Songs That Were Local Hits but didn't make the Top 40 Nationally

[Retro]

I thought of a couple more, all these on Mix 98-5:

If I Had $1000000-Barenaked Ladies.

Night Swimming-REM

Possession-Sarah Mclachlan

Silent All These Years-Tori Amos (This may have gotten airplay elsewhere too, however I know that it wasn't a Top 40 charted hit)

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

The Fools - a great bar band - the drunker the audience got, the
raunchier the band got! They played the Senior Day party when I
graduated from college (UMass, Amherst, 1978)

Pousette-Dart Band.
James Montgomery.
James Cotton.
Waltham.

Sass - I ordered a CD from CD Baby wesite. Looking forward to
hearing some of that "power pop"...

 

[BoscoGoldBear]

Here are a few from Kiss 108:

Miami Heatwave - Seventh Avenue (from the UK)
You Can Do It - One Way (then known as Al Hudson and his Soul Partners)
Cutie Pie - One Way
Just An Illusion - Imagination
Funkin' For Jamaica (NY) - Tom Browne
White Lines - Grandmaster Flash

and a few from WBCN which bombed nationally:

Never Say Never - Romeo Void
I Know What Boys Like - The Waitresses
New Year's Day - U2 - subsequent hit Pride (In The Name Of Love) was only a minor hit
It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - R.E.M. - followup to Top 15 hit The One I Love which bombed
I Melt With You - Modern English (also reached Kiss 108's Top 20)

and finally from Hitradio 103:

Wouldn't It Be Nice - Nik Kershaw (a remake of this song was featured in "Sixteen Candles")

Happy New Year, everyone! ;D

 

[Retro]

Now some of those were popular nationally even if they didn't make the Top 40 pop chart. I do believe that Cutie Pie-One Way was a #1 R&B hit nationally.

 

[cary737]

Couple of "rhythmic hits played on KISS and WZOU around 1989-1990

"Whole wild World" Amy Lorraine

"Girls Night Out" Tyler Collins

"Electric Slide" pretty much brought back from the dead by KISS

 

[Retro]

Looks like A'me Lorain - Whole Wide World was actually a Top 10 hit.

Electric Boogie-Marcia Griffiths had New England Airplay as well as airplay on Open House Party as well.

 

[kms575]

Here are a few from Kiss 108:

Miami Heatwave - Seventh Avenue (from the UK)
You Can Do It - One Way (then known as Al Hudson and his Soul Partners)
Cutie Pie - One Way
Just An Illusion - Imagination
Funkin' For Jamaica (NY) - Tom Browne
White Lines - Grandmaster Flash

and a few from WBCN which bombed nationally:

Never Say Never - Romeo Void
I Know What Boys Like - The Waitresses
New Year's Day - U2 - subsequent hit Pride (In The Name Of Love) was only a minor hit
It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - R.E.M. - followup to Top 15 hit The One I Love which bombed
I Melt With You - Modern English (also reached Kiss 108's Top 20)

and finally from Hitradio 103:

Wouldn't It Be Nice - Nik Kershaw (a remake of this song was featured in "Sixteen Candles")

Happy New Year, everyone! ;D

Um, I think you mean "Wouldn't it be Good" by Nik Kershaw. I think it was successful in areas other than Boston too.

 

[dlhalper]

I am sure everyone mentioned Orpheus-- "Can't Find the Time." Much bigger here than it was nationally. Also, in our folk music days, WBZ's Jefferson Kaye got many requests for a wonderful song by the band Pearls Before Swine called "Another Time". Also, I recall two that the late SunnyJoe White and other dance music jocks did well with here-- Boom Boom Boom (Let's Go Back to My Room) by Paul Lekaikis, and Peace in the Valley by Sabrina Johnson. We also played a different mix of "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco than most other cities played.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Also, in our folk music days, WBZ's Jefferson Kaye got many requests for a wonderful song by the band Pearls Before Swine called "Another Time".

Still occasionally requested and played on my Tuesday edition of the "Lost & Found" '60s/'70s show on WMBR. Coincidentally, it was one of the songs I was thinking of playing last week, but I didn't get to it. Maybe next Tuesday.

 

[Oldbones]

I am sure everyone mentioned Orpheus-- "Can't Find the Time." Much bigger here than it was nationally.

That's one of those songs that everyone seems to know, but never was a "hit" per se. Whitburn shows it reaching #80 in August of '69, but I recall hearing it more from the spring/early summer of '68. I can't find it listed on any WRKO charts that I've been able to find online. Not sure if WMEX published a survey in 1968-9, and WBZ had gone to an MOR format by then. Maybe it charted in Worcester, Manchester or Providence...haven't come across any charts from stations there showing it either though. The only Orpheus song I could find on any WRKO survey was "Brown Arms In Houston", which doesn't ring a bell.

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

Another local band that nobody has yet mentioned:
The Beacon Street Union. Very much a part of the "acid rock" scene, back in the day.
I seem to remember also, that they had their own (or were a part of ) television
"special" - part of the "Boss-Town" sound...