Success in the music business is unpredictable. Some untalented artists inexplicably stay at the top of the charts, just like some songs inexplicably become an artist's signature, even though they have more qualified songs for the position. Here are ten artists whose most famous song isn't their best.
1. Blur - "Song 2" (1997)
Blur's "Song 2" has become so ubiquitous that it's achieved the status of public domain music, where everyone has heard it, but not everyone knows its name or who wrote it (I was one of these people, even after I started listening to Blur). As immediately catchy as the song is, though, it's not even the best song on that particular album, let alone Blur's entire catalogue. My personal favorite is "End of a Century" from Parklife.
2. Radiohead - "Creep" (1993)
Radiohead notoriously detests the song that made them famous (guitarist Jonny Greenwood even hated it during recording; his bursts of guitar noise were attempts at sabotage), and even diehard Radiohead fans aren't big on it, but "Creep" is still the most widely recognized song the band ever recorded, despite the more acclaimed and sonically innovative music the band would record throughout the rest of its career.
3. Cat Stevens - "Wild World" (1970)
When Cat Stevens was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1969, his yearlong recovery gave him plenty of time to reinvent himself as a songwriter, resulting in the most acclaimed music of his career, including the hit "Wild World," arguably his most famous song. However, Stevens' greatest musical achievement came earlier in the year with the devastating song "Trouble" from the Mona Bone Jakon LP, and was featured a year later in the film Harold and Maude, among many other Stevens songs from this period.
4. Jeff Buckley - "Hallelujah" (1994)
It's hard to believe that there was a time when covering Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" wasn't worthy of a thousand eye rolls, but Jeff Buckley's brilliant rendition of the song came during this long-gone era. However, it's Buckley's beautiful original songs, such as "Dream Brother," "Lover, You Should've Come Over," and "The Sky is a Landfill" that made Buckley a legend instead of a footnote.
5. Modest Mouse - "Float On" (2004)
If an artist once wrote a lyric like, "I was in heaven, I was in hell/Believe in neither, but fear them as well," their music probably has no business being covered on a Kidz Bop CD right next to a Jesse McCartney song, but that's just how popular Modest Mouse's "Float On" became in 2004/2005. Though it's a great pop song, "Float On" simply can't match the intensity of some of the band's other classics such as "Teeth Like God's Shoeshine."
6. Mötley Crüe - "Dr. Feelgood" (1989)
I'm not exactly sure what Mötley Crüe's most famous song is, actually. It could be "Dr. Feelgood," or "Girls, Girls, Girls," but I'm positive that it isn't "Take Me To the Top" from the band's debut Too Fast for Love, which is Mötley Crüe at its punky, thrashy best, before it was swallowed whole by the L.A. hair metal scene.
7. Oasis - "Wonderwall" (1995)
I don't care how objectively good "Wonderwall" actually is, because it's been ruined by every open mic night that has ever been held. Give me "Cigarettes & Alcohol" or "Don't Look Back in Anger" any day.
8. The White Stripes - "Seven Nation Army" (2003)
Sports fans (and most people, really) are suckers for huge, catchy riffs, which is why the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" has become the new "Rock and Roll Part 2." However, the very next song on the album, the pummeling "Black Math," should make it clear that "Seven Nation Army" isn't the best the White Stripes can do.
9. Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (1991)
When Stereogum wrote their list of the ten best Nirvana songs, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was nowhere to be found, and that's a common sentiment among Nirvana fans. The song is still great and undeniably important to the history of rock music, but it's no "Lithium," or "Dive," or "Pennyroyal Tea."
10. Deep Purple - "Smoke On the Water" (1971)
Other than the classic riff that opens it, Deep Purple's "Smoke On the Water" is one of the blandest, most underwritten songs of the classic rock era. If any song from the Machine Head LP deserves to be canonized, it's the album's propulsive opener "Highway Star," which is infinitely catchier and more exciting than "Smoke On the Water" ever was.
What other artists would you include in this list? Let us know in the comments section!
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