Songs that should have been massive hits

Use this thread to introduce others to random tracks/songs you loved in the past and wish had been massive hits.

plausible hits (i.e. album cuts or underperforming singles by major label hitmakers) or just any song from anyone that SOUNDS like a hit?

Lots of XTC songs..."Mayor of Simpleton", "Generals and Majors", "Wake Up", "Grass", "The Dissappointed", list goes on..

I kick things off with a song from the "Dangerous Minds" soundtrack, "Don't Go There" by 24-K:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kZvXBasZSQ

The year after I graduated from college, I inflicted this on every party I was asked to help DJ. Sadly, no one cared.

plausible hits (i.e. album cuts or underperforming singles by major label hitmakers) or just any song from anyone that SOUNDS like a hit?

Not so much plausible/underperforming hits as much songs you loved so much that you wondered why they didn't explode onto the charts; I'm mostly thinking of songs that missed altogether (although obviously you can have the exact same nostalgia rush for songs that didn't chart as high as they should have, hi dere "Pop Goes The World")

Over here?

The Ramones, "Rockaway Beach"

Talking Heads "Take me to the river" which had an extra single of "Psycho Killer" and "Building on fire", I mean, how much more do you need people?

Both were on Sire. Hmmm....

"Take Me To The River" was pretty massive. I'm kind of surprised that "Found a Job" wasn't.

Yeah, that was its B-side.

Massive, yeah. Not a "hit" in the old charts and that, though.

i don't think this was ever a "hit"; one of my all time favs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpGD1ZATcuA

wow - just a little out of sync!

Almost every Zombies single that wasn't a hit.
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - Hold Tight!
The Buzz - You're Holding Me Dow
XTC - Making Plans for Nigel
Grauzone - Eisbär

Lil Wayne - 3Peat

Love "Eisbär"!

I always thought that had "Doing The Unstuck" been released as a single after "Friday I'm In Love" instead of "A Letter To Elise", it would've been another big radio hit for The Cure.

Prefab Sprout - Appetite

In America, Manic Street Preachers: A Design For Life. No reason that wasn't a smash.

this might've been a hit if were release one or two years earlier:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIHlR34FfKM&feature=related

Where did "Common People" chart in the U.S.? Anyone who's not "into music" here hasn't heard it it seems.

Louis Philippe's "You Mary You" would've been as big as "Along Comes Mary" if it came out in 1966 and didn't have that line about "bookshop bitches":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TECQp0HdGZw

"songs that would have been massive hits if they had been released in a different era" should probably be its own thread though.

I wonder what direction Glen Campbell's career would have taken if "Guess I'm Dumb" had been a hit. it sure sounds like hit material to my ears.

The Pretty Things never charted stateside, which blows my mind.

In America is seems that people not "into music" finally started hearing about Common People when William Shatner covered it.

ok I missed that but dnw anyway

Paperboy - Ditty

SOOOOOO many:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zttT0mH31p4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgdgptaBma8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxf9gf9kHXA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CZ9Cv-OI2o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka3l1KKZkmw

And a couple marvellous Norwegian efforts that didn't even become particularly big Norwegian hits:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG9ZhCcaS9I

A bonus that was never a single, in spite of being one of Neil Finn's best ever songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHfU48ARFmE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNKSs1J38EA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvO7HNQPFRI&feature=related

Josh OTM! The song is very much canonized by now though.

(Speaking of "September Gurls" although "Another Girl Another Planet" is also a great song)

Old school, but the deeper I get into rockabilly and R&B, the more amazed I am that songs that went on to become rock standards like Johnny Burnette and Rock and Roll Trio stuff (Tear It Up, Train Kept A Rollin', Lonesome Train On A Lonesome Track) never charted. Same with Smiley Lewis, although his songs (I Hear You Knockin', Blue Monday, One Night) would be pop hits for Gale Storm, Fats Domino and Elvis.

AGAP was a minor hit here, some years after the event.

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

This song only went to #53 in the UK and didn't chart anywhere else. Always struck me as something that could have been a hit. I guess it is too depressing?

that is a perfect example of what I was thinking of when I started this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LhZ6k5VxLw

When I heard this on the radio I thought it was a leak of the first single from Weezer's then-upcoming first album mentored by Rick Rubin. It SOUNDED like something they'd rush to radio. But it was some Coppola Kids' Unlikable Hype Band that went nowhere.

Speaking of Norwegians, with a chorus this catchy I'm surprised this wasn't a bigger hit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egEecuxp3s0

Dan Peterson otm about Burnette and Lewis

Liquido - Narcotic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks40lw9fluw

Was actually a hit in their homeland, Germany, and a few other European and Latin countries back in 98 but never really went anywhere in the UK/US charts. Which I find weird since it's quite catchy and had all the elements to make a hit in the 90s. Probably would've fared better had it been released a few years earlier.

"Narcotic" was a hit here in the early summer of 99.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-qXbEkQYdo

I can't find any video or audio online for it, but on her s/t album from several years back (2004?), Susanna Hoffs had a song co-written with Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse called "Enormous Wings," based on the Gabriel Garcia Marquez short story. It should have been the comeback song that established her credibility, etc. Instead it went nowhere.

