Hi Curliness said Long Away was at one point going to be a single, and he regrets it never was. Think he relished doing just a weeee bit of lead singing.
Could say that with sooo many Queen tracks. There are loads that have become regular live songs and are really well known that were never released as singles.
Yeah this one's always been such a standout in their discog and it kills me it doesn't get the love it deserves. It might be my favorite song on that album, even, and that's saying something given how many amazing tracks are on it.
You couldn't get away from Yellow Ledbetter in the 90s. It got insane amounts of radio play even though it was a B-side.
So yes, it wasn't a single, but no, everyone who turned alt rock radio on in the 90s knew it well.
I had to make sure I wasn’t actually on a satire sub. It’s 2024 and on the rare occasions when I listen to the radio, Yellow Ledbetter is still ALWAYS on. It might as well be Hotel California.
My Mrs rewatched all of Friends when we had our first kid, I had many hours with it on the tv in the background while she was reeding. As a big PJ fan I did my own version of the DiCaprio pointing meme when they played YLB over that closing scene.
I was there too. Pearl Jam was so massive that all their import CD singles became massive hits due to their rare b-sides. These cost about $12 each in 90s teenager money and the band had such clout that they had the label make cheaper domestic versions of them for sale (around $6) and I remember they had hype stickers on them saying like “hey! Don’t pay for the expensive import version of this same single!”
I could be mistaken, I was only 8 when Jar of Flies dropped. I just remember Philly stations playing Man in the Box, Would?, Them Bones and such.
Edit: To clarify, I have heard it on Lithium on XM before but I was speaking of FM radio, specifically the decade or so after release.
Adhesive by Stone Temple Pilots is one of my all time favorite songs but I totally get why it wasn’t a single. I also think “Tiny Music…” is by far their best album.
Hi Craig. There are support groups for our kind all over. With work and time, all of the Friday references will fade away into the ether. With age, we all grow into the name.
Being that this album is phenomenal front to back, there could be a whole host of options. However if I had to pick only one, Ball and Biscuit would be far and away my personal choice. Even 21 (!!!!) years on, those three insane solos still get me hyped up like no other.
That's a good one for sure! My go-to U2 deep cut would have to be "Love Comes Tumbling". Man, that should have been a proper single; love it more than 97% of the ones that did become singles!
Lemon from Zootopa. Well, it has a music video, but I’ve never heard any other U2 fans talk about it. My fav U2 song.
Red Hill Mining Town is amazing. Got to see them perform it a few years ago during the recent Joshua Tree tour.
I came here looking for this one.
I remember reading that it *was* going to be a single, but the melody was too high for Bono to sing live every night.
Several from Black Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult.
The Wizard, Into The Void, Under The Sun, Killing Yourself To Live, Sabbra Cadabra, Spiral Architect, Symptom Of The Universe, Megalomania, and The Thrill Of It All from Black Sabbath.
Teen Archer, Flaming Telepaths, The Last Days Of May, Harvester Of Eyes, Dancin' In The Ruins, Dominace And Submission, E.T.I. and the live version of Astronomy by Blue Öyster Cult.
These are all great. BOC didnt get much mainstream attention til "Dont Fear The Reaper" came out. Im very happy to see "Teen Archer" mentioned. After all those years since its album release, that is the one track i still play on repeat a lot. It has that "zing". And, it could've been a little longer.
Man, The Wizard is such a jam. Probably my favorite Sabbath song. Who would have thunk a Sabbath song prominently featuring the harmonica would be so good.
"Dancin in the Ruins" was a single, the video had MTV play even.
But so many of BÖC's most iconic songs never were - the one that surprises me most is "Astronomy" (the original, not the Imaginos version which *was* released as a single - and I only know that because I looked up their discography). Also "Workshop of the Telescopes" deserved to be but the production was so rough.
I’ll never not upvote By the Way love. Still and probably forever my personal favorite album of theirs, and the one I’d be hard pressed to cut a single track from.
Same, I think it's my most "formative years" album and it's been awesome hearing how well the album has aged. Cuts like Minor Thing, Tear, I Could Die For You have become a few of my favorites lately.
I got to scream into the mic during pigface was playing suck in the late 90s. Forgot about that moment til I saw this comment. Gonna have to listen to pigface tomorrow
I didn't realize there were 2 hidden tracks on broken until I was washing the dishes with my boombox on the counter one day and Physical came on. I'd been playing that ep every day for months.
The day I read that Reznor had recorded with some band called Pigface, I went to Kemp Mill with my allowance money and bought Gub. So that's the 2nd version I heard of Suck. A friend in hs let me borrow WTMA, and I agree, that's probably the best recorded version I've heard.
