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I love when I come across hit songs like these because you can tell the frustration from the lyrics despite them seemingly being about love or something else, not specifically about the record label, and it’s still a bop! Two of my favorite songs of this type are These Words by Natasha Bedingfield and Love Song by Sara Bareilles.
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Freedom - George Michael
Sometimes listed as "Freedom '90" in case that confuses anyone (since Wham! had a different song by the same title)
I remember as a kid my mom asking why blowing stuff up in the video is supposed to be about freedom and I was like “you don’t get it mom!” But now I realize it’s all the stuff from the Faith video he’s burning like the jacket and the jukebox. “When you shake your ass they notice fast, some mistakes were built to last” 🤓
Great fucking song.
Also a great dancing song.
The video to that, IIRC has him wearing a pair of "Phony" headphones.
The freedom video is the one with all the models lip syncing, his famous leather jacket burning and blowing up the juke box from the Faith music video. Not exactly a subtle middle finger to the previous persona he had forced on him during the Wham, and early solo days.
That was Fast Love
RCA felt Bowie’s Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust needed a single. He tossed off “Starman.”
And he was so disappointed to have a hit single! It took buckets of sex and cocaine to console him.
That's fine. That's just how I've heard the 60s until always was for the biggest rock and roll artists.
I actually recently purchased a 12-string guitar because of that song and the sound he got on the rhythm. I'm happy to have his "toss offs" if that's what it became.
This means that he gave Starman a hand job, in British slang...
Everything in British slang means wanking.
Nice of him.
Early on, Bowie had signed himself to a bad contract with a manager, which gave the manager half his earnings even several years after parting ways, so he very purposely made what he considered very artsy, avant garde, non-commercially viable albums in the 70s. So once free from the terms of the contract, he made Let's Dance with the intent of being more "pop" and commercially successful.
Was reading today the Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” was written in one evening after someone told him he needed a single on Born in the USA album.
Yep, and the actual lyrics are all about how he kept writing hits for other people and needed to write a single for his own album and felt stymied by writer's block. "Dancing in the dark" is just a metaphor for trying to write a hit with no creative spark.
The opening to this song is brilliant because it's just him complaining about writing all day in a hotel and recording all night, trying to get that last song so the record company lets him go him.
If memory serves they decided the album needed an upbeat synth number. Well, sometimes the suits are right.
I don't think they were right and Bruce agrees but he has long since gotten comfortable with it being one of his biggest hits. I had resigned myself to DitD being the last song I'd ever hear live - thank goodness that finally changed.
That's kind of amazing when tou consider most of that album is big hits, Born in the USA, Cover Me, I'm on Fire, Glory Days, I'm Going Down and My Hometown. All top 10 hits in the US
Silly Love Songs by Wings was Paul McCartney’s response to critics ( and Lennon’s) criticism that he was wasting his songwriting talents by cranking out fluff. It was McCartney’s best performing solo work, it was the top of the US charts for five weeks, all told.
And one of the greatest bass lines in music history.
“Love take me down to the streets”. That’s one of the wings’ underrated songs
TFW you know the reference itself but forget what movie it’s from.
Role Models
Into the Great Wide Open - Tom Petty "the A & R man says I don't hear a single .."
Tom Petty being petty
Tom High Road
Favorite Petty song...is that bad?
It's a great song! Petty wrote a lot of great songs.
Record execs were a favorite target too. See: Joe, and Money Becomes King, both from The Last DJ.
Tom Petty wrote that whole 2002 (?) album where he was really upset because the producer was a dick and wasn't happy with what they turned in at first and he wanted more commercial sounding songs so they made these songs kinda dissing him lol
Into The Great Wide Open was 1991… coming up on 33 years. Damn.
I think you're thinking of "The Last DJ". That came out in 2002 and heavily dealt with his entire frustration with and the greed of the Music Industry. Some radio stations even boycotted the song because of it.
Great song, great album
I don’t know if it was written in frustration, but Blues Traveler - Hook is pretty meta
Hook is an insult to Canon in D.
Pachelbel was a one-hit wonder anyhow
For those who have yet to experience it: Rob Paravonian's legendary Pachelbel rant.
