Underappreciated Songs From Famous Bands or Even Just Bands You Love

"A Rush And A Push and the Land Is Ours" (and all Strangeways, for that matter) are very underappreciated in The Smiths canon.
"Pretty Girls Make Graves" is another one.

This Blood Is Love by QOTSA.

I'd say Wish I Could Fly (Like Superman) [not sure if that's the correct title] by the Kinks, but I really have no idea if its appreciated or not, just its not usually mentioned.

I'll see your Groovy Times and raise you Charlie Don't Surf and Rebel Waltz off of Sandinista!

Tighter & Tighter by Soundgarden. From Down On The Upside.

I'm On Fire by Bruce Springsteen. Doesn't seem to get much play as far as his hits go. That could just be me, though.

Speaking of Soundgarden, "4th of July" is spectacular. Of course Superunknown had something like 6 songs that got radio play, so I understand how it got looked over. Amazing song though.

It was mentioned in the Metallica thread, but My Friend Of Misery is probably the strongest track on The Black Album, and it doesn't get anywhere near the love it deserves.

Queen: 'It's Late' from 'News of the World'
Queen: 'Tie Your Mother Down' from 'A Day at the Races'.

Both are some of the strongest rock songs that the band ever produced, yet they rarely get any airplay. I occasionally here 'It's Late' on the radio, but never the other one.

Regarding 'I'm on Fire' by Bruce Springsteen: Take heart that it's played all the time on the main rock station here in MN.

The local classic rock station in Calgary plays Tie Your Mother Down all the time. And you're right, great tune.

I think Alright For Now off of Full Moon Fever is one of Tom Petty's best tunes.

Lithium is also the only tune off of Nevermind that I can still listen to.

Yeah, I HATE that album, and even I like that song.

I'd add "Save Me" to that list. One of their best ballads.

"Omega Man" and "Darkness" from Ghost in the Machine. Hell, this whole album seems to go underappreciated, with people thinking it's just one big b-side to "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic".

Well, it seems to happen moreso with Ghost. Synchronicity gets tons of love because of how big a hit it was, Regatta gets credit for being the artistic breakthrough, Zenyatta for being the commercial breakthrough, but Ghost sort of gets lost in the shuffle. It's the Police album I find myself listening to the most, but beyond "Every Little Thing" and "Spirits in the Material World", nobody seems to pay much attention to it, at least outside of critical circles.

Love that track, plus Mailman, Like Suicide and Kickstand.

Speaking of Queen, "Sail Away Sweet Sister" from The Game is absolutely note perfect, with a soaring guitar solo and beautiful lead vocals by Brian May. Was it a single? It fucking should have been.

Dope Nose, by Weezer - It's got ridiculous and impenetrable lyrics, fast and crunchy guitars, energy bursting out all over the place... and to this day it's rarely (if ever) mentioned in the same breadth as the band's more successful singles. Shame, 'cause it rocks.

It doesn't get much love even by his pop-era 80's work, but David Bowie's Day In, Day Out from his Never Let Me Down album is a fantastic, epic song.

Pixies - "Letter to Memphis". They don't suffer from a shortage of fans, but I've always felt that song is more badass than it gets credit for.

Talking Heads - "Memories Can't Wait". One of my favorite songs by them. Don't see it mentioned a lot when I read praise about their work.

Fishbone - "Sunless Saturday". It was released as a single way back when, but I don't think a whole lot of people cared. A forever underloved band back when they were great.

Rolling Stones - "Winter". I've always had a soft spot for this tune. I really dig Goat's Head Soup in general, though.

The Doors - "You Make Me Real" and "Soul Kitchen" are just as strong as most of their hits.

I'm tempted to list some Jeff Buckley here, but his career was cut so short I guess it makes sense that people aren't constantly hailing him for being amazing anymore. I think he had a masterpiece in him waiting to happen that never got a chance to be made.

Talking Heads- Seen and Not Seen and Listening Wind. Both off of Remain In Light.

