Sep 222009
The title of this thread is self-explanatory, no? This may not be a long-running Last Man Standing, but I’ll leave two or three of the most obvious examples on the table for you to cite. I’ll open with a slightly less-obvious one, or at least one that I haven’t heard on the radio for years until tonight:
By the way, in case any of you Billboard nerds claim that the original studio version of one of these songs actually charted at #87, get real. You know what I’m talking about.
Can we break a half dozen examples of this phenomenon?
Cheap Trick. I Want You To Want Me.
I’m gonna OWN this thread. How about the following from Frampton Comes Alive:
Baby, I Love Your Way
Show Me The Way
Do You Feel Like We Do
The most obvious one is down.
Remember, relative newcomers and eager beavers: the unwritten rules of a Last Man Standing state that only one suggestion is allowed per post. Please don’t bogart this highly specific topic. Thanks!
I’m just getting the obvious ones out of the way. Consider it a service.
See VETERAN player sammy’s Frampton trio for an example of this “bogarting” phenomenon against which I was too late in cautioning!
For shame, my friend, for shame!
“Trenchtown Rock” by the Wailers. Probably best known from the Live album (1975), but recorded much earlier and appears on the African Herbsman compilation put out by Trojan.
Stevie Wonder – “Fingertips, Part 2.”
You could argue that one because the studio version had no lyrics. But the live one was still mostly an instrumental, so I’m sticking with it.
Kiss’s “Rock & Roll All Nite” was a bottom dweller on the charts the first time and was a huge hit in its live version.
Continuing with Cheap Trick, I would say “Surrender”.
Freebird!
Billy Idol’s cover of “Mony Mony.”
TB
Just a side note, but I have an example of where the live recording preceded the studio version: Back when Guns N Roses were big news, the local rock radio station was fond of playing a bootleg version of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” a few years before their studio version came out. I think the bootleg was taken from some 1987 concert that MTV was broadcasting.
We don’t have any radio stations that would dare play a bootleg anymore.
TB
Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry”
Bela Lugosi’s Dead by Bauhaus.
The studio version is only on a 12″ single and is not widely known at all.
The live version from 1981’s Press The Eject and Give Me The Tape, is the one the fans know. It is the one they chose to put on their hits album 1979-1983.
I think that Billy Idol Mony Mony mentioned above is not a live cut. I think it just has a live video.
From the Wiki:
“A remix album was released in 1987 called, “Vital Idol.” The album featured a live cover of Tommy James’ “Mony Mony.” The single did well topping the US charts in 1987.”
I had the original EP with the studio cut, which was from 1980 or ’81. The EP had “Dancing With Myself” on it. It was called Don’t Stop.
Either way, I am still NOT the Last Man Standing…
TB
I’m not sure if this qualifies or not:
“Please, Please, Please” reached number six on the R&B singles chart, but did not sell well to pop audiences, and peaked at #105 on the pop singles chart. An album named for the song was released in late 1958 after Brown scored a second R&B hit with “Try Me”.
A 1964 reissue of “Please, Please, Please” on King Records featuring overdubbed audience noise meant to mimic a live recording (and capitalize on the success of Brown’s hit Live at the Apollo album) reached #95 on the Billboard Hot 100.
from the youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Jj16x7Ux0
I do believe they claim it’s live, but i think it’s fake. I’m not breakin balls here latelydavid. I’ve got nothing to prove, and I don’t need to be right about this, I’ve just always thought it was fake. Even when I was 13.
Oh, it sounds fake. Sort of like some of those James Brown “live” records. The only reason I know the difference is because I had that EP with the original studio cut and it was different from the hit single version that came out in ’87 or whatever. I also remember that EP having an interview with Martha Quinn. I probably picked it up in the cut out bin. But I also remember liking the studio cut better because it was more crisp.
TB
RTH fave rave Eminence Front was a minor hit in its original version, but the ‘live’ (no audience but played live in the studio) video was inescapable on MTV.
Although it is inescapable now, I believe the studio version of “Once in a Lifetime” flopped as a single originally. Supposedly, the song became popular via the Stop Making Sense live version, especially when it was used in Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Caveat: I don’t remember where exactly I read this info.
i think that too Oats.
I know I’m in the minority here, but I actually like “Eminence Front.” I’ll go to bat for it and I’m sure most of you will give it to me. Either way, I’ll take it.
There are a few of those “live” videos. I particularly like the E.C. ones (showing here):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNmPM3pz6MI
TB
Wikipedia says Once in a Lifetime was #14 in the UK, though only #103 here. Before Stop Making Sense came out, the video for the song was very popular.
Hey, Lately: I agree with you; too much scorn is heaped on “Eminence Front.” I’ll tell you something — when I saw the Who in 1982, they *killed* with that song. It really was good!
I’ll bet those live J. Geils versions of 60’s R & B numbers were much more successful than their studio versions (if any), and certainly the originals. “Looking for a Love,” for starters.
what about Johnny Rivers’ stuff from that Whisky A-Go-Go LP?
didn’t he have a hit with Memphis or Maybellene?
