Top Five Albums Whose Biggest Hit Was the Penultimate Track
1. Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A. (“Dancing in the Dark”)
2. M.I.A., Kala (“Paper Planes”)
3. Talking Heads, More Songs About Buildings and Food (“Take Me to the River”)
4. Derek and the Dominos, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (“Layla”)
5. Green Day, Nimrod (“Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”)
posted 1 February 2011 in Tasty Bits. 6 comments
February 1st, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Had to poke around a bit to find this one, but:
Rolling Stones, Black and Blue (“Fool to Cry”).
Apparently the Stones bury a future single in that spot often — the penultimate track on Some Girls is “Beast of Burden,” and on Emotional Rescue it’s “She’s So Cold” (both sizable hits, but not as big as “Miss You” or “Emotional Rescue,” respectively, so they don’t count here).
February 1st, 2011 at 12:51 pm
OH WAIT! One more — and unlike Black and Blue, this album — as an album — actually belongs in your Top Five (surely it’s better than Nimrod):
D’Angelo, Voodoo (“Untitled (How Does It Feel?)”)
February 1st, 2011 at 9:40 pm
I have a soft spot for Nimrod, although that might be because of the repeated listens I gave to it while writing a Green Day feature (hey, I should dig that out and add it to the archives). And I’ll admit I’ve never really gotten into D’Angelo–is Voodoo the place to start?
February 1st, 2011 at 10:27 pm
The Green Day album for which I have a soft spot is Warning, their virtually hit-free (well, it did have “Minority”), pre–American Idiot album. Warning has “Waiting,” their most underrated, super-catchy single, and the rest of the album is really solid. Nimrod never did much for me, beyond the hits.
I can’t claim to be a D’Angelo connoisseur, and so I’m not sure you want to start with Voodoo; Brown Sugar is a little easier to digest (no pun intended). But the guy’s only got two albums, and Voodoo is the widely agreed-upon (and still un-followed-up) masterpiece. So you might as well plunge in. Depending on how your wife feels about slow-jam and deep-funk R&B, she might enjoy it even more than you. My erstwhile spouse certainly did.
February 1st, 2011 at 11:27 pm
It would just be goofy to do this again next week with antepenultimate tracks, right?
March 9th, 2011 at 10:29 am
“Crackerbox Palace” is the penultimate song on Thirty-Three and 1/3.