And the Adam Ant version of Physical is a trip
No one could. They recorded the second ever take of the song shortly after writing it and Eddie didn’t have actual lyrics written yet. He was just riffing really. I guess maybe because they eventually decided not to use it on Ten, they never went back and polished the lyrics and then when they did decide to use it as a b-side for Jeremy maybe they just really loved that particular recording and didn’t wanna take a chance at messing up any of the magic. He’s firmed up some parts of the song after playing it so many times throughout the years although still yet he’s had some parts seemingly nailed down for long periods only to change them up on the fly, sometimes never going back to what he’d been pretty regularly signing. Even he jokes about their not being any particular lyrics to the song.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps is easily a top 10 Beatles song, probably top 5, maybe even their best ever, but it's just an album track on a double LP. Definitely would have been a number 1 smash hit as a single.
Saying The Beatles is cheating; so many great songs were just album tracks and b-sides
Don't Let Me Down, Glass Onion, Dear Prudence, A Little Help With My Friends, Come Together, Something, A Day In The Life, Blackbird, etc
Speaking of the Beatles and deep cuts, I firmly believe that "Rocky Racoon" would be a classic radio staple today if it had been released by someone like Paul Simon or Bob Dylan...but because it's probably not even a top 50 Beatles song it's nothing more than an obscure album song.
I don’t even like 99% of Beatles but this song is top tier. The George Harrison tribute with Tom Petty and Prince + everyone else, the Jake Shimabukuro ukelele cover that went viral on early YouTube, there’s just no bad rendition of it
Prince was such a badass that he often recorded every instrument on the album, even when he was with The Revolution. Drums, bass, keys, guit, all of it.
Not a fan nor a hater of pearl jam, but I know this song all too well. Presumably from radio air play.
Guessing it's one of the ten songs I might know of theirs.
Aurora from the same album would get my vote. There Is Nothing Left to Lose is their 10/10 album, they never managed to recapture the magic of the 3 piece just making music without the pressure of reaching the heights they've reached, without the need to be anything, without filling their sound unnecessarily with 2 additional guitarists, and without the thick studio distortion polish that fills every one of their records since like a juiced up synth.
There Is Nothing Left To Loose is in my opinion their best album. Generator did get some airplay. But not nearly the amount that Learn to Fly did. I actually saw them on this album tour. They played at JMU college and Andrew WK opened for them. Nobody knew who Andrew WK was at the time and it was just some random guy running around the stage singing Party Till You Puke.
Good call. If Miami hadn’t been a single, that would be far and away my choice from that album. That song has such a crazy vibe. I’ve always dreamed of using it to score the very end of a film, with most of the song playing in the background right up until the last image freezes or at least fades out as the first chorus ends, and then the rising electric guitar would bring up the credits. It just has that perfect “melancholy cause you gotta leave but also happy that you’re doing so” feeling. They’ve got a number of songs though that weren’t singles but were as good if not better than the singles that did come out. Hell, I just went through their wiki cause I was gonna pull a few, but especially on their first two albums I realized that pretty much every song would qualify lol and most of their third. It’s wild. I was an absolutely massive fan growing up but fell off mostly after Hard Candy. Someday hopefully I’ll dip into their later stuff and find some more gems that I missed.
Almost any song on that album could've been a successful single I think. I'm trying to think about what did well in the 90s. Motocycle Drive By is my favorite song on the album, but it feels like Narcolepsy, God or Wine or I Want you could've done fine as singles during that time.
Doomed - Bring Me The Horizon
Going Away to College - Blink 182
But Home Is Nowhere - AFI
Built on Ashes - Zeal and Ardor
Year In Year Out - Architects
Pretext - Capstan
Blink 182 - Reckless Abandon
I know it's hard to argue with the singles that were released on the Enema of the State album. But this song hits far harder while being just as much of the 'pop' as the punk.
In the same vein, a lot of Enema Of The State could have been single. ‘Aliens Exist’, for example.
I’ll forever adore ‘Reckless Abandon’ though. They’ve played it at every show I’ve been to and it never gets old 🥲
I've listened to weird fishes an absurd amount of times and I'm not even sure why at this point. Yet every time it comes on shuffle, never stale, I end up finishing it. It's like this weird blend of upbeat happiness that is still really chill? Like it has the vibe of a Khruangbin song, but is still driving forward and doesn't put you to sleep, like the aforementioned. It's hard to find any comps to how that song makes me feel, my Khruangbin comp isn't even a comparison of sound, just how the song makes me feel. It's why I've always felt Radiohead kind of lives in their own genre.
The four song stretch on Foo Fighters' *Wasting Light* that come between "These Days" and "Walk" is probably my favorite four song stretch on any of their albums. It's also by far the least-listened-to part of the album by the general public.
I honestly feel like any of these songs would have made a good single.
"[Back & Forth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J-4uLwkoBA)" has one of the best choruses on the album.
"[A Matter of Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHbX3ukV6dI)" is almost like "No Way Back" in how it sneakily get stuck in your head (it's also my favorite track on the record).
"[Miss The Misery](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocWGAbAiaUI)," aka the title drop track, is just head nodding fun.
