Immensely popular bands/artist great songs you would never hear on the radio

For whatever reason…
Great song but never cracked the top-40 or got air play.

 

Anything by Metallica before the Black Album.
Even now, you'll hear their 90s stuff (Black Album, Load/Reload) on classic rock stations or those JACK type stations that play everything, but you don't hear much else from their catalogue.

 

Strange song, sorta, but I like it anyway. And this live version is the best.

You can't play a video on the radio, of course, but I could watch Florence dance all night ...

And, finally, I never even woulda known about this video if it weren't for SJ.com. So we got that goin' for us, which is nice.

 

The Fever by Bruce Springsteen.

 

Sexy Sadie.
Always thought it was one of the best songs on the White Album.

 

This version is one of the best songs of all time and the 10 seconds where she goes off on her single drum and crazies her hips is why boys have chased girls since the dawn of time.

 

For some odd reason this was never on the radio or MTV but it's one Boingo's top 3 or 4 songs.

 

The simultaneous gulf between Spotify/Tik Tok popularity versus current radio popularity versus historical critical consensus is wild.

 

I don’t listen to “the radio” anymore, but one of my favorite songs is Queen’s “Spread Your Wings,” and I can’t recall ever hearing that played.

@Batman is right about Metallica. It’s like everything other than the Black Album has been memory-holed, which is crazy because their best stuff came before that. Has “Fade to Black” ever gotten airplay?

Side note: Discussions like this are why I’m so glad I never have to listen to the radio again. Being able to listen to whatever I want, whenever I want is worth whatever I’m paying Amazon Music per month.

 

Apple Music did that for me, and really expanded my musical world.
Here's just one of the great tunes I came across simply by random luck ...

 

“Bands you never would’ve heard of if it wasn’t for on-demand streaming” is a great thread in itself.

That’s where I discovered the Night Sweats, Rustic Overtones, Eli Paperboy Reed, Son Little, and so many others.

Oh He Dead, a local soul outfit, is probably my current favorite: