My history of the b-side starts when I was young and as a family we used to walk up to the local video store at Fairview Place Plaza in Burlington and along with the VHS movies, they had a bin of 45's. I know I bought Irene Cara's Flashdance and the theme from "The Greatest American Hero" there. So maybe that is where my history with 45's starts, because I was buying for the a-sides; maybe I just wanted to let you all in on my early obsessions with '80's movie and TV theme songs. My history of the b-side actually starts with a band I've devoted two blog posts to already: Bon Jovi.
Bon Jovi is the band that turned me onto buying CD singles. I used to love buying CD singles and still have a pretty good collection of them. Before the internet, the only way to get new songs before the real album came out was to tape the songs off the radio, tape the video off Much Music or get the CD single. I was good at doing all three of these things because when I hear something I like, I need to get it immediately! But the CD single was the most convenient of the three options above, bar none.
Now, one can get things instantly off iTunes or Google Play or any other streaming service and yes, it's convenient but there is something I miss about the CD single. And that is the b-sides. The single was great to have given that the song you were hearing on the radio was the entry point but it was the allure of the extra, non-album tracks that made seeking these out so exciting.
Bon Jovi
The first Bon Jovi CD single I bought was Keep The Faith, as it was backed with I Wish Everyday Could Be Like Christmas and a live version of Living In Sin. The X-Mas song is not my fave, but I did pull it out for the 1992, 1993 and 1994 holiday seasons. The draw here was the title track (as I bought it before the album dropped) and the live version of Living In Sin, which was recorded in Lakeland, Florida in 1989. JBJ's voice is in top form here and they slow the song down to almost a marching band-like dirge. JBJ even belts out the scream at the end! Solid.
I then was on a mission for Bon Jovi CD singles. I mentioned this before but for us kids from Burlington, hitting the HMV Superstore and Sam The Record Man in Toronto was like the holy grail of music purchasing. I do have to give props to Sunrise in Burlington Mall and Cheapies in Hamilton (both still open!) who also carried a lot of good CD singles. One trip down to HMV netted the Bed Of Roses single, complete with live tracks (Tokyo Road, I'll Be There For You, Lay Your Hands On Me). Around this time, I also began to explore whether other bands had CD singles. I picked up the Gin Blossoms' Hey Jealousy, which was backed with the "New Miserable Experience" album track Cajun Song and the b-sides Just South Of Nowhere and Angels Tonight. Both these songs are quite good and I was happy to have found it (I think Sunrise was the store I found it at).
Back to Bon Jovi, the "Keep The Faith"-era singles almost exclusively included live tracks as b-sides, which I was okay with, as I already pointed out in a previous blog, Bon Jovi was on the top of their live game at this point. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, I Believe and the epic 2 CD single set Dry County (with the amazing live tracks Dry County, Blood Money, Stranger In This Town, Waltzing Mathilda (Tico Torres on lead vocals) and the cover It's Only Rock N' Roll included) rounded out this era for me. Plus, the CD singles for Dry County were gold. Seriously, check it out.
I think during this time they also released a CD single of JBJ's version of Please Come Home For Christmas, which again was backed with I Wish Everyday Could Be Like Christmas and a live version of Back Door Santa (as terrible as the song title). Again, this got play around the holidays in 1993 and 1994 (at the height of my Bon Jovi obsession). I feel I have not played it since that time, but the single is still in my collection.
During the "Cross Road"-era, I picked up the Always single (again before the album came out), which was backed the amazing b-side Edge Of A Broken Heart. Not sure which era this song was recorded in (and I'm too lazy to look it up), but it definitely could have fit on "Slippery" or "New Jersey". Someday I'll Be Saturday Night followed and it contained Good Guys Don't Always Wear White, from "The Cowboy Way" and live versions of Always and With A Little Help From My Friends (both recorded in Montreal). Come to think of it, Someday I'll Be Saturday Night is a live version as well, though the packaging does not indicate this. A pleasant surprise for the completist in me.
The "These Days"-era also generated a lot of CD singles, but I have to say that the b-sides were of varying quality. The album is close to perfect and you can see why they relegated most of these tracks to b-sides. Later singles (Lie To Me, Something For The Pain) included great live songs from the band's Wembley Stadium shows. These were definitely worth seeking out. The These Days single I have contained live tracks from South Africa, including (It's Hard) Letting You Go and Rockin' In The Free World. I missed a couple of singles here, including the 1st part of These Days, which contained the live version of the title track. I may have to seek this out.
I also picked up JBJ solo singles from "Destination Anywhere". Again, live tracks from this era were the norm, but he did include the non-album track Sad Song Night on Midnight In Chelsea. This is a fun little pop tune.
