DRC Madness #31 - I Can't Believe It Wasn't A Top 40

[scotchandcigar]

Moving Pictures was a big thing in my life, and the lives of my gang of friends. It was not only awesome music, but it was the album to crank-up LOUD on your stereo, or in your car, and do the "air drums". It is a great-sounding record. I'd say that "Red Barchetta" is up there with my all-time favorite songs.

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

#6 Rush "Tom Sawyer"

Canadian lyricist Pye Dubois of Max Webster presented Rush drummer Neil Peart with a poem he'd written about a modern day rebel named Louis. Peart added on to it, changed the protagonist to "Tom Sawyer", and it became what Geddy Lee once told Rolling Stone is their "biggest song". In 2009, VH1 named it the 19th greatest hard rock song of all time. It's one of five songs for which the band was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010.

Rush has had no problem reaching the top 40 in their homeland, getting there seven times. And they've reached the top 40 four times in the UK. But the Hot 100 refuses to register the greatness of the band, allowing them in only once (one hit wonder?? phooey!!) with "New World Man" in 1982. Between 1977 and 1986 they had seven more songs climb up the Hot 100 only to be stopped somewhere between #44 and #88. "Tom" was the biggest of the band's shoulda-been-bigger's, getting stopped at #44.

This was my prediction going in as the winner of the Madness. Much more of a shocker than a mediocre Beatles hit.

 

[HecticArt]

My brothers had Permanent Waves and 2112 when I was a kid. Loud is how they played em. I liked those albums but Moving Pictures really clinched it for me.
I was a big fan ever since.

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

My brothers had Permanent Waves and 2112 when I was a kid. Loud is how they played em. I liked those albums but Moving Pictures really clinched it for me.
I was a big fan ever since.

"Permanent Waves" was my first Rush album. I loved it. "Moving Pictures" also clinched it for me.

 

[sadchild]

#5 Rolling Stones "You Can't Always Get What You Want"

In 1969 "Honky Tonk Women" went to #1 in the US, the UK, Australia and Switzerland. The b-side of the single release was "You Can't Always Get What You Want". Four years later, their record label - for reasons unknown - put it on the flipside of "Sad Day" overseas. This is one of a few theories as to how this song was able to chart on the Hot 100 for eight weeks, long after it's original release. Later, Rolling Stone named it the 100th greatest song of all time.

But as we've learned, the Hot 100 is practiced in the art of deception. The song spent six weeks climbing to #42, then quickly fell to #61, then was booted off the chart. What odd methodology takes a song with a mysterious new life in it, sends it 2 doors down from the top 40, then kills it? Boy, the Hot 100 is proof that you really can't always get what you want... or deserve!



PS: Here are two more theories as to why it charted in 1973:

Why this Rolling Stones Classic Took Four Years to Become a Hit

The Rolling Stones have many iconic songs. One of them is "You Can't Always Get What You Want," but it took fo...

wglx.com

Rolling Stones 1973 issue "You Can't Always Get What You Want" question

I was looking at some old top 30 surveys from my local AM radio station back in the day, WRKO and noticed that "You Can't Always Get What You Want"...

forums.stevehoffman.tv

 

[scotchandcigar]

My brothers had Permanent Waves

That's funny, because my brother was having his hair straightened at the time.

 

[sadchild]

#4 Cars "Good Times Roll"

How many times have The Cars been in the top 40? Thirteen! No complaints there. But here's a piece of chart trivia that will make you scratch your head. How many times have The Cars been stopped at #41 on the Hot 100? Three times! "Since You're Gone", "It's All I Can Do" and "Good Times Roll" were all one spot away from the promised land before being unceremoniously denied access.

"Good Times Roll" went to #5 in France. Ultimate Classic Rock named the song their fifth best song and called it "one of the best side-one/track-one's ever". Billboard ranked it as the #12 best Cars song. The New York Times listed it as one of Ric Ocasek's 11 Essential Songs.

But in May 1979, it would stall at #41 behind 40 other songs. Just imagine, if Barbara Mandrell, Roger Voudouris, McGuinn Clark & Hillman, Rex Smith, Tycoon, Instant Funk, GQ or Randy VanWarmer wasn't in the top 40 that week, "Good Times Roll" would have squeaked its way into being a certified hit. But alas, The Cars got knocked around and made a clown that week before dropping a whopping 41 spots to #82, then getting kicked off for good.

 

[scotchandcigar]

What?!?! It was kicked out by "Take my Breath Away"?!?! Holy Jesus!

 

[scotchandcigar]

Ultimate Classic Rock called it "one of the best side-one/track-one's ever".

Absofuckinlutely.