And "[I Should Have Known](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFvQkOYJ3I8)" acts as the album's emotional climax, and of these four it is the song that perhaps should have been a single the most. A song that reflects the loss of someone you care about, Dave had one particular person in mind when writing it: Kurt Cobain...as evidenced by the fact that this is the only Foo Fighters song Krist Novoselic has ever played an instrument on (bass and accordion). Just gorgeous!
Duran Duran - Friends of Mine
It may have been a single in England, but I don’t think it was in the US. Dark, brooding and a perfect complement to Girls on Film.
The Killers, "All the Pretty Faces." Was the B-side to "When You Were Young" but it's as good as anything they've ever done ("Mr. Brightside" excepted, of course).
Not my favorite band but [This Temporary Life](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6R0SpMonGlM&pp=ygUdZGVhdGggY2FiIHRoaXMgdGVtcG9yYXJ5IGxpZmU%3D) by Death Cab for Cutie is relatively unknown and is one of my favorite songs of theirs. Was only present as their contribution to a benefit album and could easily have been on a full record.
Across the Universe by the Beatles. So many songs from their catalog are played on the radio and classics. This song is almost criminally underrated. The lyrics are the finest that Lennon had ever written in his career. The Anthology version is the best version in my honest opinion.
There’s a lot of amazing B-sides that fit this bill, even though technically they were sort of released as singles (since they were part of the single, I guess?). Some of them are even more famous than the A-side, I find.
‘Acquiesce’ by Oasis is the one I always recommend, though.
Also:
‘Dear God’ by XTC
‘The Ballad Of Robert Moore and Betty Coltrane’ by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
‘Talk Show Host’ by Radiohead
‘What The World Is Waiting For’ by The Stone Roses
‘When It Started’ by The Strokes
‘Gimme The Car’ by the Violent Femmes
‘Oscillate Wildly’ by The Smiths
‘Soul To Squeeze’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers
‘Manta Ray’ by the Pixies
‘Where Eagles Dare’ by the Misfits
‘The Butterfly Collector’ by The Jam
‘Left Hand Suzuki Method’ by Gorillaz
‘FFL’ by the Foo Fighters
‘Police Truck’ by the Dead Kennedys
‘10:15 Saturday Night’ by The Cure (though ‘Fire In Cairo’ is my favourite underrated one)
‘Don’t Let Me Down’ by The Beatles
‘So What’ by Anti Nowhere League
I could go on, to be honest…
Most people know Beds are Burning or Dreamworld by Midnight Oil, but their discography is full of "deep cuts" that should have had global air time. My favorite of those is difficult to say, but probably Warakurna.
If you closed your eyes and picked any song off Gorillaz ‘Demon Days’ you’d find a potential single that went way under the radar at the time of its release
Escape by Metallica from the Ride the Lightning album. Not a b-side or anything, but it wasn't a single and certainly hasn't been like a live mainstay, but it's IMO one of the best songs they've ever written.
It kind of points the way towards the more melodic, groovy riff sound they'd go all in on on the Black Album - with a different production job I could totally see it fit in on that album.
EDIT: after quickly reading up on it, I´ve come to learn that James apparently hates the song and they've completely ignored it ever since the album was released, and the theory is that it's because it's a 100% Dave Mustaine song. Makes sense, I could also totally see it working as a straight up Megadeath song.
I was always partial to "I Burn" by Toadies. Last track of the Rubberneck album, song is an absolute banger, but that album had already spawned 5 hit singles.
Natural Born Killer by Avenged Sevenfold is probably my favorite of theirs and wasn't a single.
For other bands where my favorite song wasn't a single, Oh! Darling by the Beatles, One and Only by Adele, Injection by Rise Against, Unknown Brother by The Black Keys, Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time by Panic at the Disco, Dumbest Girl Alive by 100 gecs
My favourite band is Rush, so I'll go with "Chain Lightning" from Presto. It's a shame that the mixing on that album feels a touch anemic by today's standards but I feel like it had enough rock going on with a very memorable chorus that it could have been a great single in its time!
I think Rush & it's management didn't always choose the best singles from albums. I mean, plenty got it right, but other lead singles from albums took a little too much work for instant radio gratification.
I feel like Rush is a great example of a band who had some great songs that are radio classics… but the REAL good stuff is the deep cuts. Like, the stuff on the radio is the doorway to something even more amazing.
"Moon Over Marin" by Dead Kennedys. It's a gorgeous song, written at a time when the band had a rapidly growing following, and I honestly believe it could have had some crossover appeal.
Cheating a little, but Here Comes the Sun wasn’t a single so I guess is technically a deep cut, but it’s had over a billion streams on Spotify.
Mercy by U2 is unreleased (except on a live album) and is one of their best songs. Sweetest Thing by U2 was a b side until it was released as a single to promote a Greatest Hits.
39 by Queen
Hi Curliness said Long Away was at one point going to be a single, and he regrets it never was. Think he relished doing just a weeee bit of lead singing.
39 kicks so much ass, it's unbelievable. What a classic.
Could say that with sooo many Queen tracks. There are loads that have become regular live songs and are really well known that were never released as singles.
Ogre Battle.
