songs that weren't a bands biggest hit, but have gone on to be their legacy song and biggest iTunes seller

it's on Spotify's I Love My 90s Hip-Hop playlist

(although these days all Spotify-branded playlists seem to be "made for you," so I have no idea whether other people are seeing what I'm seeing)

I really wish there was a way to turn that 'made for you' feature off (perhaps there is?!) as it means probably 60-70% of those playlists are now populated by stuff I already know/listen to

Just searched that playlist and the only Common tracks on it for me are Resurrection and The Bizness (with De La) xp

it's on Spotify's I Love My 90s Hip-Hop playlist

― jaymc, Wednesday, May 22, 2024 1:54 PM

see but this is what i mean -- how would it have ended up there in the first place? other than it just being an old school fan favorite of much larger significance than i would have thought?

(it does appear on my version of that playlist upon looking, but i don't think i've ever actually played it from there)

How do Spotify playlists even get made, is it just one person, do they have meetings, rough drafts?

remember that scene in _the show_ where russell simmons is on the treadmill listing off which songs are to be on the def jam 10th anniversary box set?

it's kinda like that, except daniel ek isn't on a treadmill. he's in an underground war room somewhere carrying out his process to world domination.

just noticed a satisfying example... in the 90s, i'm pretty sure i wanna be sedated and sheena is a punk rocker were played on alt radio more than blitzkrieg bop. i remember a key moment in my so called life when the edgy girl's band covers sedated. at college i certainly heard the ramones a lot more than most first wave punk bands, songs ranging from teenage lobotomy and pinhead to kkk took my baby away, bonzo goes to bitburg and pet sematary, a band sort of always in the background with a stronger legacy than the dolls, pistols, damned, even iggy.

the ramones' highest selling single was the 1980 reissue of sedated, which didn't chart but was apparently a steady seller. the highest charting song (top ten in the UK) by the band was their terrible cover of baby i love you, supposedly demo'd at gunpoint by phil spector and recorded with session musicians... so it's pleasant to see that blitzkrieg bop is now firmly well ahead of sedated in the streaming list, and baby i love you is down to #5. perhaps the turning point was 1994 when bop was included on jock rock volume 1.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds' cover of Slim Harpo's "Baby Scratch My Back" (from their first album in 1979) is their top Spotify track, with almost 4 million more spins than their sole US Top 40 hit "Tuff Enuff."