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Songs that you thought were big hits but on fact never reached UK top 40? |
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#1 |
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Songs that you thought were big hits but in fact never reached UK top 40?
Start off with I Ran by A Flock Of Seagulls. This new wave classic only reached no. 43 in 1982:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iIpfWORQWhU |
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#2 |
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'Summer of 69' by Bryan Adams always gets a mention in these type of threads.
Played all the time on Heart FM and their like but never made the UK Top 40. |
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#3 |
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That's a big one!
Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl never made it either. |
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#4 |
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Fleetwood Mac have a bunch. Rhiannon and You Make Loving Fun didn't make top 40, while Go Your Own Way and Sara only made #38 and #37 respectively.
Meanwhile those 'still well-known huge hits' Tusk and Oh Diane were top ten hits at the time. Finally, their 'Rumours' album, 11x Platinum in the UK, didn't deliver a single top 20 single. What a different industry it was back then. |
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#5 |
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Stairway to Heaven wasnt a hit until 2007, and even then it got to the lower end of the chart based on Downloads.
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#6 |
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Changes by David Bowie got to number 49 in the charts. And that followed his death; it never charted before that.
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#7 |
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Quote:
Finally, their 'Rumours' album, 11x Platinum in the UK, didn't deliver a single top 20 single. What a different industry it was back then.
And a decade or so earlier it was different again, because then singles often weren't on the albums. |
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#8 |
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Quote:
Stairway to Heaven wasnt a hit until 2007, and even then it got to the lower end of the chart based on Downloads.
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#9 |
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Stop Me If You've Think You've Heard This One Before by the Smiths - I didn't know it never even got released (due to a line referencing the Hungerford massacre).
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#10 |
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Quote:
Fleetwood Mac have a bunch. Rhiannon and You Make Loving Fun didn't make top 40, while Go Your Own Way and Sara only made #38 and #37 respectively.
Meanwhile those 'still well-known huge hits' Tusk and Oh Diane were top ten hits at the time. Finally, their 'Rumours' album, 11x Platinum in the UK, didn't deliver a single top 20 single. What a different industry it was back then. |
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#11 |
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Quote:
That was because everybody had the album!
And a decade or so earlier it was different again, because then singles often weren't on the albums. |
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#12 |
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There are loads of famous Beatles songs that were never released. With A Little Help From My Friends, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds , When I'm 64.....
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#13 |
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Quote:
There are loads of famous Beatles songs that were never released. With A Little Help From My Friends, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds , When I'm 64.....
Yesterday and Eight Days A Week were no 1s in America but never released as singles here. |
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#14 |
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Quote:
Stop Me If You've Think You've Heard This One Before by the Smiths - I didn't know it never even got released (due to a line referencing the Hungerford massacre).
Quote:
The same happened with The Verve's Sonnet, a huge radio hit at the time but didn't get near the top 40.
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#15 |
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Quote:
Led Zeppelin didn't release singles.
On that note, one of my favourite quotes about Led Zep was "they didn't appear on Top of the Pops....they did the theme tune". So cool. |
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#16 |
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I thought this was a top 40 hit and was surprised it wasn't
Rick Springfield - Jessies Girl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYkbTyHXwbs |
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#17 |
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Quote:
I'm pretty sure Whole Lotta Love was a hit.
On that note, one of my favourite quotes about Led Zep was "they didn't appear on Top of the Pops....they did the theme tune". So cool. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c9GS3SofhdU |
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#18 |
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Quote:
I thought this was a top 40 hit and was surprised it wasn't
Rick Springfield - Jessies Girl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYkbTyHXwbs |
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#19 |
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One of the biggest that hasn't been mentioned yet, Sir Mix-A-Lot - Baby Got Back. Better known as the "I like big butts and I cannot lie" song!
Only made #56 in the UK, but a massive hit in the USA - a #1 and the second-biggest seller of 1992 - and used on tons of ads and films since. |
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#20 |
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The Velvettes' Needle in a Haystack.
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#21 |
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Quote:
It did appear in the charts eventually - well, a version of it, mashed up with 'You Keep Me Hanging On', as Mark Ronson's "Stop Me." A Morrissey/Marr/Holland/Dozier/Holland writing credit - that'd only be beaten if someone unearths a Lennon/Jagger/McCartney/Richards collab...
Sonnet following on from "The Drugs Don't Work", which had the opposite problem - it got to number one, but nobody remembers that it did because it was in the week Princess Diana died and as such nobody gave an arse about the charts... |
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#22 |
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Quote:
This cover/remixed version by CCS was a UK hit, but the original never charted.
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#23 |
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Starbuck - Moonlight feels right 1976. Big hit in the US and big radio hit .
Harry Chapin - Cats in the cradle Janis Ian - Fly too high Godley & Creme - Englishman in new york Kansas - Carry On Wayward son Flash and the Pan - And the band played on Donald Fagen - New Frontier Don Henley - Dirty Laundry Chris White - Spanish wine.....another radio hit |
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#24 |
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Quote:
It did chart - it made No21 in 1997.
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#25 |
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Eric Carmen - Hungry Eyes incredibly only reached no.82
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