 

[sadchild]

#3 Cranberries "Dreams"

In 1992, Island Records released the Cranberries' debut single "Dreams" to little success. It was followed by "Linger", which didn't find success until MTV added it into rotation because the band was touring with London Suede at the time. That song reached the top 10 in six countries including the US. Island then re-issued "Dreams" and it got the recognition it deserved all along, reaching #9 in Ireland, #27 in Canada and the UK, #30 in Australia and #31 in Scotland. It's since showed up in the films Mission: Impossible, You've Got Mail, Boys On The Side, The Next Karate Kid, Shot Through the Heart, and The Baby-Sitters Club. It also appeared on TV in 90210, JAG, and My So-Called Life.

But what of the US? The song's second life only sent the single up to #42, just shy of being a certified hit. How could the Hot 100 have a song like "Dunkie Butt" by 12 Gauge into the top 40 that week instead? Gotta be some bad math somewhere! This makes me not trust that chart - and I know I've felt like this before. But now I'm feeling it even more!

 

[HecticArt]

I had forgotten about London Suede. They played their “We Are The Pigs” (or something pig related) on First Wave last week. Good tune.

 

[sadchild]

#2 Romantics "What I Like About You"

On Valentine's day 1977, two childhood friends formed a band with a name befitting the occasion - The Romantics. Going for a sound that was part 60s music (Animals/Beatles/Kingsmen/Stones) and part hometown Detroit (Bob Seger/MC5), they traveled to Florida to record their debut album. From these sessions "What I Like About You" stood out immediately as the obvious first single. Mike Skill recalled, "Before we knew it, the album was out and ‘What I Like About You’ was a huge hit."

True! It was a huge hit... in Australia (#2) and The Netherlands (#8). But in the US it only reached #49?! For a song that is still so massive here in the States, this is preposterous! In DRC Madness #30, we ranked The Romantics the #12 most "don't call them a two-hit wonder" band (1970-1993). They reached #3 in early 1984 with "Talking In Your Sleep" and the follow-up single "One In A Million" reached #37 that April. But it's not "One In A Million" that makes DRC outraged at these guys being labeled a two-hit wonder. It's the idea that "What I Like About You" never even made the top 40 in the first place!

Adding insult to injury, forgettable pop singer Michael Morales released a forgettable cover of this song in 1989 and took it all the way into the top 40 with a #28 peak, showing that even a poor regurgitation of this incredible song can maneuver its way into the top 1/3 of the Hot 100 ... if the chart so desireth. But why no love for the original classic by The Romantics??

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

You can stop the countdown now. Nothing to see here.

 

[scotchandcigar]

#2 Romantics "What I Like About You"

On Valentine's day 1977, two childhood friends formed a band with a name befitting the occasion - The Romantics. Going for a sound that was part 60s music (Animals/Beatles/Kingsmen/Stones) and part hometown Detroit (Bob Seger/MC5), they traveled to Florida to record their debut album. From these sessions "What I Like About You" stood out immediately as the obvious first single. Mike Skill recalled, "Before we knew it, the album was out and ‘What I Like About You’ was a huge hit."

True! It was a huge hit... in Australia (#2) and The Netherlands (#8). But in the US it only reached #49?! For a song that is still so massive here in the States, this is preposterous! In DRC Madness #30, we ranked The Romantics the #12 most "don't call them a two-hit wonder" band (1970-1993). They reached #3 in early 1984 with "Talking In Your Sleep" and the follow-up single "One In A Million" reached #37 that April. But it's not "One In A Million" that makes DRC outraged at these guys being labeled a two-hit wonder. It's the idea that "What I Like About You" never even made the top 40 in the first place!

Adding insult to injury, forgettable pop singer Michael Morales released a forgettable cover of this song in 1989 and took it all the way into the top 40 with a #28 peak, showing that even a poor regurgitation of this incredible song can maneuver its way into the top 1/3 of the Hot 100 ... if the chart so desireth. But why no love for the original classic by The Romantics??

It must have something to do with MTV (or the lack of). And with all that time gone by, nobody remembers anymore which song came first. "What I Like" and "Talking" are both regarded as 2 huge hits from this band. I, for one, regard "What I Like" as the standout hit, while "Talking" is just a slick, pleasant song in the style of the era.

 

[HecticArt]

Total shocker!

 

[sadchild]

My research (for writing that blurb above) tells me the song was big enough here in the States for the band (who were nobodies at the time, suddenly stars) to feel like it was a 'big hit' to them, but when it charted in spring 1980 it was more of an underground hit (like Yazoo or early Talking Heads) - not fully mainstream as 'new wave' was just getting a foothold.

Then when MTV debuted 1981, it was what the channel was looking for: an American rock band (and some would also add 'all-white', as they came under fire for not airing black artists until "Pass The Dutchie" then "Billie Jean"). And that's what pushed it into the mainstream consciousness, more than a year after it had charted on the Hot 100.

