Old hit songs that are "overlooked"
 

A song I discovered on my own a couple of years ago, The Crazy Otto by Johnny Maddox, is terrific. It was from 1955, and it was the longest-running No.2 hit (No.2 for 8 weeks) until Foreigner came along with Waiting For A Girl Like You (No.2 for 10 weeks in 1982).

Another - The Green Door by Jim Lowe, 1956. The song didn't quite become a No.1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, but it was No.1 on the associated charts, and all the charts combined made it technically a No.3 hit on the Hot 100. But The Green Door is not a song you hear on the radio on oldies stations. Shame. I discovered that on my own, too, a few weeks ago. Great honky-tonk piano solo.

Most people don't think of Connie Francis as "cool," but she really had two fantastic songs. The first one I discovered was Everybody's Somebody's Fool, from 1960 - her first No.1 hit. The second, which I re-discovered a few weeks ago, was from 1959 - Lipstick On Your Collar. It has a great guitar solo, really really cool. As far as Connie Francis and radio are concerned, they'll be content to play her "corny," boring songs, like Who's Sorry Now and Where The Boys Are. Not the greatest representation.

I mentioned this before, but Ricky Nelson gets an injustice with oldies radio stations. All they'll play is his No.1 hits - Travelin' Man and Poor Little Fool (with a little Hello Mary Lou thrown in), but his greatest (and most overlooked) songs are my favorites - A Teenager's Romance, I'm Walkin' and Waitin' In School.

Any other hits that are overlooked today?

Talk to me about a decade where my parents were alive and I think I can continue this discussion. :lol:

For every hit song on radio or on Time-Life/ Rhino compilations there has to be at least 20 forgotten hits.

If you're into this stuff I recommend checking out compilations from Ace Records. They specialize in this stuff.
Golden Age Of American Rock n Roll Vol. 1-11
Fabulous Flips series(all B-sides of famous hits)
Fantastic Follow-ups(next single released by artist after a huge hit)
Teenage Crush series
Label specific compilations(Laurie, Dot, etc)
Regional specific compilations
There is a huge series called Hard To Find 45s on cd
For the extreme die hard, The Buffalo Bop series. Well over 100 cds in series(so far) of '50s Rock n Roll.

Every time period has hits that make the top 40 and then disappear.
Even solo Beatles stuff. Cannot remember last time I heard(on the radio) Another Day by McCartney, Back Off Boogaloo by Ringo, or Crackerjack Palace by Harrison. All were heavily rotated when new.
I remember a Leon Russell song from 1974(?) called Tightrope that must have been played every 30 minutes or so, haven't heard it in over 30 years.
Same with classic rock. Triumph was all over the radio in their time. Don't hear it now.

Listen, I wasn't alive in the 50's or 60's, but that doesn't limit my attention-span to music that only tracks my lifespan. You're missing out if you don't explore what came before you.

I can give lots of examples but I'll have to dig out some discs...

Tightrope is a great song... got that somewheres... they used to play it here on the oldies station (when we still had an oldies station)...

This is too funny. I was talking with my boss on the way to lunch a few days ago about this. He had Q104.3 on the radio and "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" came on and I can't remember the last time I heard that one on the radio. Then I got into how classic rock radio is classic top 40 now...blah blah blah...but it is amazing how some of these songs get lost. Shit, even watching Life on Mars and hearing the that song was a trip. I guess it has to do with our "instant gratification iPod" society, but I digress.

Roy Orbison is "Overlooked" all they play is just Pretty Woman the man has a TON of great hits.

It only took them about 17 years but The Whispers song "Rocksteady" is amazing :)

Ray Parker Jr.'s "I'M IN LOVE WITH THE OTHER WOMAN" .
Fits with today's times of reality shows.

[QUOTE=[SIZE="3"] ...The Green Door by Jim Lowe, 1956. The song didn't quite become a No.1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, but it was No.1 on the associated charts, and all the charts combined made it technically a No.3 hit on the Hot 100. But The Green Door is not a song you hear on the radio on oldies stations. Shame. I discovered that on my own, too, a few weeks ago. Great honky-tonk piano solo.

Most people don't think of Connie Francis as "cool," but she really had two fantastic songs. The first one I discovered was Everybody's Somebody's Fool, from 1960 - her first No.1 hit. The second, which I re-discovered a few weeks ago, was from 1959 - Lipstick On Your Collar. It has a great guitar solo, really really cool. As far as Connie Francis and radio are concerned, they'll be content to play her "corny," boring songs, like Who's Sorry Now and Where The Boys Are. Not the greatest representation.
<snip> A Teenager's Romance, I'm Walkin' and Waitin' In School.

