Most surprising hits of all-time?

[trustypepper]

What are some songs that legitimately surprised you when they became hits? Maybe because they didn't seem "radio-friendly" or something like that, take the question however you'd like.

[JOJO SIWA DERANGEMENT SYNDROME]

Awolnation - Sail
Becky G - Shower
Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe
DJ Snake - Turn Down For What
Echosmith - Cool Kids
Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks
Kalin & Myles - all their singles
Ke$ha - Tik Tok
MAGIC! - Rude
Maroon 5 - One More Night
Maroon 5 - Sugar
Meaghan Trainor - All About That Bass
Nicki Minaj - Only
Naughty Boy feat. Sam Smith - La La La
One Direction - Story Of My Life
Sam Smith - Stay With Me
The Chainsmokers - #Selfie
Train - Hey Soul Sister
Ylvis - What Does The Fox Say?

[H.]

Most alternative hits.

[irice22]

"Rolling in the Deep" Adele
"Pumped Up Kicks," Foster the People
"Somebody That I Used to Know," Gotye
"Take Me to Church" Hozier
"U + Ur Hand," P!nk
"Second Chance," Shinedown
"Beautiful Soul," Jesse McCartney
"With You," Jessica Simpson
"You're Beauitful," James Blunt
"Lips Are Moving," Meghan Trainor

[icefire9]

Turn Down For What
Sugar (it's so similar to Birthday, which did poorly)
Pumped Up Kicks
Friday (While it didn't do too well overall, it exceeded every expectation that anyone would have set for it)

[when the pawn...]

Recently, based on when I heard these songs for the first time

"I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz
"Little Lion Man" by Mumford & Sons
"Rolling in the Deep" by Adele
"Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People
"Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye & Kimbra
"Latch" by Disclosure & Sam Smith
"Same Love" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis & Mary Lambert
"Say Something" by A Great Big World
"All of Me" by John Legend

[Joe1240]

Magic!-Rude
Cher Lloyd-Want U Back
Meghan Trainor-All About That Bass
PSY-Gentleman

[Adel is not icant]

PSY - Gangnam Style
PSY - Gentleman (I thought GS was a one-hit wonder)
Meghan Trainor - All About The Bass
Magic! - Rude
John Legend - All Of Me (Rounding out in the bottom 50 of Hot 100 about 10 weeks)
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ft. Wanz - Thrift Shop (This song sucks)
Lady Gaga ft. R. Kelly - Do What U Want (No music video EVEN after spending over 2 months in Hot 100)
Hozier - Take Me To Church (Who can predict this Irish guy has a hit song in the USA?)
Nicki Minaj - Stupid Hoe (It's popular in a negative way)
Lorde - Royals (Boring... Can't even wonder how this get famous)

[ant]

Adele - "Someone Like You"

I couldn't see a ballad like that becoming such a huge hit at the time. It legitimately surprised me at first, because I thought it would kill her momentum after "Rolling in the Deep".

[Musicguy]

Roxette's "The Look" is one that comes to mine, as it was an exchange student from Minnesota who had been in Sweden, heard the song, loved it and brought a tape to the States and requested a DJ to give it a spin, and the song took off. When EMI signed the duo and the single was released, the song had enough strength to debut at number 50 on the Hot 100, which then was high for a newcomer.

[Deleted]

Rolling In The Deep & Someone Like You - Adele
Pumped Up Kicks- Foster The People
Rihanna ft. Kanye West & McCartney- FourFive Seconds
Justin Timberlake & Maddona- 4 Minutes
The Weekend- Earned It
Say Something- A Great Big World ft. Christina Aguliera
Lana Del Rey- Young & Beautiful
Lorde- Royals & Team

[Caution]

D4L - Laffy Taffy

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Can't argue with most of these. I'm Yours by Jason Mraz is one of the big ones for me, and the fact it broke longevity records and such. Crazy!

