RODSERLING said:

The song must be at least appealing, got favorable feedback from the audience, and radio friendly according to the format. In the US, a song with many remixes has more chance to be played, unlike let's say Heaven Can Wait which didn't even had a radio edit.

All kinds of songs have become hits in the USA. Remixes are made more for clubs than radio, especially if they're house or techno remixes. That is why maxi singles are on the club chart in Billboard, which was originally the disco chart in the 1970s. The disco era is when 12" remix singles were invented. A lot of dance remixes are too long for Top 40 radio, who don't usually play anything more than 5 minutes long. Just because you don't like a song doesn't mean anything. This Time Around was produced by Dallas Austin, who produced some of TLCs songs. TLC is one of the biggest selling acts of the 1990s. He also worked with Boyz II Men, Monica, Janet Jackson, OutKast, P!nk, and other popular acts. Dallas is a proven hitmaker, so he did have commercial appeal during that time.

MickyDolenz said:

RODSERLING said:

I just don't imagine it to be a hit

Well since you can determine what a hit is or not. Do these songs sound like hits to you? Because they were in the USA.

Ying Yang Twins ~ Wait
D4L ~ Laffy Taffy
Len ~ Steal My Sunshine
Soulja Boy ~ Pretty Boy Swag
B-Rock & The Bizz ~ My Baby Daddy
C.W. McCall ~ Convoy
Childish Gambino ~ This Is America
Afroman ~ Because I Got High

MickyDolenz said:

RODSERLING said:

I just went to Discogs, and they their statement is very similar to mine : "This double-AA side single was scheduled to be released to coincide with Michael Jackson's HBO special on December 10, 1995. However, the commercial release of the single was canceled in the U.S. due to lack of airplay for both songs, and the cancellation of the HBO special, due to MJ's illness. "Earth Song" was a flop on the pop charts, failing to make the Hot 100 or any other airplay chart. "This Time Around" also failed to chart on the Hot 100 Airplay chart, although it did peak at No. 23 on the Hot R&B Airplay chart. On the Club Play chart, "This Time Around / Earth Song" peaked at No. 18." It Peaked in February of 1996,mainly thanks to his remixes I guess in the disco charts. It's hard to believe than a Dallas Austin/MJ/Biggie track couldn't reach the top 100 airplay, after two successful MJ singles. To this point, lack of payola has nothing to do with such a failure. It's just that the song didn't fit any format : too hip/hop for the pop rock stations, and too pop for the hip hop/rnb stations 😂 It's even harsh for Earth Song, only #32 in the disco charts, despite a lavish music video, labelled on the VHS " The most requested video ever on MTV". [Edited 7/7/22 6:23am] [Edited 7/7/22 6:24am]

What does any of this have to do with my comment, which was about other songs that were hits? Did you listen to them? You don't know what you're talking about anyway. How is This Time Around "too hip hop for pop radio" when Top 40 at the time was playing Snoop Dogg, Bone Thugs N Harmony, Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, Naughty By Nature, Warren G, Old Dirty Bastard, Heavy D, Fugees, Wreckx-n-Effect, House Of Pain, and other rappers. Jump by Kris Kross spent around 8 weeks at #1 on the pop chart, they even had a video game by Sega. Pop radio had been playing hip hop since the mid 1980s with Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Tone Loc, Fat Boys, Salt N Pepa, Beastie Boys, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Rob Base, 2 Live Crew, Young MC, etc. Even Kool Moe Dee's Wild Wild West got pop airplay in the late 1980s and so did the jazzy hip hop song Rebirth Of Slick by Digable Planets & Minds Playing Tricks On Me by Geto Boys in the early 1990s. This Time Around is like Celine Dion compared to the Geto Boys. Plus there was songs like Rapture (Blondie), Wham! Rap (Wham!), Rock Me Amedeus (Falco), West End Girls (Pet Shop Boys) that had rapping in them. Pop radio was also playing New Jack Swing, which was hip hop based. Bobby Brown's Don't Be Cruel album & Bell Biv DeVoe's Poison album were huge crossover successes. TLC too. Bobby was so popular he got the theme song for Ghostbusters 2, which is as mainstream as you can get. A lot of Mariah Carey's songs were colloborations with whatever rapper was popular at the moment. Hip hop being popular in the American mainstream is how The Fresh Prince, LL Cool J, Ice-T, Queen Latifah, Kid N Play, & Ice Cube got TV shows or theatrical movies in the 1990s. Kid N Play & MC Hammer had Saturday morning cartoon shows. MC Hammer & Vanilla Ice had dolls.

lol........that is 100% NOT Michael Jackson.

Gooddoctor23 said:

RODSERLING said:

MickyDolenz said:

All kinds of songs have become hits in the USA. Remixes are made more for clubs than radio, especially if they're house or techno remixes. That is why maxi singles are on the club chart in Billboard, which was originally the disco chart in the 1970s. The disco era is when 12" remix singles were invented. A lot of dance remixes are too long for Top 40 radio, who don't usually play anything more than 5 minutes long. Just because you don't like a song doesn't mean anything. This Time Around was produced by Dallas Austin, who produced some of TLCs songs. TLC is one of the biggest selling acts of the 1990s. He also worked with Boyz II Men, Monica, Janet Jackson, OutKast, P!nk, and other popular acts. Dallas is a proven hitmaker, so he did have commercial appeal during that time.

But that song didn't. And I love that song by the way. I just don't imagine it to be a hit, even with payolas and music video. It's like with Cry or One More Chance, at the time circa 2001/2003 R Kelly was the thing, he had so many hits for himself amd written for others. So you would have thought on the paper that was a genius idea to use Cry as a second single to promote an album...but no. The only other song from History not exploited that could have been a hit IMHO was the original version of History, not the remix released in Europe in 1997. I think it could have been bigger than Stranger In Moscow. It absolutely didn't need to be remixed to be released, in the contrary they killed a potential anthem hit... All the singles that were scheduled aat a time, such as DS, Money, 2Bad, Smile or This Time Around, had no potential of a true hit. MJ needed top 10 hits everytime, that sold load of albums during two years not just a mere single in the top 40. This Time Around killed MJ sales in the holiday season. Remixes are sometimes played on the radios too, depend on the format. I understood that The Butterflies remix with Eve was more played than the original version. That's the remix for I m real from J-lo that was played on the radio. Here in France there were national radios dedicated to house music, and the house remixes were played there. I happen to hear many rap remixes for Alicia Keys on the radio too. They never did all these remixee only for the clubs, that's not true.

Its hard to predict what woulda shoulda coulda been a hit game, but in UK, "Whatever happens" woulda killed on BBC radio 2, which is geared to older audiences.

"Smile" coulda done similar business on adult formats too. Of course, that single was planned as you know....

thesexofit said:

Going viral on TikTok =/= worldwide hit. Literally dozens of songs go viral on there on a weekly basis, and this one in particular hasn't even reappeared on any music charts despite its supposed viral status. 19 million streams on Spotify is nothing.