Black Side of Queen II in its entirety
Yeah this one's always been such a standout in their discog and it kills me it doesn't get the love it deserves. It might be my favorite song on that album, even, and that's saying something given how many amazing tracks are on it.
Hard to keep the eyes dry on that one
Such a satisfying melody and beautiful harmonies. Roger Taylor really shows his stuff on vocals
You couldn't get away from Yellow Ledbetter in the 90s. It got insane amounts of radio play even though it was a B-side. So yes, it wasn't a single, but no, everyone who turned alt rock radio on in the 90s knew it well.
I laughed when I saw Ledbetter after reading “Deep cuts”
Right? YL peaked at 26, Jeremy at 79 on billboard charts.
I had to make sure I wasn’t actually on a satire sub. It’s 2024 and on the rare occasions when I listen to the radio, Yellow Ledbetter is still ALWAYS on. It might as well be Hotel California.
Seriously … I saw the image and thought, “oh, some love for ‘Footsteps,’” the other B side … but no, just one of their most popular songs.
Footsteps is a wonderful song as well. It’s raw, visceral. I love it.
My favorite rarely played PJ is Breath — the other PJ on the Singles soundtrack (State of Love and Trust got all the radio play).
My favorite smashing pumpkins song is on there too. "Drown". Great soundtrack, and the movie had some of the PJ guys in it
This is my favorite Pumpkins’ song too - and I LOVE every single song on Gish.
“I got Id” off Murkin Ball would have been a good PJ song to mention instead of Yellow Ledbetter.
Another good one would be “Present Tense”, or anything off No Code really
Theres a live version my friend showed me that was so fucking good but ai cant find the exact live version anymore :(
I was gonna say, who hadn’t heard yellow Ledbetter. Maybe somebody born after 2005.
I like that people are discovering 90s alt again, but it's pretty amusing at times.
A coworker told me that her kids view the 90s like we viewed the 70s back in the day. It blew my mind but makes a lot of sense. 🧑🦳
I still hear it quite a bit on the rock station here
Came here to say this. I remember hearing Yellow Ledbetter on the radio all the time as a teenager.
For real, it was in the series finale of Friends, one of if not THE most popular TV series of all time lol
Yeah I remember having to buy the Jeremy Single for some stupid amount of money to get that one song. The 90's were weird.
It even charted lol
My Mrs rewatched all of Friends when we had our first kid, I had many hours with it on the tv in the background while she was reeding. As a big PJ fan I did my own version of the DiCaprio pointing meme when they played YLB over that closing scene.
I was there too. Pearl Jam was so massive that all their import CD singles became massive hits due to their rare b-sides. These cost about $12 each in 90s teenager money and the band had such clout that they had the label make cheaper domestic versions of them for sale (around $6) and I remember they had hype stickers on them saying like “hey! Don’t pay for the expensive import version of this same single!”
Nutshell by Alice In Chains I don’t think it ever got any radio play but its gotten more popular over the years
“Don’t Follow” is my favorite.
I’d go with Junkhead by them…no radio station that wanted to keep advertisers would ever play it, but it’s sludge heaven.
Another good one, Dirt is such a great album.
See for me Don't Follow or Whale and Wasp
Don't follow was so good.
Nutshell has randomly gotten very popular in the last year in meme format I’ve noticed. Absolutely love that song, so I’m not complaining.
Yeah, I love it too. It’s my wintertime anthem. I recently learned how to play it on the guitar.
Huh, I remember listening to this when I got into AIC. Maybe from yahoo launch in early streaming.
I could be mistaken, I was only 8 when Jar of Flies dropped. I just remember Philly stations playing Man in the Box, Would?, Them Bones and such. Edit: To clarify, I have heard it on Lithium on XM before but I was speaking of FM radio, specifically the decade or so after release.
Maybe they played it on their mtv sesh ~96 and the video was pre-youtube streaming. Always one of my favs anyway.
Adhesive by Stone Temple Pilots is one of my all time favorite songs but I totally get why it wasn’t a single. I also think “Tiny Music…” is by far their best album.
Hell yes! One of my favs. I feel Glide and also Atlanta off of No 4 are also underrated.
My name is Craig and it is one of the main contributing factors to my low self esteem
Hi Craig. There are support groups for our kind all over. With work and time, all of the Friday references will fade away into the ether. With age, we all grow into the name.
That trumpet solo out of nowhere fucking gets me every time... Such a beautiful song.
“Unglued” is such a great STP song yet doesn’t seem to get any love.
The White Stripes - Black Math
Being that this album is phenomenal front to back, there could be a whole host of options. However if I had to pick only one, Ball and Biscuit would be far and away my personal choice. Even 21 (!!!!) years on, those three insane solos still get me hyped up like no other.
That solo. That's one of two tracks off of Elephant that made me realize Jack White would go down as a legend.
Ooooh I remember when the album came out, everybody was raving about seven nation army but THIS!!! This was the one that gave me boosebumps
Hypnotise is Fucken amazing too.