Then in 1989, it was used in a Budweiser commercial and that gave it a second wind (kinda like Wayne's World using Bohemian Rhapsody or Stranger Things using Running Up That Hill) and helped cement it as a ubiquitous classic.

 

[HecticArt]

I didn't remember that song was in a beer commercial till I saw it,
Still shocked it didn't make it to the top of the chart.

 

[Channel98]

Poison, led by Bret Michaels, had five top-ten hits, 1988-90: Unskinny Bop, Something To Believe In, Nothin' But A Good Time, Every Rose Has Its Thorn (which went to number one) and a remake of Loggins & Messina's Your Mama Don't Dance. Poison recorded What I Like About You for their album Poison'd, released in June 2007. I like their version better than the Romantics' original. I wonder how well it would have done if it had been released as a single. And what a clever and creative video!

 

[sadchild]

#1 Beatles "All My Loving"

Many artists get huge overseas that don't make an impact in the US. For example, Slade had 12 top 5's in the UK between 1971-1974, yet none of them could even get close to the top 40 here.

But sometimes one or two small events can change a band's history forever. Despite having five top tens in Sweden, Roxette had no US presence until an American exchange student brought the band's album home to Minnesota on his 1988 Christmas break and gave it to the local FM station, leading to six songs reaching the top 2. Robbie Williams had seven #1s in the UK but no top 40 hits in the US (only two of his songs have even touched the Hot 100). Right Said Fred's international smash "I'm Too Sexy" was ignored, and despised, by radio and record labels (and even the band's own management) until two random girls starting singing it after a radio plugger had shut it off in disinterest; that was the spark that led to the song's ascent to #2 here in the UK, and then it was an American DJ traveling abroad who brought it over to the US where it hit #1 seven months later.

But these stories pale in comparison to Beatlemania, and how it traveled across the pond. The Beatles' first two US singles flopped and Capitol Records was uninterested in promoting them. Later, television host Ed Sullivan was at Heathrow airport and took interest as he witnessed hundreds of excited teens waiting to see The Beatles return from a tour of Sweden. Had he not been at the right place at the right time, he wouldn't have booked the band on his show. And if Ed hadn't booked them, Capitol wouldn't have changed their minds about promoting the band. And if they hdan't gotten behind the band, Walter Cronkite wouldn't have done a story on UK's Beatlemania. And if that story wasn't in the news, a girl named Marsha Albert wouldn't have written to her local radio station asking, "Why can’t we have music like that here in America?" And if that letter didn't go out, a DJ wouldn't have tracked down a copy of their still-unreleased single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and began airing it in what became the spark of the massive wildfire that made the song a massive hit in the US, selling a million copies in a matter of days. Almost 40% of the entire nation's population watched The Ed Sullivan Show to see The Beatles perform.

The term Beatlemania was coined by Scottish concert promoter Andi Lothian, who described one of their shows as "Girls fainting, screaming, wet seats. The whole hall went into some kind of state, almost like collective hypnotism. I'd never seen anything like it." A fan who saw the band at Shea Stadium, and still owns one of the blank pieces of paper that rained down on fans waiting outside the band's New York hotel one day in 1964, recalled, "The screaming never stopped. We could barely hear the music ... There were police everywhere, trying to keep fans from jumping on to the field." Another fan, who crawled through the sewers under Abbey Road to hear them recording Rubber Soul through the floorboards, shared, "We were fanatical. We could stand outside Abbey Road for 16 hours and as long as one of them came and smiled or said something it was fine." By March 1964, Beatlemania was in full swing in the US.

The Beatles reached #1 on the Hot 100 twenty times. "I Want To Hold Your Hand" hit #1 in Feb 1964. "She Loves You" hit #1 in March. "Can't Buy Me Love" hit #1 in April and "Twist & Shout" hit #2 - held from the top spot by "Can't Buy Me Love". "All My Loving", one of five songs The Beatles performed on Ed Sullivan, hit #1 in Canada - but so many singles were imported into the US, it was enough to push the song all the way up to #45 in the States. It was one of the band's FIFTEEN songs on the chart the week of 4/4/64. With so much demand for the song, why didn't Capital just release it in the US, cash in, and give it the chart-topping position it rightly deserved?

By a margin small enough to fit under the sewers of Abbey Road and listen to the recording sessions of Rubber Soul, DRC has determined that "All My Loving" is the most shocking "I Can't Believe It Wasn't A Top 40" in the US of all time.



And there ya have 'em!! The forty most almost-hit records in America as determined by DRC. Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars...

 

[HecticArt]

There are some Beatles details there that I hadn't known!

Thanks for the knowledge and all of the work on this Sad!
Truly impressive. All of us (even IRBS) are musically smarter because of it.