I’m not sure if those were on his studio LPs or not…
“Candle in the wind” is more popular as the live version, I believe.
Shoot, cherguevara beat me to my next one!
There’s only one way to “kill” the song “Eminence Front,” and that’s to BURN THE MASTERS!
The studio version of “Once in a Lifetime” was well known and well appreciated when that album came out. I won’t count that one, nor will I count the live version of “Surrender.” They’re not like “Candle in the Wind,” which I don’t ever recall hearing until Lady Di(ed).
How about the Rock & Roll Animal version of Sweet Jane?
Folsom Prison Blues – Johnny Cash?
On the “live” video front…
I believe that the video for “South Central Rain” was a live recording. Can’t imagine why else M. Stipe would’ve been wearing the headphones.
And Nirvana’s “About a Girl” is certainly better known from the live MTV concert-video-album than the original version on their debut.
God forbid I bogart anything, but I believe Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band’s Live Bullet had several hits of tunes that at most had been regional hits. One, out of at least four, is Heavy Music.
Dark Star the single did not have a fraction of the fame as Dark Star from Live Dead.
I can’t believe how many entries there have been so far. Bravo, Rock Town Hall! “Sweet Jane” is a great call, BigSteve.
The Nirvana Unplugged show also made “All Apologies” into the classic that it’s known as.
I’ll bet MTV’s heavy late 80s rotation of Comfortably Numb from Delicate Sound of Thunder, made that song more popular than it was from The Wall. Just like that Talking Heads heads tune.
McCartney’s Maybe I’m Amazed and Coming Up were both hits as live recordings rather than the studio versions which came out prior to the live recordings.
You could say the same for “Got To Get You Into My Life” which was not a hit with The Beatles but was a hit for McCartney in a live version (Concerts for Kampuchea)
Do I get my first “last man” for a triple play?
jungleland, you’ll get nothing and like it!
It’s complete nonsense to rely on a song’s chart position as a measuring stick for whether it was a “hit” before enjoying popularity in a live version.
If that’s how we’re going about this thread, then we’ve eliminated every song that was never released as a single from possibility.
‘maybe i’m amazed’ was the most popular song on ‘mccartney,’ beloved long before its shmaltzier live counterpart came out.
same with ‘got to get you into my life,’ (the suggestion of which as a candidate for this thread is doubly stupid because nobody has ever cared about the kampuchea version).
and kilroy, “comfortably numb” was a part of the canon for floyd fans and enjoyed ceaseless airplay long before the ‘delicate sound of thunder’ ever came out.
and in each of these examples, the live version wasn’t a *charting* hit, either.
next thing you know, someone on here will suggest the ‘one from the road’ version of “lola”
puh-leez. these examples are reaches at best.
now: here’s a *real* example. U2’s song “Bad” came out on the “Unforgettable Fire,” but it was not that album’s center of attention (“Pride (in the name of love)” was).
The live version of “Bad,” which came out a year later on the ep “Wide Awake in America” was the version that established that song as a part of the U2 canon.
saturnisback!
And he’s *shocked* that a Last Man Standing has led some of us to reach a bit. That never happens.
BigSteve!
Shocked? No. Dismayed, yes. These are the *hallowed* halls of Rock Town!
And thanks for pointing out before I had to that “once in a lifetime” was doing just fine before “Stop Making Sense” came out. The studio version got more airplay than the live version ever did, and before the live version came out, too.
Cocaine – Eric Clapton
Needle and the damage done.
I keep thinking that something from the Woodstock movie and soundtrack must have truly clicked in live form when it had previously been more of a “deep cut” in studio form, something like Joe Cocker’s version of “With a Little Help from My Friends,” but I was very young when those studio versions first hit. You tell me if I’m Last Man Standing, older, wiser Townspeople.
I don’t think there was a single of With a Little Help From My Friends. This is the problem of the definition of the word ‘hit.’ Certainly Santana’s track on the Woodstock soundtrack made their career, but I don’t think technically it was a hit single.
The converse of what I said in the set up to this piece regarding Billboard placement, BigSteve, may apply to your concern: “You know what I’m talking about.” That Santana song is a great example. Few of us even know the title of it. If not for its status in Woodstock, it would be yet one more Santana jam we can’t identify by name. As it is, it’s THE Santana jam we can’t identify by name. Granted, that’s not exactly as on target as our starting examples, like “I Want You to Want Me,” but I think it’s good enough to crown you – for the moment – Last Man Standing!
“‘maybe i’m amazed’ was the most popular song on ‘mccartney,’ beloved long before its shmaltzier live counterpart came out.
same with ‘got to get you into my life,’ (the suggestion of which as a candidate for this thread is doubly stupid because nobody has ever cared about the kampuchea version).”
Maybe it’s an age thing then. I have NEVER heard the studio version of Maybe I’m Amazed on the radio EVER. The Live Version was a Top 10 single and it played all the time
Got To Get You Into My Life from Kampuchea was a HUGE radio staple when it came out, I was a kid but I may not have known the original at that point (and it was not a single). The Wings version was played as much as Coming Up was at that time