This week, the week of January 11-15, 2016, we will be reviewing "B" sides that were bigger hits than their "A" side counterparts!

We call it:  "See you on the flip side!"

January 11, 2016

I am not naive enough to believe that anyone who is reading this isn't old enough to remember when you could buy a 45 rpm record...or that they don't know what a "B" side is.  But lets review anyway!

In the history of recorded music the various formats have all held time as the most popular.  Today a generation of people would rather buy a digital copy that never wears out than invest in a solid piece of vinyl with a groove it that you have to physically restart every time it ends!

But the 45 was an integral part of the music scene for decades.

The beauty of the 45 was you got two songs (usually) for the price of one...without buying the entire album.

Many times the "B" side was a throw away song or a novelty or even just an instrumental version of the "A" side.

On occasion, however, the second song actually became more popular than the song everyone was trying to push on the other side!  And that could happen for a variety of reasons.

One of the earliest example is Bill Haley and The Comets.  Their single "13 Women (And Only One Man In Town) was released as an "A" side in 1954 and didn't crack the top 30 songs of the year on the Billboard chart.

The "B" side of that 45 was also a disappointment even though it also charted during the year.

However the next year that second song was featured in a hit movie and immediately took off.

Considered by many the first "Rock and Roll" hit song, "Rock Around the Clock" was the #2 hit for the entire year of  1955.

Tomorrow:  Get on your big shoes!

~ Glenn