Any other hits that are overlooked today?[/[/SIZE]QUOTE]

Good call on The Green Door. I truly appreciate Connie Francis and I dont think Where The Boys Are is corny or boring. True Teenage Angst!!!!

A great overlooked song was the 3rd Monkees #1 song (written by Neil Diamond) A Little Bit of Me, A Little Bit Of You. The flip side The Girl I Knew Somewhere was awesome too.

I got more but I see what comes up from others.

How about anything by Link Wray (except that one song that gets played in movies all the time) or Gene Vincent?

YES - Jack The Ripper. One of the great lost 60s instrumentals. Anyone know how high it charted?

Again I had a moment like this when I heard "Panic in Detroit" on the radio Saturday night. I don't know the last time I heard that one.

Nobody (who isn't looking on YouTube, that is) really knows anything by Dusty Springfield besides Son of a Preacher Man, and that is indeed a crime.

Woman sung so many damned good Motown covers, it's truly scary. Check out Oh, No, Not My Baby, Don't Let Me Lose This Dream and Get Ready and try to top those with any of the soul hits from the last 15 years.

But, unfortunately, Dusty's yet another singer the Brits are far more appreciative of than us Americans.

Jack The Ripper was never a hit song. The one big hit Wray had was "Rumble". "Rawhide" was also a single but I don't think it ever broke the top 40. He was mainly an album artist. I recently picked up "White Lightning, The Lost Cadence Sessions '58". It's an album he recorded for Cadence, who wouldn't release it because it sounded too "evil". It cooks.

Gene Vincent was a one hit wonder also, "Be-Bop-A-Lula". He had a second single, "Lotta Lovin'" which charted but wasn't a hit. Has a lot of really great songs though.

Wishin' and Hopin' was a huge hit for her. She recorded Needles and Pins first but The Searchers version became the big hit a year later.

I really like The Look of Love from the Casino Royale(1967) soundtrack. Not to be confused with the single version released the same year. It's a different version.

Yes, The Look of Love is excellent. How does one tell the diff versions apart? Was the Casino Royale version released on the Burt Bachrach box set or on any of her CDs?

I listen to music from the 30s onward, but I don't listen to only "hit songs" from the 50s and 60s.

Don't know if the soundtrack version is on anything else. Although the movie leaves something to be desired, the soundtrack is excellant and worth getting anyway.
The single version of the song is slightly more uptempo, not quite as "lower the lights/martini/60s bachelor pad" sounding. I only discovered there was a different version when I got the Time-Life AM Gold of the '60s collection. Noticed it didn't sound quite right.

It's a mystery why you don't ever hear Baby Got Back on the radio anymore. It was the number one song in the United States for five weeks. It doesn't seem like anyone remembers this diddy outside of an occasional mention on VH1.

madcougar, are you kidding?

Why would I be kidding? The song was no. 1 for more than a month! You couldn't turn the radio on without hearing it. I believe that if it weren't for Baby Got Back, by Sir Mix A Lot, Nuthin' But a "G" Thang by Dr. Dre would not have gotten any airplay the following year. We wouldn't know an artist by the name of Snoop Dogg in fact. Off course you could make an argument that OPP by Naughty By Nature actually was the song that broke the door wide open. That song reached no. 6 on Billboard's Hot 100 in the fall of 1991. That's another song that I feel has been overlooked over the last 15 years.

"You down with OPP, yeah you know me!" Tell me you weren't singing that in Sept. of 91 and I'll call you a liar!

there are a lot of songs that went to #1 in 1991-1992 that are somewhat forgotten today (when was the last time you even thought of Timmy T's One More Try or Sweet Sensation's If Wishes Came True?) but Baby Got Back is one of the most ubiquitous and referenced hits of the 90's. I am surprised you haven't heard it in so long. The song had an iTunes commercial using it, it was a point of reference in a Friends episode (which was in 2002, a decade after the song was on the chart), etc... I'd say it's probably better remembered than I Will Always Love You, End Of The Road or November Rain at this point, all of which were big blockbusters in 1992.

omg @ Timmy T...I forgot that song existed. That definitely fits the thread.

Baby Got Back is played constantly at clubs and parties. This has become like the national anthem for white girls or something. They like it a lot more than guys do and use it as an excuse to go buck wild.