U2's 'Stay (Faraway, So Close!)' from Zooropa: one of their greatest love songs, hell, songs, ever; the album as a whole may have alienated the general populace, but this song should've been a bigger hit when it was released as the 3rd single

The Stones' 'New Faces' from Voodoo Lounge: Jagger does some of the best singing of his career; sitting next to its closest cousin, 'Ruby Tuesday', it holds up pretty damn well, and that's saying a lot

Smashing Pumpkins' 'Thirty-Three' from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness: wow, such a gorgeous ballad; one of the few times both Corgan's singing and lyrics arise to the occasion (not a huge fan of his lyrics in general--band's always been about the songwriting for me)

Alice in Chains' 'Nutshell' from Jar of Flies: the band's acoustic undertones and Staley's knack for melding vocal and melody produce what is a transcendent (and magnetically moody) piece of work

Excellent call on these two, sir. Each is definitely on my list of favorites by the respective group. Never was a die-hard Alice In Chains fan, but was pleasantly surprised and impressed with Sap and Jar of Flies way back when I bought those maxi-singles (haha!). As for "Thirty-Three", my wife was always too annoyed with Corgan to ever fully appreciate Smashing Pumpkins even when they deserved it, but she still couldn't resist being enchanted by that song when Mellon Collie came out.


ETA: For the most part, I really feel that songs I love being underappreciated is a blessing. It's nice to have some personal favorites that were never run into the ground and out through the other side of the planet by popular radio stations.

Where's DaveB when we need him?

'Blank Expression' by The Specials.

True, though I do think "Lover, You Should've Come Over," a stunning song, tends to get lost in the love for "Hallelujah."

That's one of the first Buckley songs I would've mentioned here, Banks. It's a heaping slice of top shelf greatness.

When it comes to the Beatles, one of my favorite under appreciated songs is "I've Just Seen a Face." It's a fantastic folksy song that just bounces along. Nothing spectacular but should get more love, especially after the overexposure the bigger songs get.

Bob Dylan has a treasure trove of under appreciated gems, but the first one that comes to mind is "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest." Okay, maybe the whole first side of John Wesley Harding.

Simon and Garfunkel's first album, Wednesday, 3 A.M., has a couple gems, like the title track, "Bleeker Street" or "He Was My Brother", which is a bit heavy-handed but what do you expect from their early stuff.

I'm trying to think of really popular bands but T-Rex has a ton of amazing, ready-for-radio songs, like "Cat Black" or "Cosmic Dancer."

Off the top of my head ;Hand of Doom by Sabbath, After the Dance by Marvin Gaye, Midnight Rambler by the Stones, and Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seatle by Nirvana.

I'm gonna mention another Stones track. Since they've been around since the Jurassic era, I've got a slew of songs that could likely be candidates for this thread. 'Heaven' from Tattoo You. You always hear about 'Start Me Up', 'Hang Fire', 'Little T&A', and 'Waiting on a Friend', but 'Heaven' rarely gets acknowledged in the same breadth. The way the piano, synth, and Jagger's sultry vocals intertwine is...you know what I'm gonna say...pure heaven.

The Pretenders' 'Night In My Veins' from Last of the Independents. The bouncy, jangly chorus never gets old, and there's a fresh spirit running through the tune that harkens back to their first three discs.

I know not many share my musical tastes on these boards, but what the hell...

Singles that never caught on, but should have-
-Marilyn Manson - "Coma White" (I've gotten a LOT of friends who hated Manson to love this song. One of his best tracks, from what I consider to be his best album)
-Faith No More - "Stripsearch" (the heavy end kinda fucks it, but this is a fantastic song for a breezy summer drive) "F for Fake"!

I never once heard either on the radio, but both had videos.

Grad school.

THESE. All of them. Especially the Buckley love. That guy doesn't get enough posthumous credit, and while people talk about the movie "Once" being great for wooing women? Play the "Grace" album for them. I don't know how many relationships I kicked off in high school and the like with "Mojo Pin", "Hallelujah", "Lilac Wine", and "Last Goodbye".

Just an utter gem of an album, and it's a goddamn shame that we lost him so soon. He's one along with the likes of Hendrix, SRV, and Elliott Smith that I would have loved to see be able to weather anything short of nuclear winter just to see what they could come up with next.

Another pretty great underrated Buckley track thanks to summer smile - I Want Someone Badly (with Shudder to Think) from the First Love, Last Rites soundtrack. It sounds like it could have been ripped straight from an early Stax/Motown recomp.

Other stuff that I can think of? The Frames - Underglass and Revelate. I love what Glen Hansard does with the whole "gentle>WALL OF SOUND>gentle>WALL OF SOUND" style that's pretty reminiscent of Radiohead.

Having previously mentioned SRV, I'd like to nominate "Life By The Drop" from his "The Sky is Crying" album. Just a hot, soulful, brief little acoustic track that still shakes me up , as well as "Chitlins Con Carne" from the same album, which is a pretty badass jazzy instrumental Kenny Burrell cover from he and Double Trouble.

Also: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - "Biomusicology", "Stove By A Whale" and "My Vien Ilin" from their "The Tyranny of Distance" album. I love the shit out of that entire album as well as Leo's entire discography starting with his work with Chisel, but those are the definite standout tracks on that album. Also can't forget "Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead" from their "Hearts of Oak" album.