I do have singles from the "Crush", "Bounce", "Have A Nice Day" and "Lost Highway"-eras, the former contain a lot of non-album tracks, but none of them really stood out to me. The latter contain live tracks, the most notable being a cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, which is great. By "The Circle", CD singles were pretty much obsolete in Toronto record stores. I know some singles exist for this album, but the b-sides are live versions of tracks I'm not a huge fan of, so pass.
Oasis
Oasis raised the b-side game for me as there weren't a lot of live tracks, but actual non-album tracks. There are just so many good ones and I've written about how I acquired a lot of the singles in other posts...I'll just make a list of my favourite ones.
- Talk Tonight
- Acquiesce
- Listen Up
- Fade Away
- (It's Good) To Be Free
- Going Nowhere
- My Sister Lover
- Rockin' Chair
- Bonehead's Bank Holiday - This was on the vinyl version of "What's The Story" but semantics. It's kind of a jokey song but it's mega catchy.
- Step Out
- The Masterplan - so, so good. This would be many bands' greatest musical accomplishment.
- Headshrinker
- Half The World Away
- Round Are Way
- D'Yer Wanna Be A Spaceman?
- Let's All Make Believe
- Underneath The Sky
- I Am The Walrus (Live)
- Cum On Feel The Noize
- The Boy With The Blues
- I Believe In All
To be honest, Let's Make Believe (circa 2000) was the last b-side I loved up until the "Dig Out Your Soul"-era (last two songs on the list), when Noel and Liam seemed to be firing on all cylinders again. But seriously, the list above is mostly original songs that were discarded for whatever reason and are top notch. This list doesn't include the key non-album singles Whatever and Lord Don't Slow Me Down, which would have been among the greatest songs on whatever album they ended up on. Additionally, it does not contain Sad Song, which was initially on the vinyl of "Definitely Maybe" and is also one of my faves.
And Noel continues to produce great b-sides with the High Flying Birds. Songs like I'd Pick You Everytime, A Simple Game Of Genius, Alone On The Rope, Do The Damage, Freaky Teeth are gems that could have been the centerpieces of album #3. Noel is one of the few remaining artists who still puts out b-sides consistently.
Pearl Jam
I don't like the song Jeremy, but I did buy the CD single of this song, as it contained songs I had never heard of, Footsteps and Yellow Ledbetter. Both of these songs are fantastic, the latter has a great, great guitar solo (though my friend John disagrees). The Dissident CD single from the "Vs" era was split into three parts, each with 6-7 live tracks from a show in Atlanta. So essentially you got the entire concert by getting all three singles. I think those are the only singles I have by Pearl Jam, but I do have the excellent compilation "Lost Dogs", which culls many b-sides from 1992 through to 2003 (I think). This brings me to another lost art, the b-side album. Oasis have done it, The Killers have done it, Doves had a disc devoted to b-sides on their greatest hits album. No one really does it anymore, which is a shame.
Garbage
I liked Garbage's debut album a lot and one time when I was in Buffalo at the terrible outlet mall on Military Road, I stumbled into a long defunct music store (honestly I think it was called Music 4 You or Music 4 Less or something equally inane) and found the Stupid Girl single, backed with a remix and the non-album track Driving Lesson. Like Gin Blossoms, if I latched onto a new band in the '90's (and 2000's and now, really) and they only had one album, I did all I could to find as many non-album songs as possible. Garbage fit this mold. I then picked up the Milk single, but I believe it only contained remixes, but they were better than the original in my mind. I also have Queer Part 1 which again contained remixes but also the non-album track Trip My Wire (which I like better than Driving Lesson). Garbage just re-issued their first album and on the deluxe edition they devoted a CD to the b-sides of the era (only they called this disc G-Sides...of course). They do a killer version of The Jam's Butterfly Collector. Garbage CD singles struck b-side gold on their 2nd release "Version 2.0". They had amazing non-album tracks like Deadwood, Can't Seem To Make You Mine and Afterglow, as well as remixes. After this album, though, Garbage singles were hard to find, so my collection ends there.
Gaslight Anthem
I don't have any GA CD singles but I do have their b-sides album, creatively titled "The B-Sides". This record contains mostly acoustic re-workings of songs from "The '59 Sound" and "American Slang", but it also has the song She Loves You, which is amazing. From the "American Slang" sessions, this one should have made that album 100%. It also contains Songs For Teenagers, which is originally by a band called Fake Problems, that my friend Kyle turned me onto. Both this version and the original version are great and worth seeking out (here I will help you out with the original).
Because the band frequently puts out Record Store Day releases, I've also found other b-sides, including Misery, which again, is phenomenal. This band also respects the b-side and I have a lot of respect for them as a result!
Until next time...
