’s harmonica, Bill’s swingin’ bass and Charlie keeping it all together. And Jagger sings the hell out of this song. Always has been one of my fave early 70’s track but nobody knows it besides Stones nuts.
Seventies US music radio completely missed the screeching Welshman. Almost everything on Never Turn Your Back on a Friend would have slotted right into the standard rock playlist, but it was like Budgie just did not exist.
Not like it needed the help, but on Queen’s ‘News of the World’ album the song ‘It’s Late’ is an all time rock and roll song.
It was released as a single in a bowdlerized form that - IMO - sucked a lot of the life out of it and never took off.