"in a perfect world, this song would be at the top of the charts"

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we've prob had this thread before.

whenever i've seen this, or some variant thereof, it can usually be read as "beloved indie band writes song with catchy hook!!", and there's the (usually rockist) implication that the charts aren't working 'as they should'. but when have you genuinely felt this about a piece of music? i'm thinking both of great stuff that wallowed in the bottom regions of the charts in relative obscurity (eg. the 'kish kash' singles?) and songs completely off the clearchannel radar.

perhaps more entertaining spin on the thread topic would be "what is it about the world that your favourite music isn't what it loves best?"

― m. (mitchlnw), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Usually said about a shaggy 4-track band that likes the Beach Boys and the Beatles. Imagine a nation of car radios blasing Apples in Stereo.

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:20 (twenty-one years ago)

"The Rock" by Delakota.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:24 (twenty-one years ago)

with good hair

― Red Panda Sanskrit (ex machina), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:25 (twenty-one years ago)

"Metal Fingers In My Body" by Add N To X shoulda been top ten.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:25 (twenty-one years ago)

On a basic level I'm thinking of all the great '60s singles which never even got a sniff of the UK charts - from Fingertips through Cold Sweat to White Rabbit and Alone Again Or - because the major record companies and the BBC were at the time preoccupied with pushing forward the likes of Val Doonican and Ken Dodd.

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 9 August 2004 12:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Usually said about a shaggy 4-track band that likes the Beach Boys and the Beatles

Actually, now I usually think of this applying to acts like Mouse on Mars and Felix da Housecat. Obviously "pop"-centric music that for whatever reason has little to no chance of ever being heard by people who only listen to top 40 radio. You could say the same thing about Superpitcher, Erlend Oye, Phoenix - even Kraftwerk.

And I think as a statement, the "in a perfect world" can have validity beyond just complaining why your fave bands aren't popular; in a "perfect" world, I really do think the people who decide whatever gets played would take more chances on unknown/commercially unproven bands simply because they happen to be interested in the music.

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Nearly all decent rock bands 1976-1982 to thread (at least in the US).

― Patrick (Patrick), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:34 (twenty-one years ago)

The thing is that acts like Felix da Housecat and Phoenix are in a very literal sense "about" pop but actually aren't intrinsically pop; in other words, their records sound at a distance like "perfect pop" but close up you recognise the lack of identifiable hooks, the over-fussy song construction, the metalyricism of the lyrics - listen to Brian Wilson's original take of "Good Vibrations" to see what I mean. There are lots of interesting bits floating around but it took Mike Love's locker room chorus to bring them all together and make them work as pop.

In contrast, some of the structures of Cathy Dennis or Xenomania compositions are equally labyrinthine in their own way - but they always have an identifiable centre, "a hook you can hold onto while you enjoy the trip." And they are therefore more precisely "pop."

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 9 August 2004 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

yeh i agree - sometimes there's a clear fetishisation of pop on display but without a proper attempt to actually engage with it. almost like when you have hip hop references in a rock or boyband song perhaps but in reverse...maybe

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, no Jamaican performers made the US top 40 between 1972 and 1987 (unless Johnny Nash is Jamaican?) (Bob Marley's career total US top 40 hits = 0).

Likewise hip hop between "Rapper's Delight" and "Walk This Way" (unless you count "West End Girls" and semi-rap like "Double Dutch Bus" and "Rapture" and "I Feel For You").

― Patrick (Patrick), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Someone should do a list of great *singles* artists who have never had a hit (or only one hit - T.Rex and Roxy Music = US one-hit wonders).

― Patrick (Patrick), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, no Jamaican performers made the US top 40 between 1972 and 1987

When was Jimmy Cliff's last hit??

