Canon-forming and pop

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

On today's poll thread Cis raises the spectre (which may be a benign spectre, and may not be spectral at all) of a 'pop canon'.

I have a couple of questions which may or may not relate to it:

Are there any very well-known (and ideally well-loved) pop songs that weren't especially popular when first released?

Are there any very well-known and well-loved pop songs that have never actually been hit singles?

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

i) 'Unfinished Sympathy'
ii) would any Joni Mitchell standards apart from 'Big Yellow Taxi' apply? or er '10 Dollar' by MIA, um.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Unfinished Sympathy was v. popular at the time! OK as a single it only got to #13, but Blue Lines sold truckloads in 1991 on the back of it.

I think "Stairway to Heaven"'s popularity grew over time (i.e. the peak of its popularity was probably in the mid/late 70s rather than in '71) and it stayed a strong contender in the all-time faves list throughout the 80s. However, since Led Zep never released singles in the UK, it's difficult to accurately judge the exact arc.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Also if this (http://www.virginradio.co.uk/music/charts/top_500/index.html) is anything to go by, "Iris" by The Goo Goo Dolls (which I've never heard, I think!). I know it was a massive airplay hit in the US, but it barely scraped into the Top 30 in the UK at the time, and I assume the Virgin Radio voters are mostly Brits.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

I think you might have hit the nail on the head there. And it's to do with US TV and films, I reckon. We all know 'Iris' because it was used in 'City of Angels' and by the same token, I believe Phantom Planet's 'California' falls into that category by being the theme from The O.C.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

...I thought 'Unfinished Sympathy' missed the top 20! 'You Oughta Know' by Alanis M did, and that also became a standard of sorts.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

also unfinished sympathy got shedloads of radio play, also video play, back when they actually showed promos on mtv...

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Would love to answer in-depth but ironing-ically am up to elbows in canonning!

For 2nd qn you must obv look to major albums that sold squillions so everyone knows the non-single tracks OR stuff that was airplayed but never got round to being released ('Ring The Alarm' for example). Worryingly the one example that keeps springing to mind is 'Idioteque' by the Radioheads. Wasn't a single but everyone knows it. Whether they love it or not is a different matter.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think our versions of "everyone" may differ here! The everyone who knows Billie Jean and the everyone who knows Idiotheque are likely to be a scale apart I feel!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Good point. Idioteque got fairly heavy radio play on R1/Xfm circa release of Kid A but it wasn't played at anyone's wedding disco (apart from Thom Yorke's hahahahah).

Man the canon results are interesting. Song 2 is second in the Blurillaz canon! What are the chances etc!

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

but the point is solid i think, see um every track off of "what's the story..." (Champ Sup in partic) for the second bit anyways.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

With indie albums I can think of a fair few non-singles which "got people talking" and so on - and in some cases they're well-known precisely because of their unsuitability as a single. Er I can think of no actual examples right now though.

I think 'Ring The Alarm' counts as a single! The internet has broken global boundaries when it comes to this sort of thing.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

I don't think Ring The Alarm counts in the Pop Canon though - not next to Crazy In Love or Irreplaceable anyway. I'm assuming it's singles or individual songs that make the canon, not artists.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think it should, there's an increasing trend for popstars to release different singles in different territories but all of them get...known, in the end. eg Britney's 'Anticipating', or Nelly F's 'No Hay Igual'.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i don't know idioteque. for because it is by RH

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

There are hugely canonical and popular non-singles, but not much within pop - the biggest example would perhaps be Stairway To Heaven.

'Popular' here is slippery - do you mean that weren't hits, or that were critically reviled but admired later? An awful lot of '60s pop was treated with no critical love at the time. I always recall John Peel saying that back in the '60s he thought Tony Blackburn was an idiot for thinking that Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson would be admired in decades to come and Iron Butterfly or whoever wouldn't be.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Bizarre Love Triangle might be my answer to both these questions. Wasn't Blue Monday more of a slow-burner than a big hit?

We might be able to sneak Alcazar - This Is The World We Live In into OUR pop canon in a couple of years and that certainly answers both your questions.

[cis.livejournal.com]

but BLT was a hit in the US, no?

[5500.livejournal.com]

'Twas, yes. Esp. the video.
Apparently (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarre_Love_Triangle), it was also big in Australia.

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

Little Green Bag?

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

There's loads of Beatles songs that were never singles that are incredibly well-known to a huge range of people, and loved by many too. Although quite a few of those have been covered and made hits by other people - Back in the USSR, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, When I'm 64, Lovely Rita, Drive My Car, Here Comes the Sun just to name the first few that spring to mind.

And I'm sure that there are a few Christmas singles that were never big hits at the time (or at all) that are well-known and loved by being played to death every Christmas & featuring on every Christmas compilation album. Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses springs to mind.

In the same vein, Mariah's "All I Want for Christmas is You", while it went top 10 when it first came out, seems to be getting more and more popular every year (it's been near the top of the iTunes chart for the last 2 Christmases), and far more popular and ubiquitous than when it first came out.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Christmas songs: yes, OTM.

It seems almost unfair to bring Beatlesband into the discussion. The canonisation of their entire catalogue (pretty much done and dusted by 1969) is a phenomenon the likes of which I doubt we'll ever see again. Special mention must go to "In My Life", however, the popularity of which seems to be considerably higher today than it was in the 60s.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Back In The USSR was a single but not in the traditional sense (1976 re-release). I've just been looking over the canons, innit :-)

Also a bunch of REALLY well known Queen songs aren't singles. Can't remember which ones, haven't got up to there yet...

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

I think anything that's been used in a hugely popular film counts actually. Although amazingly nothing comes to mind right now.

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

Yeah like i said, Little Green Bag... in fact almost any of the big Tarantino songs... Jungle Boogie, Hooked on a Feeling, You'll Be A Woman Soon...