This should've been a hit, too.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG-A6kRkdow&feature=related

this used to have an actual video but I can't find it? Anyway it always upset me that the world wasn't ready for a fusion of Girls Aloud, The Cardigans and Garbage, their album was great in a dispoable way.

Was actually a hit in their homeland, Germany, and a few other European and Latin countries back in 98 but never really went anywhere in the UK/US charts.

Sinead O'Connor - "The Emperor's New Clothes"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T48BnHAZv_E

Juliet's Stuart Price-produced album was so much better than his next project, which was Confessions On A Dancefloor...

all the songs that i like

Paperboy - Ditty

this was pretty huge for like a month, the video came out way late though iirc (or it was played way late)

Shade Sheist ft. Nate Dogg and Kurupt – Where I Wanna Be

all the songs that i like

You could say so, but the examples I picked are all songs with really catchy singalong choruses and hooks. That is, songs that would normally have smash hit potential because that kind of songs did at least use to become huge hits in the past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0_a7B0fFtI

should have been at least as big as any of the Long Blondes' (RIP) singles, even if only on a blog-buzz level

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRK2o3EkOUw
NRBQ - Ridin' In My Car

OTM on "Guess I'm Dumb" and "September Gurls".

x-post - aww, I really liked TLBs

oh wait - who is that? I love that song! I was confused for a second there.

my love for the Long Blondes (not to mention Kate Jackson's impossible hotness) knows no bounds but that Havana Guns song is probably one of my ten favorite musical artifacts from the last decade. I even bought the 7" before I even had a record player. sadly Havana Guns only put out a few more songs and then disappeared from the earth; here are the only other ones on YT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0IayUIona0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDx_OrD5Kk8

This was one of the most brilliant remixes of the last decade... Me and my friends were always dancing to it at home parties in 2008, we just couldn't get enough of it. In a perfect world it would've been a huge club hit!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JeKAyKmdhg

All Saints + Aphrodite style breaks + squelchy electro sounds = what's not to love?

James - hey thanks. The other ones are good too but that first one you posted is EXCELLENT. Of course, I'm a sucker for that sort of sound but I've listened to it at least 3 times in the last 1/2 hour so yeah . . . :)

how big was the Deep Dish remix of PSB's "Se A Vida E"?

re: Chick Fit, always thought it was a tragedy that it wasn't a huge hit in its original form

similarly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9oxpsZQE7E

The B side for Bob Lind's Elusive Butterfly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIRe2n7MFH4

Dunno about the remix, but the original version was a top ten hit in England.

*in response to Dan

http://youtu.be/xU7KGcrD_gc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sET1lhBMNiU

Imagine how different the late 80s/early 90s industrial scene would have been had this actually taken off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU7KGcrD_gc

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

^^^ these guys played on campus my freshman year as the opening act for De La Soul* and I was the only one who knew who they were and the only one who cared when they played this song

* yeah, just let that bill sink in for a little bit

I've been pondering whether pop's aligned differently these days, given that the Death to the Throne remix of the XX's Shelter didn't take off in the same way that Todd Terry's remix of "Missing" did back in 94-95. The Shelter remix has that same curious mix of the intensely personal and the hopelessly generic. Did it go anywhere in the UK?

xp - always had love for that FOAB track. I think it is the only one of theirs I've heard - on one of those 'Just Say _____' Sire comps iirc.

I'm still disappointed that Annie didn't have massive hits with Chewing Gum and Heartbeat along with several other tracks that weren't even put out as singles.

A few others..
Prefab Sprout-Cars & Girls (only made number 44)
XTC-The Everyday Story of a Small Town (One of their most obvious hits not even put out as a single)
Associates-Breakfast (number 49)
Altered Images-I Don't Want To Know (B-side)
Ultrasound-Kurt Russel (The only commercial track they had, put out as a B-side to a limited single)
Royksopp & Robyn-The Girl & The Robot (Didn't chart)
David Bowie-Be My Wife (My favourite song of his, didn't chart despite being miles better than Sound & Vision)
Solange-Sandcastle Disco (Apparently this got to 149 in the UK which is a disgrace, that whole album is full of songs that should have been massive really)

Also there are tons of Northern Soul songs that should be as well known as most of the big Motown hits but this has to be one that stands out for me, it's one of my ten favourite songs of all time.

http://youtu.be/TIf4Kve612g

My girlfriend and I have talked on multiple occasions about how Deerhunter's "Strange Lights" could and should have been a pop hit at some point in time.

Also there are tons of Northern Soul songs that should be as well known as most of the big Motown hits but this has to be one that stands out for me, it's one of my ten favourite songs of all time.

http://youtu.be/TIf4Kve612g

― Kitchen Person

Ok, this one is amazing. It's Yum Yum's "Gonna be a big thing" for the record.

Solange-Sandcastle Disco (Apparently this got to 149 in the UK)

Really? Bad UK.

i really did think "sandcastle disco" was going to be massive at the time ;_;

i had no illusions about kat deluna's career in general but i really thought she's at least get to be a one-hit wonder with this summer banger

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

*she'd

there was a version w/busta rhymes too

oh no, i'm totally getting confused, it was this equally shoulda-been-a-hit-worthy one that she did with busta!

