Have you ever listened to an album and thought that some of the songs that weren't singles maybe should have been?  Maybe even the album track in question is better than some of the ones that actually became singles?  What are some of your picks from the 80s?


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I'll begin with a band called Industry.  They were one hit wonders in 1984 with a minor hit called State Of The Nation.  It came from an EP and an album that also had a track called Romantic Dreams which was not a single, but I feel had it of been, the band would have been at least a 2 hit wonder and maybe also not a one album wonder. 

Industry - Romantic Dreams (1984)
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In 1984, The Romantics went on American Bandstand to promote their US Top 40 hit One In A Million.  For their second song, they performed a cover of the 60s hit Open Up Your Door which appears on their 1983 album In Heat.  They never released it as a single, but they really should have and if I am honest, it's the best track on the album!

The Romantics - Open Up Your Door (1983)
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Here is The Chauffer, the last song on Side 2 of the 1982 Duran Duran album Rio.  This song was never a single, yet a music video was made for it, only because it was the early days when some artists made videos for every song on their album.  Rio is my favourite album of all time and I love the singles that came from the album, but if I am honest, I prefer The Chauffer over Save A Prayer and would have preferred it as the single in place. 

The official video contains nudity, so here is just a random clip of the song ...

Duran Duran - The Chauffer (1982)
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In 1984, British band Frankie Goes To Hollywood went on Saturday Night Live to promote themselves, but due to it's lyrical content, they were not allowed to perform their hit Relax, so in place, they performed a cover of the Bruce Springsteen song Born to Run which appears on their 1985 debut album Welcome To The Pleasuredome.  The bassline solos at 1:51 and 2:35 are just epic!

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Burn To Run (1984)
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Here is a group called Roman Grey.  In 1988, they released their debut album titled Edge of the Shadow that produced 3 Top 40 hits in Canada

To my knowledge, those three songs made no major impact outside of Canada, but for the sake of this topic, here is a song from that album that wasn't a single, but should have been.  This one is called Ain't It A Shame and I listen to it often!

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This one is called Why Is It So Hard? by the British group Talk Talk.  It appears on the soundtrack to the 1984 film Firstborn

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The next year, they released a remix album titled It's My Mix that featured a 12" version and this one IMO is the best version.  They really missed out by not making either version a single

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