― hobart paving (hobart paving), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I know that's the case in general, but every now and then you'll get a single like Justin Timberlake's "Like I Love You", where, to my ears, if that could be a hit, it seems like a lot of other unusual stuff could be. See also Brandy's "What About Us". I mean, the hook was okay, but the track was practically Autechre. I think those got on the radio purely out of name recognition, and it's reassuring to see them actually be popular - wish more stuff could get that kind of opportunity.

x-post

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:45 (twenty-one years ago)

hobart paving - Jimmy Cliff had a hit in 1969 ("Wonderful World, Beautiful People") and didn't hit the charts again until the 90's.

― Patrick (Patrick), Monday, 9 August 2004 12:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I think everyone did a double-take when Laurie Anderson's "O Superman" managed to get to #2 in the UK (only kept off the top spot by the ex-keyboard player with Hatfield and the North!!) - what, an eight-minute piece of performance art in the pop charts? But you can't deny it had the hook to end all hooks - eight-and-a-half minutes of "uh uh uh uh"!

(from a certain light you could even view "O Superman" as the first House record to make the charts; it just needed a drumbeat underneath it!)

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 9 August 2004 12:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Flaming Lips - "Fight Test" shoulda been number one for months.

― Mr. Snrub, Monday, 9 August 2004 12:55 (twenty-one years ago)

"In a perfect world, this song would be at the top of the charts."
This phrase became one of the hoariest rock-crit cliches of the 80s, usually deployed in service of some hopeless indie rock/power pop song by writers of the Ira Robbins/Trouser Press school.
Don't know bout the UK, but here in Amerika the charts have always been fairly corrupt, sound-scan or no. Trying to predict chart placement/success is a loser's game, trust me I tried it for awhile.
but yeah, there are times when a song sounds so PERFECT you think everyone in the world should hear it/would love it and then it stiffs. how bout a top ten list of yr personal shoulda-beens?

― mc aka lbs, Monday, 9 August 2004 14:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I hate this meme, but mostly because I think it's a lazy way to end a review.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 9 August 2004 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

saint etienne's highest UK chart placing for any single is #11 (they also had a coupla #12s but nothing else inside the top 20). I found that hard to take sometimes.

― zebedee (zebedee), Monday, 9 August 2004 14:28 (twenty-one years ago)

esp. as one of their biggest hits is 'Sylvie'

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Monday, 9 August 2004 14:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Didn't St. Etienne collaborate on some dance record that went top 10 a couple of years ago? I've still got it somewhere.

'You're In A Bad Way' is made for this thread. Out and out P!O!P! and surely made for the top of the charts. Or not.

― hobart paving (hobart paving), Monday, 9 August 2004 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Cola Boy! Yeah that was top 10.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Monday, 9 August 2004 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Two or three singles off every Auteurs album would take the chart positions claimed by Suede, Blur and Oasis.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 9 August 2004 15:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I came to say Saint Etienne too. 'You're In A Bad Way', sure, but maybe a bit too cute. 'Action', the first single off of Finisterre, is the one that confuses me. It was my personal single of Summer 2002; it's a perfect bit of dance pop, or so I thought. Hm.

Didn't 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart'

― derrick (derrick), Monday, 9 August 2004 17:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Lacquer-Behind.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 9 August 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Derrick OTM, "Action" was a perfectly crafted, hugely comercial pop single. It should have been massive. The only explanation I can think of it not charting well is probably Sarah Cracknell's unwillingness to overexploit her sexuality in the videos (being classy is SO out). 'You're In A Bad Way' was ace but a bit too retro for the charts I think.

― daavid (daavid), Monday, 9 August 2004 22:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think it should have been number one, but Sloan's "False Alarm" should have at least have achieved Strokes-level radioplay.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 9 August 2004 22:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Wait, I'm fairly sure "You're In a Bad Way" did hit #1.

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Monday, 9 August 2004 23:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Speaking of Felix da Housecat, why is "Ready to Wear" not #1 right now? (you could probably say the same about three or four songs on Devin Dazzle).

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Monday, 9 August 2004 23:40 (twenty-one years ago)

in a perfect world, anything other than usher's confessions part ii would be number one. that's all i ask for. god, i hate that song.

