3 Rock Songs That Were Never Supposed To Be Hits (Yet Somehow Were)

Most of the time, an artist will make a conscious decision to pen a hit for an album. Most records need at least one track with radio potential—and that’s been the case for decades. Every so often, though, a song that wasn’t intended to be a hit will skyrocket an artist to stardom. The three rock songs below weren’t meant to be hits, but they proved popular nonetheless.

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“Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Nirvana)

Kurt Cobain wrote “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as a parody of what he considered formulaic arena rock. The song was supposed to reject mainstream rock norms and pave the way for a grungy, realist counterpart. But the song was so good at parodying popular music that it became a hit in its own right.

Nirvana never meant to be the posterchild for grunge in the mainstream, but their popularity made it impossible for them to be anything else. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” became the band’s biggest success and has kept them in the cultural conversation for decades. They may not have meant to, but they penned an era-defining popular track.

“Every Breath You Take” (The Police)

The Police originally saw “Every Breath You Take” as a filler rock song. The band was coming to an end by the time it released the ironically titled album, Synchronicity. Their disagreements culminated in “Every Breath You Take,” with the members fighting over whether to include it.

Despite some back-and-forth, Sting always believed in this song’s hit potential, calling it “archetypal.”

“‘Every Breath You Take’ is an archetypal song,” Sting once said. “If you have a major chord followed by a relative minor, you’re not original.” Sting’s opinion proved correct, as this song became one of the band’s signature tracks.

“Maggie May” (Rod Stewart)

Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May” was initially released as a B-side to “Reason to Believe.” The rollout saw this rock song as the lesser track, but the public and radio DJs thought otherwise. This song received more play and was eventually released as a single.

Maggie May is a sensual story about a woman Stewart met in real life. “At 16, I went to the Beaulieu Jazz Festival in the New Forest,” Stewart once said. “I’d snuck in with some mates via an overflow sewage pipe. And there on a secluded patch of grass, I lost my not-remotely-prized virginity with an older (and larger) woman who’d come on to me very strongly in the beer tent. How much older, I can’t tell you. But old enough to be highly disappointed by the brevity of the experience.”

(Photo by Frank Micelotta/Getty Images)