DEAD FORMATS (PART 1): THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE B-SIDE
Q: What do million-sellers ‘Maggie May’, ‘I Will Survive’ and ‘The Model’ have in common? A: They were all originally b-sides – afterthoughts if you like – originally deemed little more than filler material. For, throughout history, ‘B’ has come to represent ‘second best’, the alternative, the runner-up grade. What has become overlooked is the fact that, in the arts, ‘B’ – whether b-movie, b-feature or b-side – has often thrown up an extra, unexpected treat.
The humble b-side is, of course, a vinyl inspiration, a thing of the past. While CD singles demoted the importance of the support track to one of several add-ons spread over numerous versions of the same a-side, MP3 has killed the opportunity stone dead. But, once upon a time, the b-side had real power.
The 45rpm revolution of the fifties opened up the market for writers and performers to double-up: although company bigwigs generally decided which tune was to be rotated by radio, in many instances both sides received airplay and merited individual listings by Cash Box, often leading to dual chart entries for the same slab of vinyl. With each side of a single receiving an equal royalty for its writers and producers, composers therefore hit upon the ruse of arranging for their spare material to be pushed onto the b-sides of recordings by the most popular artists, in what was known as ‘the flipside racket’.
Artists at the creative level of The Beatles and Rolling Stones blew the lid off possibilities during the sixties, placing material of equal merit against their lead tracks and thus creating that further phenomenon, the double a-side. In the seventies, however, the second cut was even seen to usurp its a-side: memorable cases include the aforementioned smashes ‘Maggie May’ (Warners, 1971: US #1; UK #1; worldwide sales c3m; the support track to Rod Stewart’s ‘Reason To Believe’) and ‘I Will Survive’ (Polydor, 1979: US #1; UK #1; worldwide sales c2.5m; b-side to Gloria Gaynor’s ironically-titled ‘Substitute’) – an unusual occurrence emulated by, for example, Kraftwerk and Wham during the early eighties.
1978 also gave us the regrettable example of Boney M’s ‘Rivers Of Babylon’: already platinum for Atlantic in the UK, this chart-topper (which scraped to a lowly US #30 on Sire) was then flipped to provide a further British hit in b-side ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’, achieving eventual UK sales of c2m on its way to becoming the country’s biggest foreign single ever.
Other examples of b-side usage include the ‘parts one and two’ trend as displayed in, for example, The Isley Brothers’ ‘Shout’ (RCA, 1959: US #47), James Brown’s ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’ (King, 1965: US #8; US R&B #1; UK #25), and, err, Gary Glitter’s ‘Rock and Roll’ (Bell, 1972: UK #2; US #7). Some seventies soul and R&B labels – eg, Sylvia Robinson’s All Platinum Records – incurred consumers’ ire by backing their hits with merely the a-side’s instrumental: however, with the majority of other companies using the reverse space to house a further tune from their act’s current album, perhaps this wasn’t such a commercial sin. (At the other end of the spectrum, artists like David Bowie, T Rex and Paul McCartney often treated fans to the occasional double b-side, or maxi-single.)
The advent of 12-inch and CD singles probably heralded the demise of the b-side, but with so many remixes and alternate versions of a-sides now dominating the listings, it is clearly missed. Best b-side ever? That’s a tough one – perhaps Wall Of Voodoo’s ‘There’s Nothing On This Side’ (IRS, 1983, flip to ‘Mexican Radio’: US #58; UK #58)? Don’t believe a word of it, folks.
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Posted by Jeremy Simmonds
on Nov 22 2010. Filed under Business Models, featured, Labels, Marketing.
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