This video is classic, it spoke to my soul the first time I saw it.
The original four chord songs
I was at the show at Penn State. Love when this gets posted since it makes me feel nostalgic (and old. Ugh.) His show was great.
I always took it as a very cynical diss track aimed at most music listeners. Basically "you people are too stupid to even care what these songs are about as long as it's catchy", and went meta by intentionally using the most overdone pop song of all time (Canon in D)
...as long as I say it with inflection
Hook is a tribute to Canon in D.
It is the proof for what are actually rather clever lyrics.
It's the OG hook, and he's not actually telling any lies, it brings me back again and again!
The Rock Show and First Date.
Blink 182 showed their completed Album of Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, to their manager and he requested something that they could play on the radio to the masses.
Mark and Tom each wrote the cheesiest songs they could in like 10 minutes.
Ended up being the first 2 singles off the album. (The Rock Show and First Date)
"She said what? And I told her that I didn't know."
Poetry.
Proof that a song doesn't need to be deep to be fun. Also just further proof that the best songs put out by most bands will never make it to radio.
These songs are also almost the exact same bpm! Always found that interesting
And lyrics fit both songs basically
Same with all the small things
Well that explains a lot.
Which is weird because I feel like Rollercoaster should have been a single off that album although it's not quite as "fun" as the other two. It's one of my favorites and I've never seen them play or heard of them playing it live :(
Song 2 by Blur. It was originally written as a joke.
It rips though
Absolute banger. I love cranking up the volume on it.
My 9 year old and 5 year old just discovered this last week.
Now they'll constantly stop what they're doing, look at each other, and go "WOO HOO!"
It is mandatory.
Woohoo
Not quite. It started as a pavement-ish riff from Graham. They told him to play it faster, and then wrote Song 2 as a joke over it
...and then the record company insisted that they finish it and put it on the album.
Ironically their first big hit came about after they had been told by their record company that they weren't allowed to record anything without running it by them first. Apparently the stuff they had been doing wasn't acceptable.
They came up with Girls & Boys and recorded it anyway.
Its exactly 2 min long.
not really a hit but Weezer's "Pork & Beans" came about as a screw you to the execs demanding a single
Certainly a hit in part due to the music video.
Well, it's a hit with me!
One Down - Ben Folds
When he was finishing up Silverman, his label said they needed Ben to give them a "Tiny Dancer". So he sat down to cynically write them some dreck but ended up writing "Landed", one of his best ever songs.
...and three point six tomorrow and I'm out of here.
People tell me Ben, “just make up junk and turn it in,”
But I never was alright with turning in a bunch of shit
I don’t like wasting time
On music that won’t make me proud
But now I’ve found a reason, to sit right down and shit some out
It's the most direct answer possible to this concept, I think.
Billy Joel “The Entertainer”: I am the entertainer / I come to do my show / You heard my latest record It's been on the radio / Ah, it took me years to write it / They were the best years of my life / It was a beautiful song but it ran too long / If you're gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit / So they cut it down to 3:05
Gosh, I figured this would be the first, even though it’s pretty old. Most on the nose and still damn catchy.
I believe the hit he’s talking about is Piano Man. Very on the nose.
I doubt that. Piano Man was written when he was a nobody, before any expectations of radio play. And furthermore it’s 5:30 long.
Check out the very cool story of the beginning of his career. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/opkgwy/til_a_random_teen_record_store_employee_saved/
I was referring to the explanation on the Wikipedia page for The Entertainer, though I haven’t independently verified their source. It seemed correct though, because this song was on the album that came right after Piano Man.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entertainer_(Billy_Joel_song)
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Man_(song) there really was a 3:05 edit of Piano Man.
It was my first thought after reading OP’s prompt. I always heard the bitter frustration in his voice on that one.
Escape (The Pina Colada Song) was written and recorded by Rupert Holmes as one of the last songs on his album, just because he needed something upbeat to balance out the other songs. Basically, he viewed it as a throwaway, filler song but it became his biggest hit.
And he hates piña coladas
And getting caught in the rain
And he's not into yoga