Hit Parade: At Last, My Legacy Has Come Along Edition Part 2

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4.2 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What do you call a song that bombed on the charts back in the day, that now booms out of radios and streaming apps nationwide? Chris Molanphy has a name for these songs: legacy hits. Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.” Etta James’s “At Last.” The Romantics’ “What I Like About You.” Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime.” Many catalysts can change a song’s trajectory, from movie scenes to stadium singalongs, wedding DJs to evolving tastes. Sometimes the hivemind just collectively decides that this Whitney Houston hit, not that one, is her song for the ages. Join Chris as he explains how the charts sometimes get it wrong, and how legacy hits correct the record—and counts down 10 of his favorite flops-turned-classics. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis and Merritt Jacob. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Sleet magazine.
0:17.0	About the hits from Coast to Coast, I'm Chris Mulanfee, chart analyst, pop critic,
0:22.2	and writer of Sleet's Why Is This Song No. 1 series on our last episode.
0:27.9	I explained the concept of the legacy hit, a song that underperformed on the charts
0:35.0	back in the day, missing the top 10, top 40, or even the entire hot 100 that is now one
0:43.0	of the first songs we think of when we hear an artist's name.
0:48.0	I'm now going to attempt the near impossible, ranking a top 10 list of the greatest legacy
0:54.9	hits of all time.
1:03.3	Before I try to rank what I consider the definitive legacy hits, we should set some parameters.
1:11.7	In this episode, I have already cited many songs that fell short of the number one spot
1:17.8	when they originally charted, but some still managed to crack the top 10, or even the
1:24.2	top 5.
1:25.2	While it's impressive that Sweet Caroline or Thong Song have gone on to outperform their
1:32.6	original chart runs, those songs were not exactly struggling to begin with.
1:39.5	This explains, for example, why I will not be ranking journeys don't stop believing,
1:47.0	which by most metrics is a bigger legacy hit than anything on this list.
2:03.1	Keep in mind, believe him, reached number 9 in 1981.
2:08.9	It was a top 10 hit.
2:11.3	In case you are curious, Journey's biggest chart hit of all time, i.e. the single that
2:18.0	did best in its moment, was the prom-worthy slow dance ballad open arms from the same
2:25.4	journey album Escape.
2:27.7	It spent 6 weeks at number 2 on the Hot 100 in early 1982.
	...

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