Pearl Jam's most popular songs according to Spotify

[Strat]

My take: few people like anything after 2-3 records for bands

[Birds in Hell]

Foo Fighters

Everlong: 572
The Pretender: 501
Best of You: 432
Learn to Fly: 355
All My Life: 246
My Hero: 229
Walk: 166
Monkey Wrench: 147
Times Like These: 143
The Sky is a Neighbourhood: 123

[Birds in Hell]

Interesting how Smells Like Teen Spirit is just way out in front of any of these numbers, given the band has been defunct since 1994.

I wonder how much Dave and Krist still make annually from that one song. I think Dave has indicated before it's still a sizeable amount, which must be weird given Nirvana ended up being a relatively short (and not wholly enjoyable) period in his long and very successful career.

[McParadigm]

How about Bon Jovi

[Bammer]

My take: few people like anything after 2-3 records for bands

Aerosmith

[liebzz]

How about Bon Jovi

God save us.

[Birds in Hell]

How about Bon Jovi

Livin' on a Prayer: 927
You Give Love a Bad Name: 668
It's My Life: 516
Always: 335
Wanted Dead or Alive: 280
Bed of Roses: 231
Runaway: 157
I'll Be There for You: 137
Bad Medicine: 118
Blaze of Glory: 105

[Birds in Hell]

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Under the Bridge: 914
Californication: 901
Snow (Hey Oh): 749
Can't Stop: 729
Otherside: 619
Scar Tissue: 505
Dani California: 469
Dark Necessities: 339
By the Way: 311
Give It Away: 257

Pretty huge numbers.

[Farmer John]

I've never understood the love for Snow (Hey Oh).

Also surprised that Give It Away isn't near the top of that list.

[stip]

I forget how massive foo fighters and the chili peppers are. Neither band ever did much for me

[Kevin Davis]

I've never understood the love for Snow (Hey Oh).

This song is nails on a chalkboard to me

[lecherouslittlestump]

Thanks for sharing these. What's Audioslave? Like A Stone is nearing 1 billion views on YT which surprises me.

Also I remember reading that in terms of sales, Just Breathe is PJ's biggest hit - bigger than Last Kiss, even though it didn't reach as high in the charts.

[McParadigm]

It’s really interesting to have this (limited) glimpse into how these acts’ legacy years play out.

By the time the first generation of “rock stars“ had reached their 50’s, the advent of MTV had given them a huge commercial second wind. We had gone from vinyl to 8 track to tapes to CDs. Everybody bought your records all over again all over again. Reissues often generated real public attention. Pre-internet “only way for a lot of kids to stay connected” Rolling Stone was absolutely jacking you off all of the time, and steering new listeners in with dramatic retellings of creative journeys you barely remembered. Boomers eulogized the musical movement of their youth so often (and so extravagantly) that we kinda never learned how to talk about anything that came after on its own terms. In fact we didn’t talk much about it at all. 1960-1975 is still the focus of more than half of all existing music documentary material. Meanwhile, an entire new generation of musicians was looking to you for ideas, approval, association, and advice.

By comparison, 90’s folks are sort of an evolutionarily dead end. The genre grew conservative around them as they aged, the music went online for pennies, and consumption became a lot more bite sized.

Which is why I initially asked about other acts’ figures. I was less interested in their top ten hits than in ratios. I find it pleasantly surprising that a song like Smile…a deep cut on a record that like 27 of us liked when it came out…has 1/10th the plays of a hit like Betterman, and not closer to 1/100th.

[lecherouslittlestump]

By comparison, 90’s folks are sort of an evolutionarily dead end

because - and lets be honest here - the music sucked. i know we all love it, but objectively the grunge era sucked (have you actually listened to jeremy recently? lmao).

[Birds in Hell]

What's Audioslave?

Audioslave

Like a Stone: 399
Show Me How to Live: 206
Be Yourself: 159
Cochise: 132
I Am the Highway: 110
Doesn't Remind Me: 73
Gasoline: 52
Shadow on the Sun: 40
What You Are: 27
Sound of a Gun: 23

Rage Against the Machine

Killing in the Name: 584
Bulls on Parade: 273
Guerrilla Radio: 166
Renegades of Funk: 109
Bombtrack: 101
Testify: 100
Sleep Now in the Fire: 93
Wake Up: 81
Know Your Enemy: 78
Take the Power Back: 54

[RockPusher]

I'm curious about Radiohead

Creep: 881
Karma Police: 324
No Surprises: 239
High and Dry: 239
Fake Plastic Trees: 187
Paranoid Android: 141
Exit Music (for a Film): 106
Weird Fishes/Arpgeggi: 92
Everything in its Right Place: 87
Burn the Witch: 69

Thanks. This is fascinating. I'm always shocked at how subversive a sound Radiohead has while maintaining such a dominant mainstream following.

[stip]

creep is not a song i imagined anyone still listening to

[stip]

can someone put up Alice in Chains and Soundgarden to close out the heavy hitters (and pumpkins and stp too)?

[Birds in Hell]

Smashing Pumpkins

1979: 366
Bullet with Butterfly Wings: 224
Tonight Tonight: 144
Disarm: 138
Today: 138 *
Cherub Rock: 127
Zero: 71
Landslide: 44
Drown: 38
Ava Adore: 28

* Spotify is keeping separate tallies for Today from Siamese Dream and the Rotten Apples compilation, so I added them together for this purpose (which seems more accurate).

Soundgarden

Black Hole Sun: 436
Spoonman: 132
Fell on Black Days: 109
Outshined: 68
Rusty Cage: 63
Burden in My Hand: 47
The Day I Tried to Live: 46
Blow Up the Outside World: 25
Pretty Noose: 18
My Wave: 18

Alice in Chains

Man in the Box: 228
Would?: 193
Rooster: 126
Nutshell: 123
Down in a Hole: 94
Them Bones: 83
No Excuses: 68
Heaven Beside You: 43
I Stay Away: 37
Check My Brain: 33

Stone Temple Pilots

Interstate Love Song: 245
Plush: 196
Creep: 97
Plush (Acoustic): 86
Vasoline: 58
Sex Type Thing: 57
Big Empty: 39
Wicked Garden: 32
Dead & Bloated: 32
Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart: 27

[E.H. Ruddock]

creep is not a song i imagined anyone still listening to

covers of it by coffee house acoustic artists are used constantly in montages on network tv dramas