Although i admit they might be reserved for the indie dancefloors of the 90s...

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

I was trying to think of these... Goo Goo Dolls' 'Iris' mentioned above... 'I Don't Want To Miss A Thing' by Aerosmith did better than I remembered in the charts by reaching #4, Bon Jovi's 'Blaze Of Glory' only made it to 13 in the UK but was #1 in the US, ah, I've got it... the Top Gun theme, never released as a single, yet barely a person in the Western World who can't hum it!!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

erm, meaning of "Top Gun theme" to me = "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin, a #1 single in the UK. Am I missing something here? (I have never seen the movie, by the way.)

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

Presumably meaning "Danger Zone" which made no impact in the UK but was massive in the US, so maybe fits.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

No, not meaning 'Danger Zone' by Kenny Loggins, nor 'Take My Breath Away' by Berlin, but the actual theme (I believe it was called 'Top Gun Anthem' on the soundtrack)... ah, look, here's a YouTube video with it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCTJmXrgsFg).

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

does remixing count here. then you have things like West End Girls. also didn't A-Ha release Take On Me once and then get a video made and that was the re-release? (i may have made this up)

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

How Soon is Now is probably one of the best known and loved Smiths singles (and probably most recognisable to non-fans) but only ever made no. 24.

And There is a Light that Never Goes Out was never a proper single (was released in 1992 though, presumably as some kind of greatest hits tie-in.

In fact only one of their singles even made the top 10

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

Talking Heads count on a technicality I think--lots of their "best-loved" songs weren't really well-known until Stop Making Sense came out.

Movies are probably a good way to go here. There must be stuff that never really hit it big until they were featured in a movie. I seem to recall the love for "Bohemian Rhapsody" lapsing until Wayne's World revived it but I was like 11 at the time so what would I know.

Alternately, stuff that was sampled or remixed and then the original became a fixture?

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

Or featured in a TV show, or someone did a cover of it. These tend to actually change the meaning of songs by putting them in a different, and presumably easier-to-love, context.

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

Thinking Of You by Sister Sledge was an album track from 1979 that eventually became a UK hit single in 1984 and 1993. The Jackson Sisters' Miracles, which in the mid 90s always seemed to get played after Thinking Of You, was never – as far as I can tell – a UK hit, and nor (in a similiar vein of belatedly fashionable songs) was Love Unlimited's Under The Influence Of Love.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i have played miracles to a wide-range of audiences and it always goes down well (especially at weddings for some reason), i had assumed it had been a hit...

...top track anyhoo.

[koganbot]

"Never a single" becomes fundamentally irrelevant (esp. in the U.S.) after 1970, and by the late '80s in the U.S. record companies were releasing singles and then withdrawing them shortly afterwards anyway, so the difference between "Iris" (number one in airplay but no physical single) and some other number one (gets to number one on the Hot 100 with only twelve copies being sold and doing the rest on airplay points) is fundamentally nonexistent.

Anyway, there are surprisingly few that come to mind for your main question, well-known now, overlooked then. "Under My Thumb" might be borderline (was never released as a single and therefore didn't get airplay, but about five years later was considered part of the Stones' canon), 'cept it's hard to say that much the Stones did was really overlooked. (And nonsingles like "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Gimme Shelter" don't count, because they got massive airplay on the FM stations.) The Shangri-Las' "Out In The Streets" didn't hit big (#53), and now is often cited as their best song. Same for Darlene Love's "Christmas, Baby Please Come Home," though I'm not sure how well-known you'd say those are today. The Who's "My Generation" only got to 74 on the U.S. charts, though I assume it was big in Britain. Ike & Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High" hit in Britain but only made it to 88 in the U.S. The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" was probably never even released here and for practical purposes the Kinks had no presence in the U.S. between '67 and '70. But everyone I've cited so far was a well-known act, even if they have what are now acknowledged classics that didn't hit so big initially. The Youngbloods "Get Together" didn't hit until two years after it first came out, I think. And I think the Grateful Dead's "Casey Jones" and "Truckin'" took several years before they were really established as the Dead hits.

The crucial ones will be the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams," the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" and "Sister Ray," the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "Search and Destroy," the New York Dolls' "Personality Crisis." Of course, you can question how well-known they are today, but they're definitely part of the canon whereas they were barely heard in their day. Might want to add Bob Seger's "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man," though that's even more borderline as to being well-known. Maybe the Runaways "Cherry Bomb" too, though again I think Tom's looking for something with more latter-day presence. There are probably a whole slew of soul tracks that became classics retrospectively in Northern England. Martin would know these better than I; Soul Brothers Six "Some Kind Of Wonderful" would be an example, though again it's canonical without necessarily being that widely known. L'Trimm's "Cars With The Boom" only hit in scattered markets, and not on Top 40, so it may well be more widely known and loved now than back in its day. Probably there are examples of songs that did well in specialty markets (e.g., disco records) and later became better-known generally.

Interesting to speculate about the future. Hilary Duff's "Come Clean" was only a minor hit in the U.S., peaking at a relatively low 35, getting most of its following on little old Radio Disney. I'm wondering if in ten years it will be more widely played and loved than it was in its time. I heard it the other day piped into the supermarket.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

re northern soul, several of the top songs have recently been pressed into service on uk kfc ads which is not a good thing at all...

cars with the boom definitely a top poptimism hit :)

[mostlyconnect.livejournal.com]

Ooh Stick You was #8 and UGLY #18, I think. I don't know if they counts as "well-known" (they probably don't as well-loved).

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Erm was "The Stand" by The Alarm never a single in the uk, or just never a hit? Surprised me to see in my Guinness that in spite of 16 chart singles there were just 2 barely in the top twenty.