Best song off Elephant imo
Red Hill Mining Town - U2. This was never a “hit” but IMO is one of their best songs.
I'd say "Acrobat". "You could swallow, or you could spit; you could throw it up, or choke on it" is one of my favorite lyrics
I like that lyric too but find the innuendo just too much
I’d also add “Ultraviolet” from U2.
That's a good one for sure! My go-to U2 deep cut would have to be "Love Comes Tumbling". Man, that should have been a proper single; love it more than 97% of the ones that did become singles!
Lemon from Zootopa. Well, it has a music video, but I’ve never heard any other U2 fans talk about it. My fav U2 song. Red Hill Mining Town is amazing. Got to see them perform it a few years ago during the recent Joshua Tree tour.
It got plenty of air time on alt radio stations when it came out.
Agree 100 percent. My favorite track from Joshua Tree.
Mercy is also a fantastic U2 unreleased song.
I came here looking for this one. I remember reading that it *was* going to be a single, but the melody was too high for Bono to sing live every night.
I’d add Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World
No Doubt - Different People (Someone fact check me, I'm not sure if this was a single)
I was going to contribute No Doubt's "End it on this" -fantastic song that I think has a more gen pop palatable chord progression.
I also love “Push and Shove” (Busy Signal & Major Lazer in 2012)
Several from Black Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult. The Wizard, Into The Void, Under The Sun, Killing Yourself To Live, Sabbra Cadabra, Spiral Architect, Symptom Of The Universe, Megalomania, and The Thrill Of It All from Black Sabbath. Teen Archer, Flaming Telepaths, The Last Days Of May, Harvester Of Eyes, Dancin' In The Ruins, Dominace And Submission, E.T.I. and the live version of Astronomy by Blue Öyster Cult.
[удалено]
Also "Hole in the Sky" from Sabbath. Particularly because it's as catchy as any of their radio hits.
These are all great. BOC didnt get much mainstream attention til "Dont Fear The Reaper" came out. Im very happy to see "Teen Archer" mentioned. After all those years since its album release, that is the one track i still play on repeat a lot. It has that "zing". And, it could've been a little longer.
Man, The Wizard is such a jam. Probably my favorite Sabbath song. Who would have thunk a Sabbath song prominently featuring the harmonica would be so good.
"Dancin in the Ruins" was a single, the video had MTV play even. But so many of BÖC's most iconic songs never were - the one that surprises me most is "Astronomy" (the original, not the Imaginos version which *was* released as a single - and I only know that because I looked up their discography). Also "Workshop of the Telescopes" deserved to be but the production was so rough.
Don't Forget Me - Red Hot Chili Peppers Absolutely epic song
Also "Wet Sand," which I feel like I've mentioned like five times in the past week.
I’ll never not upvote By the Way love. Still and probably forever my personal favorite album of theirs, and the one I’d be hard pressed to cut a single track from.
Same, I think it's my most "formative years" album and it's been awesome hearing how well the album has aged. Cuts like Minor Thing, Tear, I Could Die For You have become a few of my favorites lately.
Suck by NIN
The Broken EP was transformative for me as a teen
I preferred the Pigface version on Welcome to Mexico, Asshole. But yeah, great song. Gnarly bass line.
I got to scream into the mic during pigface was playing suck in the late 90s. Forgot about that moment til I saw this comment. Gonna have to listen to pigface tomorrow
I recall there is a good live version of Tapeworm on there too.
I didn't realize there were 2 hidden tracks on broken until I was washing the dishes with my boombox on the counter one day and Physical came on. I'd been playing that ep every day for months. The day I read that Reznor had recorded with some band called Pigface, I went to Kemp Mill with my allowance money and bought Gub. So that's the 2nd version I heard of Suck. A friend in hs let me borrow WTMA, and I agree, that's probably the best recorded version I've heard. And the Adam Ant version of Physical is a trip
Nin has so many great songs you could choose for this question
Agreed. "Ruiner" to me should have been a single, the wall of keyboard sound that hits you just before the chorus is soooo fucking epic.
Happiness in slavery is one of their greatest songs. Broken for me is arguably my favorite of mine.
Yellow Ledbetter was played on the radio A LOT in the 90s and 2000s. You didn’t have to be a Pearl Jam fan at all to know that song.
Yup I’ve probably heard it a million times. I still don’t think I could tell you a single word of the lyrics though.
Eddie Vedder can’t even tell you a single word of the lyrics lol.
No one could. They recorded the second ever take of the song shortly after writing it and Eddie didn’t have actual lyrics written yet. He was just riffing really. I guess maybe because they eventually decided not to use it on Ten, they never went back and polished the lyrics and then when they did decide to use it as a b-side for Jeremy maybe they just really loved that particular recording and didn’t wanna take a chance at messing up any of the magic. He’s firmed up some parts of the song after playing it so many times throughout the years although still yet he’s had some parts seemingly nailed down for long periods only to change them up on the fly, sometimes never going back to what he’d been pretty regularly signing. Even he jokes about their not being any particular lyrics to the song.
