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 13, 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.

The Rolling Stones have never been a band known for being "shy".  One famous example was their song "Let's Spend the Night Together."  Controversial at the time of its release in 1967  Ed Sullivan famously told the band to change the lyrics for their performance on his show to "let's spend some time together".  

Some radio DJ's also took offense to the song and started playing the "B" side of the 45 and THAT song made it all the way to number one for one week in 1967.

"Let's Spend the Night Together" only reached #55.

Tomorrow: More DJ interference!

~ Glenn