[Luckie Starchild]

Soeur Sourire (The Singing Nun) - "Dominique"
Kyu Sakamoto - "Sukiyaki"

[Deleted]

Older ones:
Outkast- Roses
Twista ft. Kanye West and Jamie Foxx- Slow Jamz
Gotye- Somebody That I Used To Know


More recent:
Rae Sremmurd- No Type and that other I forgot already
Bobby Shmurda- Hot Boy
The Hanging Tree
Bauer- Harlem Shake
Beyoncé - Drunk in Love
....

[Gravity.]

Owl City's "Fireflies" will never cease to surprise me as an unexpected hit.

[skizzo]

Cher - Believe.

It really did kickstart the whole movement of dance-pop Metro inspired singles like "When The Heartache Is Over" by Tina Turner, "Angel" by Lionel Richie, "Be With You" by Enrique, "Not Over You Yet" by Diana Ross, "I Will Go With You" by Donna Summer, "Crazy Way About You" by Rene Froger, "On A Night Like This" by Kylie Minogue, "Sex Bomb" by Tom Jones/Mousse T, etc.

[trustypepper]

Mar 14, 2015 22:40:19 GMT -5 skizzo said:

Cher - Believe.

It really did kickstart the whole movement of dance-pop Metro inspired singles like "When The Heartache Is Over" by Tina Turner, "Angel" by Lionel Richie, "Be With You" by Enrique, "Not Over You Yet" by Diana Ross, "I Will Go With You" by Donna Summer, "Crazy Way About You" by Rene Froger, "On A Night Like This" by Kylie Minogue, etc.

And also introduced the world to Auto-tune!

[skizzo]

Indeed. At the time I thought it was a vocoder effect, because dance acts like Daft Punk had used it a lot before the song came out, it was definitely an attempt to sound futuristic (not to hide your lack of singing capacity)

[Green Baron]

Trapt - Headstrong (#4 CHR)

[someguy]

James Newton Howard & Jennifer Lawrence - "The Hanging Tree"
Enya - "Only Time"
Randy Travis - "Three Wooden Crosses"

[Deleted]

I would have to say that most of 2014's hits were surprises because many of the songs that were popular that year didn't really seem like they were reflecting of what the radio wanted to play or the state of pop culture, that's why I enjoyed music that year, also I would say:
Adele-Rolling In The Deep
Adele-Someone Like You
Foster The People-Pumped Up Kicks
Jason Mraz-I'm Yours
Sara Bareilles-Love Song
Norah Jones-Don't Know Why
Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow-Picture
Cee-Lo Green-F*ck You
Gotye feat. Kimbra-Somebody That I Used To Know
PSY-Gangnam Style (I din't think this would have become as big as it did, I thought it was just another viral video, but didn't think it was going to take over the charts)
Fun.-Some Nights
Imagine Dragons-It's Time
Imagine Dragons-Radioactive
AWOLNATION-Sail
Of Monsters and Men-Little Talks
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis feat. Wanz-Thrift Shop
Flo-Rida-Whistle (I'm still shocked in disbelief that this hit #1)
J. Cole-Power Trip
Wiz Khalifa-Black and Yellow (certainly didn't see this becoming a #1 hit)
Bobby Shmurda-Hot Boy (the biggest surprise hit of 2014)
Carly Rae Jepsen-Call Me Maybe (I knew it sounded pop friendly, but I certainly didn't see this becoming one of the biggest hits of the year)
Ellie Goulding-Lights
most rap and R&B songs that got popular in the 2000's (I certainly didn't envision urban music dominating the charts the way it did that decade, especially in the early part of the decade, the fact that back then it was the norm for a rap or R&B song to crossover to pop radio was very surprising in itself.)
Lady Antebellum-Need You Now
Jason Aldean-Dirt Road Anthem (the only country song not played on pop radio to hit the top 10)
Train-Hey, Soul Sister
Shinedown-Second Chance
Kings Of Leon-Use Somebody
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis-Can't Hold Us and Same Love
Pink feat. Nate Ruess-Just Give Me A Reason (I thought this was going to be under the radar, not become a #1 hit, but glad it did)
Justin Timberlake-Mirrors
Daft Punk feat. Pharrell-Get Lucky
Robin Thicke feat. Pharrell, T.I.-Blurred Lines
The Lumineers-Ho Hey
One Republic-Counting Stars
Flo-Rida feat. T-Pain-Low (I didn't really see this being the #1 song of 2008)
Daniel Powter-Bad Day
Soulja Boy-Kiss Me Thru The Phone (I never thought he'd have another major hit after "Crank That")
Lupe Fiasco-The Show Goes On
all 3 of Jeremih's songs (Birthday Sex, Down On Me, and Don't Tell 'Em)
all of Jason Derulo's songs (he never struck me as a hitmaker)