I know I'll have more.

Every song by Jethro Tull NOT on Aqualung.

Not that any of you fuckers would give them the time of day, anyway.

I tend to think that "Wheels of Confusion" gets lost in the shuffle. "Supernaut" as well, though maybe not so much since Ministry (as 1000 Homo DJs) revived it.

I tend to lean towards "Peace Frog" and "The Wasp" as underloved from the Doors. Though "The Wasp" is full of Morrison's unfortunate poetry, that intro is legend... "Lemme tell ya 'bout Texas radio and the big beat.."

"Peace Frog" yes! My favorite Doors song.

Agreed on what Chavez said. Peace Frog is great, bloody red sun of Phantastic L.A. and whatnot.

I know a ton of people who hate the shit out of Buckley because of how much posthumous credit he did get. Owning a copy of Grace is pretty deriguer for any 20-40 year old and I know a lot of people who won't give him a chance because of that fact, and also because of how much Hallelujah's been overplayed in films (although I still love the original Leonard Cohen version).

Patrick made a case against In The Backseat from Arcade Fire's Funeral last week and upon talking to some of my friends it's become apparent that a lot of people view it as a weak link in the album. To me it's one of my favourite stand alone songs by the group, largely because I really like Regine's voice and the way the song adds layers as it goes only to start stripping them back as they've just been built up.

"Youngstown" by Bruce Springsteen: probably the strongest song from "The Ghost of Tom Joad" -album.

Chances are they're really bad people. Plus it might just be a US/UK difference. Every time I mention Buckley as one of my favorite musicians I usually get nothing but "huh, who?"

Also: Neon Knights, Children of the Sea, Heaven & Hell, Die Young, The Mob Rules, Sign of the Southern Cross, Zero the Hero, Headless Cross
and almost everything else, post-Ozzy/pre-90's.

Excellent picks there too. I probably didn't think of "Peace Frog" here, though, because they used to play it on Atlanta radio pretty regularly. There are a lot of great Doors songs that weren't hits, actually. They don't need my help in the posthumous praise department, but at the same time I think there has been a backlash against the group going for a while. Maybe ever since the Oliver Stone movie put Morrison's face next to the word pretencious for a lot of people. But screw all that, I say. The Doors was an incredible group*.


*As long as you pretend a few painfully bad songs on LA Woman don't exist.

Yeah, after watching the Stone film you think Manzarek was a stuffed shirt, Morrison was a pretentious wanker, and Krieger/Densmore suffered from some form of abused wife syndrome.

Which he sorta was, but I think a lot of his "Bozo Dionysus" persona (as Jim DeRogatis calls Morrison) was done with a bit of wink-wink, nudge-nudge.*


* - I like most of LA Woman. Maybe partly because when I was karaokeing the title track on my birthday some years back, two random chicks started making out in front of me.

'Something in the night' and 'Racing in the street' by Bruce Springsteen are both wonderful ballads that really don't get mentioned among his best work, the coda at the end of Racing is just so gentle and relaxing.

I always liked Buckley's Your Flesh Is So Nice and Jake is right, hating Buckley = being a horrible, horrible person.

Someone mentioned Nirvana, and I guess "Sappy" is the song that should be mentioned.

Yeah, if you're talking Buckley, it's the My Sweetheart the Drunk stuff (or the live stuff) that's underappreciated. If you like the guy even a little, you probably own Grace. But I live in a very Buckley-friendly apartment and we have a number of Buckley-fixated friends, so it's alien to me that anything he did is particularly underappreciated. It's more rare for me to find music fans who don't like him at all than those who really like him.

I've always had a soft spot for Queen's '39. It's a different, more low key sound than their average song, but it retains Queen's inexplicable strangeness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z86C0vBTiHg

I think Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk is more underrated because it's just not as widely available as Grace is. I could walk into a big-box music store right now and find a handful of copies of Grace, but not so many of My Sweetheart the Drunk....which sucks, because I have a lot of love for that album as well, but I constantly find myself having to introduce people to Buckley in the first place, where Grace is a fantastic jumping-off point.

I usually try to segue into that album using "Everybody Here Wants You", because it's pretty great, along with "The Sky is a Landfill". Everything else just seems to come afterward.

EDIT: But I also think that age difference might have a bit to do with it - I've never had issues discussing Buckley with people over 25-26 years old, but when it comes to my peers they're usually like "who the fuck?"

'39 is my favorite Queen song alongside In the Lap of the Gods