The Great B-Side Scandal
Record labels, bless their risk-averse hearts, have spent decades committing what amounts to musical genocide. Whilst force-feeding the public another three-minute slice of radio-friendly mediocrity, they've consistently buried their artists' most innovative work on the flip side, as if creativity were something shameful that needed hiding.
The B-side was originally intended as a throwaway – a bit of studio scraps to justify the price of a 7-inch. Instead, it became a sanctuary for experimentation, a place where artists could let their freak flags fly without the dead hand of commercial expectation weighing them down. The results were often spectacular, and almost always more interesting than whatever corporate-approved nonsense was getting the promotional push.
Here are ten examples of British musical brilliance that got the B-side treatment when they deserved to be plastered across every radio station in the land.
1. David Bowie – 'The Width of a Circle' (B-side to 'The Man Who Sold the World', 1970)
Whilst the A-side was getting modest radio play, this eight-minute prog-rock odyssey was tucked away like a dirty secret. 'The Width of a Circle' finds Bowie at his most unhinged, delivering a stream-of-consciousness epic about sexual awakening and cosmic horror that makes most concept albums look positively conservative. It's the sound of an artist completely unleashed, and it got treated like an afterthought.
2. The Cure – 'Carnage Visors' (B-side to 'The Caterpillar', 1984)
While 'The Caterpillar' was deemed suitable for daytime radio with its jaunty pop sensibilities, 'Carnage Visors' revealed The Cure's true experimental heart. This instrumental piece layers Robert Smith's guitar work into a hypnotic wall of sound that predicts ambient techno by several years. It's absolutely mesmerising, yet it was deemed too weird for public consumption.
3. Joy Division – 'Digital' (B-side to 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', 1980)
The irony is delicious. Whilst 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' became Joy Division's most commercially successful single, 'Digital' showcases the band's raw, uncompromising vision more effectively. Its stuttering rhythms and Bernard Sumner's processed guitar work create an atmosphere of industrial paranoia that feels decades ahead of its time. Factory Records essentially hid a masterpiece behind their biggest hit.
4. Siouxsie and the Banshees – 'Metal Postcard (Mittageisen)' (B-side to 'Hong Kong Garden', 1978)
Whilst the A-side was busy being controversial for all the wrong reasons, this instrumental B-side was quietly revolutionising what post-punk could sound like. Built around a hypnotic Can sample and Siouxsie's wordless vocals, it's a piece of avant-garde brilliance that makes most experimental music sound positively mainstream. Polydor clearly had no idea what they were sitting on.
5. Radiohead – 'Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2)' (B-side to 'My Iron Lung', 1994)
Long before OK Computer made experimental rock commercially acceptable, Radiohead were already pushing boundaries on their B-sides. 'Polyethylene' is a schizophrenic masterpiece that switches between gentle acoustic introspection and jarring electronic noise. It's everything that made Radiohead special, compressed into four minutes and hidden from mainstream attention.
6. Wire – 'Dot Dash' (B-side to 'I Am the Fly', 1978)
Harvest Records clearly didn't know what to do with Wire's minimalist genius. Whilst 'I Am the Fly' got the promotional treatment, 'Dot Dash' was relegated to the flip side despite being a perfect distillation of punk's year zero aesthetic. At 45 seconds, it says more about the possibilities of rock music than most bands manage in entire albums.
7. Public Image Ltd – 'Fodderstompf' (B-side to 'Public Image', 1978)
John Lydon's post-Sex Pistols project was always too confrontational for easy categorisation, but 'Fodderstompf' pushed things to genuinely uncomfortable extremes. This nine-minute exercise in controlled chaos features Jah Wobble's bass as the only constant whilst everything else descends into beautiful mayhem. Virgin Records treated it like an embarrassment rather than the avant-garde masterpiece it clearly is.
8. Blur – 'The Man Who Left Himself' (B-side to 'Country House', 1995)
Whilst Blur were busy winning the Battle of Britpop with singalong anthems, they were simultaneously creating their most adventurous work for the B-sides. 'The Man Who Left Himself' is a brooding, experimental piece that predicts their later art-rock phase. It's everything that made Blur interesting, hidden behind their most commercially successful period.
9. The Fall – 'No Xmas for John Quays' (B-side to 'It's the New Thing', 1978)
Mark E. Smith's band were never going to trouble the charts, but 'No Xmas for John Quays' deserved better than B-side obscurity. This festive nightmare is The Fall at their most accessible whilst remaining completely uncompromising. It's a Christmas song for people who find Christmas songs insufferable – which is to say, everyone with functioning ears.
10. Primal Scream – 'I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have' (B-side to 'Gentle Tuesday', 1987)
Before they discovered ecstasy and became dance-rock pioneers, Primal Scream were crafting perfect indie-pop gems that their label consistently mishandled. This B-side is a masterclass in melodic construction and emotional vulnerability that makes most of their chart material sound positively pedestrian. Creation Records' decision to bury it remains baffling.
The Real Crime
The tragedy isn't just that these tracks were hidden – it's what their burial represents about the music industry's fundamental conservatism. Time and again, labels have prioritised the safe over the spectacular, the predictable over the pioneering. These B-sides represent the road not taken, a glimpse of what British music might have sounded like if commercial considerations hadn't consistently trumped artistic ambition.
Today's streaming culture has largely eliminated the B-side, but the mentality persists. Playlists and algorithms favour the familiar over the challenging, ensuring that the most interesting music remains buried beneath layers of algorithmic mediocrity. Perhaps it's time to start treating the weird stuff as the main event – because that's where the real magic has always been hiding.