[brady47]

Nelly Furtado - Say It Right

Don't get me wrong, it's a great pop song, but I didn't really expect the US to give it a chance, since it was really into the smooth R&B/Hip Hop sound in 2006-2007.

It did so well for a song of its type.

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Shakira - She Wolf.

It definitely helped that it had strong Latin format airplay, but I was shocked that it got to #11. The song isn't radio friendly, didn't fit the style popular at the time, and is just weird (musically and lyrically).

[nikkominaj]

3Oh!3 - Don't Trust Me.

This was one of my favorite band/group back then and I was so excited to see them at Warped Tour. I never knew they would get pop airplay!

[leoapp]

The most recent one? Of course, FourFiveSeconds. Too simple for a promoted comeback single, sounds like an unfinished demo, not radio friendly at all. But it hit top 10 in US and all over the world. Rihanna really has true star power to make this kind of song a success.

[divasummer]

Mar 17, 2015 15:11:56 GMT -5 YourFaveIsAFlop said:

Shakira - She Wolf.

It definitely helped that it had strong Latin format airplay, but I was shocked that it got to #11. The song isn't radio friendly, didn't fit the style popular at the time, and is just weird (musically and lyrically).

If I'm not mistaken I believe "She Wolf" hit it's peak very quickly (due more from sales) then disappeared pretty quickly.
She was also coming off of a pretty big era and had a lot of hype behind her so I can see why this peaked at #11.

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Mar 20, 2015 13:19:05 GMT -5 divasummer said:

Mar 17, 2015 15:11:56 GMT -5 YourFaveIsAFlop said:

Shakira - She Wolf.

It definitely helped that it had strong Latin format airplay, but I was shocked that it got to #11. The song isn't radio friendly, didn't fit the style popular at the time, and is just weird (musically and lyrically).

If I'm not mistaken I believe "She Wolf" hit it's peak very quickly (due more from sales) then disappeared pretty quickly.
She was also coming off of a pretty big era and had a lot of hype behind her so I can see why this peaked at #11.

Yeah, it hung around mostly from latin airplay. Pop airplay died off pretty quickly after the initial buzz for it and a few high profile TV performances.

[Deleted]

Rascal Flatt's cover of "Life Is A Highway" becoming a top 20 hit, despite the fact that it's a cover, and was never released as an official single.

Even now, it seems to be regarded as one of their biggest hits, and I hear it mentioned much more frequently than I ever thought I would.

[sabre14]

Mar 20, 2015 13:26:34 GMT -5 @carrieflattsfan said:

Rascal Flatt's cover of "Life Is A Highway" becoming a top 20 hit, despite the fact that it's a cover, and was never released as an official single.

Even now, it seems to be regarded as one of their biggest hits, and I hear it mentioned much more frequently than I ever thought I would.

What's even more impressive is how "My Wish" (which was released just as "Life Is A Highway" took off, was completely unaffected as went on to spend two weeks at #1 and is still played to this day - so is "Life Is A Highway"). I think that shows how hot they were in 2006.