The Art of the B-Side: Hidden Gems on the Flip Side

Every 7-inch single has two sides. The A-side was the song the label wanted radio stations to play, the song the marketing department believed would sell. The B-side was everything else — a contractual obligation, a throwaway, an afterthought. Or, in the hands of artists who understood the format’s potential, the B-side was a space of freedom: a place to experiment, to release material too strange or too personal for the commercial spotlight, to reward the dedicated fans who actually flipped the record over.

The history of the B-side is a history of what happens when commercial pressure relaxes, even slightly. The results have been some of the most beloved recordings in popular music.

The Format’s Origins

The B-side is as old as the commercial single itself. When 78 RPM records became the standard format for popular music in the early twentieth century, each disc had two playable sides. Labels designated one side as the intended hit — the A-side — and filled the other with a secondary track. In the 1950s, the 7-inch 45 RPM single replaced the 78 as the primary singles format, and the A-side/B-side convention continued.

Early in the format’s history, the distinction between sides was not always rigid. Jukebox operators, who were major purchasers of singles, sometimes promoted whichever side their customers preferred, regardless of the label’s intentions. Radio DJs exercised similar independence. This meant that a B-side could become a hit through grassroots demand rather than label promotion — an accidental path to success that would prove significant.

When the B-Side Became the Hit

The most celebrated B-sides are those that eclipsed their A-sides — songs that were afterthoughts in the boardroom but revelations on the turntable.

“God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys was released as the B-side of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” in 1966. Both tracks appeared on Pet Sounds, but the label considered the more conventionally upbeat “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” the safer commercial bet. History has rendered the opposite verdict: “God Only Knows” is now widely regarded as one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded, and Paul McCartney has called it his favorite song of all time.

“How Soon Is Now?” by the Smiths was originally a B-side to “William, It Was Really Nothing” in 1984. Too unconventional for A-side status — its tremolo guitar sound and six-minute running time defied radio formatting — the track became the Smiths’ most recognized song, eventually promoted to A-side status when Rough Trade realized what they had.

Gloria Jones recorded “Tainted Love” as a B-side in 1964. The song languished in obscurity for seventeen years until Soft Cell discovered it and recorded the synth-pop version that became one of the defining singles of the 1980s. The original B-side pressing is now one of the most sought-after Northern Soul records.

Queen’s “We Will Rock You” was the B-side of “We Are the Champions” in 1977. The two songs were conceived as a pair, but the label designated “Champions” as the A-side. Radio stations played both, often back to back, and “We Will Rock You” — the simpler, more primal track — became the more ubiquitous of the two, a stadium anthem that has outlived the genre that produced it.

The B-Side as Creative Laboratory

For many artists, the B-side’s low commercial stakes made it a laboratory. If the A-side needed to satisfy the label, the program director, and the casual buyer, the B-side needed only to fill space — which meant it could be anything.

The Beatles used B-sides to release songs that did not fit their current album’s aesthetic but were too good to discard. “Rain,” the B-side of “Paperclip Writer” in 1966, featured some of the band’s most adventurous studio experimentation to date, including reversed vocals — techniques that would surface on their albums only later.

Radiohead’s approach to B-sides in the late 1990s and early 2000s was so prolific and so consistently excellent that their non-album tracks constitute a parallel discography. The B-sides from the OK Computer and Kid A eras — collected on compilations and later on the OKNOTOK reissue — include tracks like “Palo Alto,” “The Amazing Sounds of Orgy,” and “Cuttooth” that would have been highlights on most bands’ albums. Thom Yorke has acknowledged that the freedom of the B-side allowed the band to explore without the pressure of album sequencing and thematic coherence.

Oasis treated B-sides as a dumping ground for songs that could not fit the band’s next album — and because Noel Gallagher was writing at a rate that far outpaced his band’s release schedule, the B-sides were frequently excellent. “Acquiesce,” “The Masterplan,” and “Half the World Away” were all B-sides that became fan favorites, eventually compiled on The Masterplan (1998), a B-sides collection that many fans rank alongside the band’s best studio albums.

B-Sides and Record Collecting

The B-side has always held special importance in record collecting culture. Because B-sides were pressed in the same quantities as their A-sides but received less attention, they became the domain of the dedicated listener — the person who bothered to flip the record and listen to what the label considered expendable.

In genres built on crate digging — hip-hop, electronic music, Northern Soul — the B-side is essential currency. DJs and producers have built careers on discovering forgotten B-sides and recontextualizing them. The entire culture of sampling relies partly on the deep catalog of B-sides and album tracks that escaped mainstream attention but contained breakbeats, basslines, or melodic hooks worth resurrecting.

For collectors, B-side-only tracks create scarcity. A song that appeared only on the B-side of a single, never compiled on an album, exists in a limited physical form. Before digital distribution, the only way to hear it was to own the single or know someone who did. This scarcity gave B-sides a cultish appeal that persists even now that most have been digitized.

The B-Side in the Digital Age

The physical B-side effectively died with the decline of the physical single. When singles became digital downloads and then streaming tracks, the two-sided format disappeared. There is no “other side” of a Spotify track.

But the impulse behind the B-side — the release of material outside the structured album format, the offering of extra tracks to devoted fans — has found new expressions. Deluxe editions append bonus tracks that function as B-sides. SoundCloud and Bandcamp allow artists to release loosies and demos directly to listeners. Limited-edition vinyl singles, driven by the analog revival, still feature B-sides that reward collectors.

Some artists have explicitly preserved the B-side ethos. Jack White’s Third Man Records releases singles on 7-inch vinyl with exclusive B-sides that do not appear on streaming platforms, creating a modern version of the format’s original appeal: material available only to those who seek it out in physical form.

The Japanese CD single market, which persisted longer than in Western countries, generated enormous quantities of B-side material through the late 2000s. Japanese pressings of Western artists’ singles often included exclusive B-sides or live tracks, making them prized imports for collectors worldwide.

The Legacy

The B-side’s cultural significance exceeds its commercial function. It represents the idea that an artist’s best work is not always the work that was most heavily promoted — that the song the label considered disposable might be the one that endures. It rewards curiosity over passivity, the listener who digs deeper over the one who accepts the obvious offering.

In a streaming landscape designed to serve the most popular tracks to the widest audience, the B-side’s lesson remains relevant: the best discoveries are often found not on the surface, but on the flip side.