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Songs by commercial artists that weren’t singles but could have been

infection

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Alright, a number of music threads already, but I’d like to focus on songs that people think could have been hits, or at least had commercial success, by bands that otherwise did have commercial success, but for whatever reason didn’t release said songs as singles. There aren’t any hard rules on this, and perhaps you could even include songs that were singles but for whatever reason didn’t become as popular as perhaps iconic songs by the bands.
 
I’ll start with this one by Deftones. I was listening to the radio this week and the DJ mentioned that it’s been 20 years since this album was released, which is crazy. This is by far the best track. Perhaps close to Passenger with Maynard, and I think this could have been popular.

 
This was a great song. It’s a little slow and depressing for the radio, but could have had some success. The first single from the album was Judith, which I think was weaker than a lot of the other tracks.

 
The Cure have had lots of hits. There are really two sides to The Cure — the happy, upbeat side, and then the very depressed side. I don’t like the happy, peppy stuff like I do the really depressing stuff. This song is one of their best. It’s pretty long and requires patience, which doesn’t lend well to radio, but plenty of artists, such as Tool, have been able to release singles that take a while to develop. Obviously, this album was released back when less artists paved the way for radio hits like that, but this one is great.

 
Again a depressing song that may struggle with some of the problems as the above, in relation to radio play, but should have been out there.

 
Came looking for another glimpse into the weirdness of inflection’s musical taste. Nothing too revealing/surprising here, but I did get a couple of chuckles.
 
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How about this one. Not only wasn’t it a single, but Radiohead felt it wasn’t strong enough to be on an album.
 
30 Seconds To Mars’ first album got no commercial exposure at all. I thought it was really good. They’ve since become a well known band and, though I haven’t listened to any other albums other than what I’ve heard released as singles, I’m not sure why it’s so popular. But there were a number of songs on their first album that I think would do well commercially. They should (re?)-release them.

 
Running to Stand Still and Red Hill Mining Town by U2, both off The Joshua Tree.
 
I’ll start with this one by Deftones. I was listening to the radio this week and the DJ mentioned that it’s been 20 years since this album was released, which is crazy. This is by far the best track. Perhaps close to Passenger with Maynard, and I think this could have been popular.



Was that not a single at some point? Great song either way.
 
In ‘98 Korn released their third album, Follow the Leader, which shot them more into mainstream. They had previous commercial success, but this brought their popularity to a new realm. There were two singles from the album that got play, Got the Life and Freak on a Leash. The former was a pretty good song, but the latter I’m not sure why that ever got the popularity that it did. There were a number of tunes from that album that could have done well. This is one:



What’s funny, though, is that looking at Wikipedia, they say that “BBK” was released as a single (it wasn’t), but this one would have done well commercially, too. Probably more so than “It’s On.”

 
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