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

Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch (number 42)
Johnny Boy - You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve (number 50)

I find it weird that Arcade Fire haven't had a UK hit since 2005, and even then never got past number 19. That's almost as bad as the Pixies' record (just two Top 30 singles by the time they split).

Johnny Boy - You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve (number 50)

YES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQtJ4oh2pak

I think "Letter from an Occupant" would have been a #1 hit if would of been recorded by someone younger and less Canadian

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBAUQaj6EJo

Wang Chung - "Fire in the Twilight"

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

i really did think "sandcastle disco" was going to be massive at the time ;_;

― lex pretend

Me too, I've no idea what happened. Here in the UK "I Decided" was a small hit (number 27) and was heavily pushed by Pop Justice and Sandcastle seemed like an even more obvious hit single but somehow it just didn't catch on.

Looking at Wikipedia it seems they put out "T.O.N.Y" and "Would've Been The One" too although I don't remember either of them coming out. They can both be added to the list, she should have had at least four huge hits from that album and that is actually one of the best runs of singles from the last decade. The album reached 180 here which I find truly heartbreaking.

huh i guess theyve finally decided "last friday night" is gonna be the 5th single off katy perry's album. its gonna be massive & omnipresent this summer imo

I have images off so I don't know what any of the youtubes on this thread are, so apologies if this was already posted. But why the hell didn't YLT even release this as a single? It should have been the biggest thing in indie pop in 1992.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYjh4vC4zFE

two singles so overlooked that I can't even find them on youtube:

Trip Shakespeare - Bachelorette. stupid but ridiculously catchy, energetic, anthemic. Bachelorette parties have been in need of this and never known it.

The Longing Goes Away - the Frogs. again catchy, right on trend at the time, and supposedly involved Billy Corgan. Seems like a pretty powerful straight up lost love song, but maybe dismissed as parody because the Frogs were the Frogs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlBMDPDK8fw

Russ Ballard, Voices - would have been a shoo-in on the 80s one hit wonders thread, if it had made any impression on the billboard chart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NiZxwdNvAI

Dave Gamson's version of "Sugar Sugar" from 1982.

Never understood why "Supernaut" was never as big as "War Pigs" "Paranoid" or "Iron Man" or doesnt get any play on classic rock radio. It's Sabbath's best song.

Peter Murphy - "I'll Fall With Your Knife"

I'm not even a fan of Murphy or Bauhaus particularly but someone played this song for me about 10 years ago and I was bowled over that it hadn't been immediately adopted as the triumphant anthem of all humanity.

Always thought this sounded like a hit single from 1981 that mistakenly tumbled forward in time to 2008/09 and found no success at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3jpX8scBXo

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

really I just wanted to post this video

The last two Slade albums sold disappointingly poorly, not least considering the fact that they were actually much better albums than the "comeback" album that was "The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome". Lots of great songs on both of the albums, including this one which I believe didn't even enter the UK hitlist at all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II6PMmyUCyQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FhEKAzSprE

Peter Murphy - "I'll Fall With Your Knife"

I'm not even a fan of Murphy or Bauhaus particularly but someone played this song for me about 10 years ago and I was bowled over that it hadn't been immediately adopted as the triumphant anthem of all humanity.

god yes—this should've been at least the smash that "cuts you up" was, if not bigger

why the hell didn't YLT even release this as a single? It should have been the biggest thing in indie pop in 1992.

They did release it as a single.

When/where? I'm not disagreeing, just asking. I looked at their discography page on wiki (maybe a mistake, sure) and there was an Upside-Down EP, but it's not listed in their singles.

eh I guess I consider an EP to be a single, ymmv

At least at the time, EPs counted as singles in UK charts. Not any more though.

never realised that billy mumy (danger will robinson, babylon 5) was half of barnes and barnes.

"At Last" by Etta James. Given its current popularity/ubiquitousness, I was surprised to learn today that it did not make the Top 40. (#47, and #2 R&B.)

Was Vistoso Bosses - delirious a hit? I think the soulja boy remix was? It should’ve went at least top 10 in the main pop charts.

I think I should make a playlist of these. Lots of eoy and eod ilm songs were not massive chart hits and should’ve.

Lustt - Pillow Talk
Cube - Concert Boy
Pato Banton - Go Pato
Ruger - Girlfriend
Tove Styrke - Ego
Mø - Slow Love
Baby Queen - raw thoughts
Vistoso Bosses - Delirious
Sevyn Streeter - 23

"Silver Springs"

Anz - You Could Be
L’Omy - Di que si
Sleigh Bells - Rill Rill
Charli XCX - superlove
Games - Strawberry Skies
Steve Monite - Only You
Solange - Losing You
T Pain - I’m in luv (with a stripper)

Oh wait “I’m in luv” was actually a top 10 chart hit, forget that one.

Change that one for

newjeans - attention

#1 in korean charts but virtually ignored in every other charts

Busy Signal - Balloon

Agree