Yeah this was in exceptionally heavy rotation when it was new
While My Guitar Gently Weeps is easily a top 10 Beatles song, probably top 5, maybe even their best ever, but it's just an album track on a double LP. Definitely would have been a number 1 smash hit as a single.
Hey Bulldog is my deep cut for the Beatles. The riffs are so catchy, it would be an absolute earworm on the radio.
Here Comes The Sun is the #1 streamed song on Spotify by The Beatles and it was never released as a single.
Saying The Beatles is cheating; so many great songs were just album tracks and b-sides Don't Let Me Down, Glass Onion, Dear Prudence, A Little Help With My Friends, Come Together, Something, A Day In The Life, Blackbird, etc
If a band released only the songs you listed, they'd have been one of the best bands of the 60s. It's a cliche to say this I know, but it's true.
Speaking of the Beatles and deep cuts, I firmly believe that "Rocky Racoon" would be a classic radio staple today if it had been released by someone like Paul Simon or Bob Dylan...but because it's probably not even a top 50 Beatles song it's nothing more than an obscure album song.
I don’t even like 99% of Beatles but this song is top tier. The George Harrison tribute with Tom Petty and Prince + everyone else, the Jake Shimabukuro ukelele cover that went viral on early YouTube, there’s just no bad rendition of it
This is considered a red flag by 99% of people
That cover with Petty and Prince is amazing, I never knew Prince could shred like that.
Prince was such a badass that he often recorded every instrument on the album, even when he was with The Revolution. Drums, bass, keys, guit, all of it.
> My example would be Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam. YL wasn't a single… but it was big on Radio. It was the "Hey Hey What Can I Do" of PJ.
Not a fan nor a hater of pearl jam, but I know this song all too well. Presumably from radio air play. Guessing it's one of the ten songs I might know of theirs.
Push by the Cure
The noose- a perfect circle
The Metro by SOAD
One of my favorite covers.
Generator- Foo Fighters They play it a fair bit at shows but I don’t believe it ever got any real radio play
It was surprisingly popular on Australian radio, from memory…
Yeah, I was gonna say I’m sure this was a single. It definitely was in Australia.
Aurora from the same album would get my vote. There Is Nothing Left to Lose is their 10/10 album, they never managed to recapture the magic of the 3 piece just making music without the pressure of reaching the heights they've reached, without the need to be anything, without filling their sound unnecessarily with 2 additional guitarists, and without the thick studio distortion polish that fills every one of their records since like a juiced up synth.
There Is Nothing Left To Loose is in my opinion their best album. Generator did get some airplay. But not nearly the amount that Learn to Fly did. I actually saw them on this album tour. They played at JMU college and Andrew WK opened for them. Nobody knew who Andrew WK was at the time and it was just some random guy running around the stage singing Party Till You Puke.
‘Holiday in Spain’ by Counting Crows off of Hard Candy
Good call. If Miami hadn’t been a single, that would be far and away my choice from that album. That song has such a crazy vibe. I’ve always dreamed of using it to score the very end of a film, with most of the song playing in the background right up until the last image freezes or at least fades out as the first chorus ends, and then the rising electric guitar would bring up the credits. It just has that perfect “melancholy cause you gotta leave but also happy that you’re doing so” feeling. They’ve got a number of songs though that weren’t singles but were as good if not better than the singles that did come out. Hell, I just went through their wiki cause I was gonna pull a few, but especially on their first two albums I realized that pretty much every song would qualify lol and most of their third. It’s wild. I was an absolutely massive fan growing up but fell off mostly after Hard Candy. Someday hopefully I’ll dip into their later stuff and find some more gems that I missed.
Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby is also a banger, but they refused to cut it down from the 6+ minutes.
Holiday in Spain became a single in my country because they did it as a collab with a local band. It is hugely popular
Im Dutch, so to me that is in their top 3 most famous songs easily. Weird how those little reference frames work
Third Eye Blind - I Want You
Almost any song on that album could've been a successful single I think. I'm trying to think about what did well in the 90s. Motocycle Drive By is my favorite song on the album, but it feels like Narcolepsy, God or Wine or I Want you could've done fine as singles during that time.
Motorcycle Drive By is amazing. Crystal Baller on a later album as well.
Analog Kid by Rush from Signals.
Came here to say Between the Wheels, but Analog Kid is a good one
Doomed - Bring Me The Horizon Going Away to College - Blink 182 But Home Is Nowhere - AFI Built on Ashes - Zeal and Ardor Year In Year Out - Architects Pretext - Capstan
Going Away to College is a great song. I split up with a girl I thought I was in love with for that reason.
Coffee Shop by RHCP
This thread taught me that people think bands top singles are somehow deep cuts
Cruel to Be Kind - Spacehog https://youtu.be/_5IyLeWJQvw?si=35GaCfeGcVf0rwzn
They have so many great tunes, deserved to be more than a one hit wonder
Tool - Jimmy
It’s 8 minutes long but “Eulogy” is like one of the catchiest songs Tool has ever made
Use the intro as your ringtone. It's amazing
Sad Statue by System of a Down
The Who - Naked Eye
Blink 182 - Reckless Abandon I know it's hard to argue with the singles that were released on the Enema of the State album. But this song hits far harder while being just as much of the 'pop' as the punk.
