4 Times Artists Didn’t Get the Hype Behind Their Biggest Hits

When it comes to scoring a major chart success, oftentimes you don’t choose the song; it chooses you. Here are four hits that almost anybody can get behind, except for the people who sing them.

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“Monday, Monday” by The Mamas and the Papas

This track might have been The Mamas and The Papas‘ only No. 1 hit, but singer Denny Doherty wasn’t particularly impressed with the tune at first.

“I liked the opening background vocals, the ‘bah-da-da-da-da-dum,’… I thought that was cool,” Doherty later shared. “But nobody likes Monday, so I thought it was just a song about the working man. Nothing about it stood out to me. It was a dumb f***in’ song about a day of the week. By the time the rehearsals were over for the vocals, I thought, ‘Thank god that’s over!’”

“Like A Virgin” by Madonna

When you think of Madonna, you likely think of this popular 80s track, which gave Madonna her first No. 1 and has since sold over six million copies. Apparently, though, the Queen of Pop is sick and tired of hearing this one out and about.

“For some reason, people think that when you go to a restaurant or you are going shopping, that you want to hear one of your own songs,” the singer later shared. “It’s usually ‘Like A Virgin’, and that is the one I don’t want to hear.”

“I Was Made For Lovin’ You” by KISS

When it comes to big hits that artists can’t stand, this one has to make the cut. Gene Simmons of KISS notoriously dislikes “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”, which the band’s fans obviously adore.

“I hate it to this day,” Simmons admitted to Louder. “Except… stadiums full of people jump up and down like biblical locusts. ‘Do do do…’ And so I sing along.”

“(Don’t You) Forget About Me” by Simple Minds

If you’ve ever seen The Breakfast Club, you’ve heard Simple Minds’ “(Don’t You) Forget About Me”. The song fits the movie perfectly because it was, in fact, written for the film. Upon being told that they couldn’t use their own material, the members of Simple Minds were pretty disappointed. “We couldn’t give a toss about teenage American schoolkids,” vocalist Jim Kerr later said.

“It didn’t blow us away,” he told People of the song. “It sounded like it could have been The Psychedelic Furs. We were working on stuff that was exciting us much more. We were saying, ‘Look, can’t you just take one of our songs we’re working on just now?’ They said, ‘No, no, no. This is the song for the script.’ I was listening to it thinking it’s not the kind of lyric I would identify with.”

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