― frankE (frankE), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 01:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Speaking of Felix da Housecat, why is "Ready to Wear" not #1 right now? (you could probably say the same about three or four songs on Devin Dazzle).

I heard "Short Skirts" on the radio this morning

― C0L1N B3CK3TT (Colin Beckett), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 04:25 (twenty-one years ago)

this thread is really interesting.

i agree that too often this phrase is applied to apples in stereo-type bands that advertise a kind of condescending version of Pop in neon letters but don't actually do the work of making a really fucking dig-deep song.

the prob. with this phrase in general is that it abstracts the charts into some sort of "the greatest of all time" banality, when the reality of the charts is much messier and more interesting. in other words if they actually took the next step and asked "*why* isn't this record on the charts?" they might discover some interesting things...some of which might not be too flattering to the music they're gushing over.

― |a|m|t|r|s|t| (amateurist), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 04:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it's an idea which is useful where you get a song that seems to demand compulsive repetition in that listen-to-it-five-times-in-a-row sense (cf. greatest of all time which presumably means listen to it ten times a year until you die), like it sounds like it already *is* in the charts, already *is* an event. And I think it's difficult for a song to sound like that if it doesn't already sound like something the charts might conceivably include. Which is another reason why the Apples in Stereo/Wilco model is suspect.

Generally speaking the songs that get hyped up on ILX are ones which fit the phrase well - the sense that there's a collective excitement around it which already mimics some of the chart's qualities, whether or not the song in reality has such a chance of making it to the top. "I Luv U" for example.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 04:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I imagine that say for instance Heiko Voss' "I Think About You" could easily be in the same place as Maroon 5.

― djdee2005, Tuesday, 10 August 2004 04:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I got cut off - didn't 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' hit no. 1 for the Et.?

Yeah, the replayability. I know what you mean; when i downloaded 'I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)', I listened to it 6, maybe 7 times in a row. 'Action' does that for me. Actually, 'Necessito', from the Some Girls album that Juliana Hatfield put out last year does too. I actually heard it first on the CBC and freaked out over how perfect it was.

Anthony, yes on 'False Alarm', though the song doesn't ever live up to the glory of the intro, once the band comes in. The chorus always misses the mark, but it's a very-nearly-perfect song. It didn't even get released as a single, iirc, which is ridiculous.

― derrick (derrick), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 06:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Highest chart position for "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" - #39. Although I recall it did quite well in the Billboard dance charts.

Some contextualisation which might help to explain why "You're In A Bad Way" only made #12 in Feb '93: number one at the time was "No Limit" by 2 Unlimited, and the two new entries which charted ahead of SE were Annie Lennox's double A-side "Love Song For A Vampire/Little Bird" (#3) and Rolf Harris' "Stairway To Heaven" (#9; peaked at #7).

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 10 August 2004 06:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, the charts are fine as they are. Makes the music I listen to more special.

― Salvador Saca (Mr. Xolotl), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 07:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Who knew!

Steely Dan never had a no. 1 either. Rikki Don't Lose That Number made it to #3, Do It Again to #6, Reeling In The Years to #11, etc. etc.

― derrick (derrick), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 08:12 (twenty-one years ago)

The highest Steely Dan ever got in the UK singles chart was #17 with "Haitian Divorce" (1976). They never really cracked it commercially in Britain, probably because we had our own pop ironists in 10cc, who likewise I don't recall causing much of a stir in the US.

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 10 August 2004 08:17 (twenty-one years ago)

a year ago I was thinking Broadcast's 'Before We Begin' should be a top 10 hit

― the neurotic awakening of s (blueski), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 08:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Well "I Wouldn't Leave My Wooden Wife For You, Sugar" by the United States of America (to whom Broadcast owe quite a significant stylistic depth, i.e. ripped them off rotten) didn't make the top 10 in '68 either, so no surprise there.

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 10 August 2004 09:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Haitian Divorce made #17? crazy. It wasn't even a single in the US, iirc. What a great song.

― derrick (derrick), Tuesday, 10 August 2004 09:30 (twenty-one years ago)

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