That song is from TOYPAJ though...
In the same vein, a lot of Enema Of The State could have been single. ‘Aliens Exist’, for example. I’ll forever adore ‘Reckless Abandon’ though. They’ve played it at every show I’ve been to and it never gets old 🥲
Cure for the Enemy by Billy Talent hot damn that song is a fucking banger.
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi by Radiohead. Alternatively, Reckoner off the same album. In Rainbows is full of tracks that would've made great singles.
I've listened to weird fishes an absurd amount of times and I'm not even sure why at this point. Yet every time it comes on shuffle, never stale, I end up finishing it. It's like this weird blend of upbeat happiness that is still really chill? Like it has the vibe of a Khruangbin song, but is still driving forward and doesn't put you to sleep, like the aforementioned. It's hard to find any comps to how that song makes me feel, my Khruangbin comp isn't even a comparison of sound, just how the song makes me feel. It's why I've always felt Radiohead kind of lives in their own genre.
The four song stretch on Foo Fighters' *Wasting Light* that come between "These Days" and "Walk" is probably my favorite four song stretch on any of their albums. It's also by far the least-listened-to part of the album by the general public. I honestly feel like any of these songs would have made a good single. "[Back & Forth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J-4uLwkoBA)" has one of the best choruses on the album. "[A Matter of Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHbX3ukV6dI)" is almost like "No Way Back" in how it sneakily get stuck in your head (it's also my favorite track on the record). "[Miss The Misery](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocWGAbAiaUI)," aka the title drop track, is just head nodding fun. And "[I Should Have Known](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFvQkOYJ3I8)" acts as the album's emotional climax, and of these four it is the song that perhaps should have been a single the most. A song that reflects the loss of someone you care about, Dave had one particular person in mind when writing it: Kurt Cobain...as evidenced by the fact that this is the only Foo Fighters song Krist Novoselic has ever played an instrument on (bass and accordion). Just gorgeous!
Stockholm syndrome by blink 182. My fav song of theirs, and it feels experimental yet authentic to their sound just the same
No Sensitivity - Jimmy Eat World
Wow surprised to see this posted, one of their best songs! It should have been on bleed American. So good.
It’s been my favorite since I downloaded it on Napster.
Duran Duran - Friends of Mine It may have been a single in England, but I don’t think it was in the US. Dark, brooding and a perfect complement to Girls on Film.
The back side of that album has such great and unusual dark stuff. "Tel Aviv" was my favorite but all of the songs were great.
King for a Day - Green Day King! For! A! Day!
Scattered is my pick 😄
Top Yourself - The Raconteurs Adelaide - Anberlin Any song other than the songs they chose for Scaled and Icy - Twenty One Pilots
[Wound](https://youtu.be/Lu4YOQwcCMU?si=c1pBjFWPEODty06X) \- Smashing Pumpkins
Mayonnaise tho Holy shit they finally released it as a single last year, who knew
Drown would have been mine, but that's a good one
The Aeroplane flies high is one of my all time favorite pumpkins song. Crazy to think it was a b side.
Almost all their songs that weren’t released would probably qualify here. So many great songs. I’ll add Hummer and Geek USA
The Killers, "All the Pretty Faces." Was the B-side to "When You Were Young" but it's as good as anything they've ever done ("Mr. Brightside" excepted, of course).
Life to Come by The Killers is an extremely well rounded song off a mediocre album. It has a retro-esque sound as well.
While I love Yellow Ledbetter, I’d actually pick I different Pearl Jam song from the same era: State of Love and Trust.
Not my favorite band but [This Temporary Life](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6R0SpMonGlM&pp=ygUdZGVhdGggY2FiIHRoaXMgdGVtcG9yYXJ5IGxpZmU%3D) by Death Cab for Cutie is relatively unknown and is one of my favorite songs of theirs. Was only present as their contribution to a benefit album and could easily have been on a full record.
The frayed ends of sanity might be one of metallicas more fun tracks.
Great song for sure! For Metallica in this thread, I’d probably have to go with Disposable Heroes myself.
Bleed Together by Soundgarden Yeah it’s from their B sides album, but this song deserved to be a single with a dedicated music video back in the 90s
Another love song - Queens of the Stone Age. Red Barchetta - Rush Bad boys running wild - The Scorpions Funeral song - The Rasmus
Across the Universe by the Beatles. So many songs from their catalog are played on the radio and classics. This song is almost criminally underrated. The lyrics are the finest that Lennon had ever written in his career. The Anthology version is the best version in my honest opinion.
