Hidden, uncredited, on the B-side of Mercury Rev’s first CD single Car Wash Hair is Untitled, a 30-minute bad acid comedown of scathing guitar loops and low sine waves, soured by repeated screams of “I want to be inside you”. New blog: b-side.website/2025/03/31/un…

Performed at New York’s Baseball Hall of Fame on a bat-shaped guitar, Centerfield’s broad appeal put Creedence Clearwater Revival songwriter John Fogerty back in the game. Its riff-based homage helped A-side Rock And Roll Girls into the US charts, 40 years ago this month.

Released #OTD 60 years ago, Who’ll Be The Next In Line was a passive-aggressive tune about broken hearts. The nagging, nervous flip of Ev’rybody’s Gonna Be Happy, it continued the Kinks tradition for B-sides better than their A-sides (and later gained top billing in the US).

A game-changer that set the pop-disco template for the remainder of Hot Chocolate’s career, You Sexy Thing didn’t initially float the boat of super-producer Mickie Most. He made it B-side of Blue Night #OTD 50 years ago before having a change of heart.

North Carolina songwriter Ben Folds didn’t delete the expletives with his uninhibited piano take on Dr Dre’s Bitches Ain’t Shit, B-side of Landed. Released 20 years ago, it quickly became a live favourite. Wary of getting ‘cancelled’, Folds excised it from his sets in the 10s.

The greatest song of hope was initially given B-side status. A Change Is Gonna Come came to Sam Cooke fully-formed, following an altercation at a whites-only motel. That incident reprised itself with tragic consequences prior to its release, 60 years ago, on the flip of Shake.

DMX and Ja Rule parlayed whole careers from their gravel-throated style, but Nine got there first. Issued 30 years ago this month, Me, Myself And My Microphone (B-side of the fadeless Whutcha Want?) offered to “smack you with a ball full of skills” over a heady Ahmad Jamal lift.

There was a brutal impact to Killing Joke’s Pssyche (B-side of Wardance), whose pounding rhythmic blitz evoked the end of the world. First blog of 2025: b-side.website/2025/01/24/ps…

An unlikely star, Phil Collins didn’t so much muscle in on Prince’s funk-pop territory as forcefully violate it on Sussudio. Released 40 years ago this month, its upbeat UK B-side, The Man With The Horn, was a bone of appeasement to long-suffering Genesis fans.

Long before the Kendrick/Drake beef, rap disses were often smuggled out on B-sides. Issued 30 years ago this month, Black Sheep were arguably shooting fish in a barrel with H.A.A (Here’s Another Asshole), a takedown of a desperate (MC) Hammer, but business is business.