When any musician spends a long time writing an album, quite often the respective quality of the individual songs in contention for the album can start to blur. After hearing things so frequently, labouring over their arrangements or fiddling with their mix, it’s understandable that some artists can think less of songs that, to anyone else listening, would automatically point to as a hit. Or at the very least, a damned good song.
In our last round-up of B-sides that became unexpected, monster hits, we documented tracks that defied rejection, helmed by the likes of U2, Green Day, the Smiths and Carl Douglas.
While some of the songs featured in that list were surprise successes, others were songs that its creators knew had something, returning to the songs years later to finesse them and let them have their moment.
It’s a similar picture for the six that we're highlighting here.
It’s quite astonishing how many of these songs would become so central, not just to the artist’s narratives, but to popular music as a whole. Yet, at the time, were not deemed worthy enough for A-side status, or, in the case of a couple, merely regarded as a space-filling afterthought.
But, those who bothered to flip the record (vinyl buyers), or listen beyond the lead track (the CD generation), or encountered the song via other means (the online generation), thought otherwise…