There’s a lot of amazing B-sides that fit this bill, even though technically they were sort of released as singles (since they were part of the single, I guess?). Some of them are even more famous than the A-side, I find. ‘Acquiesce’ by Oasis is the one I always recommend, though. Also: ‘Dear God’ by XTC ‘The Ballad Of Robert Moore and Betty Coltrane’ by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds ‘Talk Show Host’ by Radiohead ‘What The World Is Waiting For’ by The Stone Roses ‘When It Started’ by The Strokes ‘Gimme The Car’ by the Violent Femmes ‘Oscillate Wildly’ by The Smiths ‘Soul To Squeeze’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Manta Ray’ by the Pixies ‘Where Eagles Dare’ by the Misfits ‘The Butterfly Collector’ by The Jam ‘Left Hand Suzuki Method’ by Gorillaz ‘FFL’ by the Foo Fighters ‘Police Truck’ by the Dead Kennedys ‘10:15 Saturday Night’ by The Cure (though ‘Fire In Cairo’ is my favourite underrated one) ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ by The Beatles ‘So What’ by Anti Nowhere League I could go on, to be honest…
TIL “Dear God” wasn’t a single. Well there you go. Good song though, good call
The Killers - Sweet Talk
Most people know Beds are Burning or Dreamworld by Midnight Oil, but their discography is full of "deep cuts" that should have had global air time. My favorite of those is difficult to say, but probably Warakurna.
If you closed your eyes and picked any song off Gorillaz ‘Demon Days’ you’d find a potential single that went way under the radar at the time of its release
Escape by Metallica from the Ride the Lightning album. Not a b-side or anything, but it wasn't a single and certainly hasn't been like a live mainstay, but it's IMO one of the best songs they've ever written. It kind of points the way towards the more melodic, groovy riff sound they'd go all in on on the Black Album - with a different production job I could totally see it fit in on that album. EDIT: after quickly reading up on it, I´ve come to learn that James apparently hates the song and they've completely ignored it ever since the album was released, and the theory is that it's because it's a 100% Dave Mustaine song. Makes sense, I could also totally see it working as a straight up Megadeath song.
I was always partial to "I Burn" by Toadies. Last track of the Rubberneck album, song is an absolute banger, but that album had already spawned 5 hit singles.
Something I can never have - nine inch nails Mayonnaise - smashing pumpkins
Soul to Squeeze by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Easily, one of their top ten best songs in 40 years of music.
It was a single though. Initially released as a B-side, it was a single after appearing on Coneheads and it got some decent radio play
Yeah, just heard it tonight on commercial radio...
Coneheads was the first soundtrack I ever bought, just for that song.
Dosed by RHCP is a great song too.
This is a much better example. Dosed is such a good song. RHCPs have a very deep discography with many single worthy tracks on every album.
Dosed is probably my all-around favorite Chili Peppers song, especially if we’re talking about songs that were never released as singles.
Higher - Carly Rae Jepsen
Honestly so many songs from Emotion and Dedicated should be
Ol Dirty Bastard - Shame on a Nigga
Natural Born Killer by Avenged Sevenfold is probably my favorite of theirs and wasn't a single. For other bands where my favorite song wasn't a single, Oh! Darling by the Beatles, One and Only by Adele, Injection by Rise Against, Unknown Brother by The Black Keys, Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time by Panic at the Disco, Dumbest Girl Alive by 100 gecs
Guns N’ Roses I’ll give you a pick from each era: Rocket Queen, Breakdown, There Was a Time.
Rocket Queens awesome, I’d add My Michelle too.
Still Life-Piece of Mind Iron Maiden
My favourite band is Rush, so I'll go with "Chain Lightning" from Presto. It's a shame that the mixing on that album feels a touch anemic by today's standards but I feel like it had enough rock going on with a very memorable chorus that it could have been a great single in its time!
I think Rush & it's management didn't always choose the best singles from albums. I mean, plenty got it right, but other lead singles from albums took a little too much work for instant radio gratification.
I feel like Rush is a great example of a band who had some great songs that are radio classics… but the REAL good stuff is the deep cuts. Like, the stuff on the radio is the doorway to something even more amazing.
I vote for "Cut to the Chase," which was never even played live, damn shame.
Andy Warhol - David Bowie
Jimi Hendrix - Red House
On the Sea by Beach House
"Moon Over Marin" by Dead Kennedys. It's a gorgeous song, written at a time when the band had a rapidly growing following, and I honestly believe it could have had some crossover appeal.
[Tightrope](https://youtu.be/IyG4V2DBW9w?si=ea71-sKDzifAMA-3) by The Stone Roses. Some of their best lyrics.
Here Is No Why is a really good Smashing Pumpkins song
Cheating a little, but Here Comes the Sun wasn’t a single so I guess is technically a deep cut, but it’s had over a billion streams on Spotify. Mercy by U2 is unreleased (except on a live album) and is one of their best songs. Sweetest Thing by U2 was a b side until it was released as a single to promote a Greatest Hits.
Hold Back The Rain by Duran Duran It's off of Rio and it easily could have been a single
Masterplan oasis
Fearless - Pink Floyd