Skip to main content

Songs That Should Have Been Hits

When releasing pop songs, major labels have been surprisingly good.  Sure, they often go with the obvious choices: the songs produced by famous producers and the songs featuring other big name acts.  However, after some bumbling around, they usually do end up releasing all the good songs as singles.  Every once in a while, though, they mess up big time.  Top 10 singles that could make millions of dollars and sometimes change the course of an artist's career are left to languish as album cuts because people are too stupid to comprehend their greatness.  Here's a list of songs that would conquer the world, if only someone would bother releasing them, and their likely peak chart position in the U.S.  There's links to YouTube videos of the songs imbedded below (obviously, there are some quality issues), and here's a Spotify Playlist with all available songs.

  1. Katy Perry - Hummingbird Heartbeat: #1
  2. Jennifer Lopez - Hypnotico: #1 (Note: The YouTube video is sped up.)
  3. Bruno Mars - Marry You: #2
  4. B.o.B - Wonderland: #3
  5. Usher - Guilty: #3
  6. Christina Aguilera - Prima Donna: #4
  7. Wiz Khalifa - No Sleep: #5
  8. Leona Lewis - Take a Bow: #6
  9. Rihanna - Complicated: #6
  10. Katy Perry - Who Am I Living For?: #7
  11. Big Boi - Hustle Blood: #8
  12. Rihanna - Fire Bomb: #10
  13. Taylor Swift - Ours: Country #1
  14. Taylor Swift - Mary's Song (Oh My My My): Country #1
(Bonus)
Jesse McCartney - Bleeding Love: While this version, the original, never became a hit, the Leona Lewis cover went #1 basically everywhere.  I don't know what I find more shocking, that Jesse McCartney wrote this song, or that he gave it away.

Comments

  1. I love how you provide all the links. So much better for lazy people like me.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Greatest Song of All Time

The music business has its fair share of complexities, as you would expect from any business with such a long history, and that is, at its core, built upon international law (i.e. copyright). That complexity is almost always hidden from the listening public. However, one piece that is curiously exposed every year when the Grammys come around is the separation between what is a "record" and what is a "song". The second and third most prestigious awards at the Grammys are, respectively, "Song of the Year," and "Record of the Year." What's the difference? Most people, including most musicians, wouldn't be able to tell you. I couldn't either until I took a music industry course in college where someone finally explained it to me: A "song" is melody and lyrics. The best way I have to think if it is, if hear someone play a faithful-to-the-original, acoustic cover, the "song" is what would be the same between the orig...

Fallout

This is an old song that I finally finagled into sounding good. The track uses Neon Indian's Fallout and was inspired by Frank Ocean's Strawberry Swing .  As with that song, I stripped the song of its original vocals and used the title as a starting point to craft a story of my own.  Hope you like it. http://www.mediafire.com/?bqv9d7821m7nn7m (I tried posting to SoundCloud, but the fact that I pretty much used a copyrighted track in its entirety did not make them very happy.) Lyrics: [Verse 1] Falling, falling out of control Away we will go To make love, oh how sweet Warm night, city breeze Not so sweet nothings and furtive stares Not the answer to my prayers, but Stagger, stumble through the door Bet tomorrow that’ll make you sore [Chorus] And we’re falling in and falling out of control And we’re falling in and falling out of control [Verse 2] Turn on the night light, not too bright Just enough to set things right, it Won’t go over w...

Best of The X-Factor UK

This coming Wednesday, Simon Cowell's replacement for American Idol, The X Factor, will debut here in the states. So, here's my favorite moments from the UK X-Factor, in the hopes that the US version will have moments just as good. Cher Lloyd - Turn My Swag On : A cheeky British teenager (16 at the time) covers the Keri Hilson cover of a Soulja Boy song.  On paper, it should've been a complete joke, but, somehow, Cher made it work.  She totally had the attitude, the look, and the voice to pull it off, and it didn't hurt that the song was actually awesome. Hands down the best and the most unique audition I've ever seen on any of these reality singing shows.   Jamie Archer - Sex on Fire : The song was a huge hit in the UK and an even bigger hit in Australia.  How it never became a hit in the US is beyond me.  Anyways, Jamie Archer has a perfect voice for the song and he just fucking sells it.  I can't help but smile watching this, and, judging by the vide...