A look at the most skipped songs from 40 of classic rock’s most famous albums makes one thing crystal clear: The music world is dominated by individual songs now.
Streaming services such as Spotify have made it easier than ever to cherry-pick your favorite tracks and ignore everything else, either by assembling playlists that exclude unwanted songs or just hitting the “skip” button.
Fans seem to be doing just that, as the streaming totals for the most and least popular songs grow further and further apart by the day.
With numbers taken from Spotify on Sept. 1, 2025 – and not counting reprises and hidden tracks – here’s a look at the most popular and most skipped songs from 40 of classic rock’s most famous albums:
AC/DC, ‘Back in Black’
Most Popular Track: “Back in Black” – 1,947,275,520 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Shake a Leg” – 25,018,909 streams
The only way to make the 25 million streams earned by “Shake a Leg” seem low is to compare it to the nearly two billion racked up so far by the title track from AC/DC‘s Back in Black album. The song’s relatively low popularity certainly isn’t helped by the fact that the band has reportedly only ever played it live once – on June 29, 1980.
Aerosmith, ‘Toys in the Attic’
Most Popular Track: “Walk This Way” – 605,791,788 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Round and Round” – 2,975,242 streams
There are no bad songs on Aerosmith‘s 1975 masterpiece Toys in the Attic. But the streaming audience is clearly playing favorites, with “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion” (526 million) standing as the only two songs with over 33 million listens. “Round and Round” is the darkest, least eager-to-please song on the album, and also appears second to last on the track list, which as you’ll see below can often be a factor.
The Beatles, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’
Most Popular Track: “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” – 209,187,161 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” – 18,843,619
Five songs from the Beatles‘ conceptually groundbreaking 1967 album clock in with over 100,000 streams, leaving the second-to-last track, “Good Morning Good Morning,” in last place with almost 19 million.
John Lennon, the song’s author, would not be surprised. “It’s a throwaway, a piece of garbage, I always thought,” he once declared. “I always had the TV on very low in the background when I was writing and it came over, and then I wrote the song.”
Bon Jovi, ‘Slippery When Wet’
Most Popular Track: “Livin’ On A Prayer” – 2,012,385,474 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Wild in The Streets” – 6,651,963 streams
The Spotify numbers for the songs from Bon Jovi‘s 1986 smash Slippery When Wet show the enduring power of a hit single. “Livin’ On a Prayer’ is one of roughly 120 songs to have earned two billion streams on the platform so far, with “You Give Love a Bad Name” adding an impressive 1.4 billion.
Oddly the album’s other massive hit, “Wanted Dead or Alive” has “only” garnered 534 million to date. Coming in way behind that is the album’s perhaps overly peppy keyboard-dominated closing track, “Wild in the Streets.”
Boston, ‘Boston’
Most Popular Track: “More Than a Feeling” – 1,011,786,098 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Something About You” – 17,285,680 streams
The streaming numbers for the first four tracks from Boston‘s self-titled 1976 debut are all impressive but reveal a dramatic drop-off, with “Peace of Mind” scoring less than one-fourth of “More Than a Feeling”‘s billion streams and “Foreplay / Long Time” and “Rock & Roll Band” each losing half the audience of the previous track.
With the exception of a nice jump for “Smokin’,” this trend continues on the album’s back half, reaching a “low” point of about 17 million for “Something About You.”
Eric Clapton, ‘Slowhand’
Most Popular Track: “Wonderful Tonight” – 595,467,114 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Mean Old Frisco” – 2,165,861 streams
1977’s Slowhand features the two biggest streaming hits of Eric Clapton‘s solo career – “Wonderful Tonight” and “Cocaine,” the latter close behind with 539 million listens. The album’s cover of Arthur Crudup’s “Mean Old Frisco” is the most skipped at 2.1 million.
Cream’s biggest hit, “Sunshine of Your Love,” comes in at 475 million streams while “Layla” by Derek and the Dominos has so far earned 532 million.
Phil Collins, ‘No Jacket Required’
Most Popular Track: “One More Night” – 250,209,172 streams
Most Skipped: “Doesn’t Anybody Stay Together Anymore” – 2,652,987 streams
With over 25 million actual album sales, Phil Collins‘ No Jacket Required was a mega-smash long before the days of streaming. Hit singles such as “One More Night” and “Sussudio” (191 million) are still going strong in the digital age.
The least-streamed song is the one that might be most at home on a Genesis album, the dramatic and prog-tinged “Doesn’t Anybody Stay Together Anymore.”
Def Leppard, ‘Pyromania’
Most Popular Track: “Photograph” – 176,737,653 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Action! Not Words” – 3,419,740 streams
So far the twin titans of “Photograph” and “Rock of Ages” are the only songs from Def Leppard’s 1983 breakthrough Pyromania to earn over one hundred million streams, although “Foolin'” is more than halfway there.
Once again, it’s the second-to-last song on the album, “Action! Not Words” that comes in last in terms of streaming, with about 3.5 million to date. The band’s biggest digital hit is Hysteria‘s “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” with 572 million.
Dire Straits, ‘Brothers in Arms’
Most Popular Track: “Walk of Life” – 885,161,924
Most Skipped Track: “Ride Across the River” – 24,067,286 streams
Color us surprised! Despite that attention-grabbing animated video and Sting cameo, “Money for Nothing” (659 million streams) is not the most popular song from Dire Straits‘ Brothers in Arms. That honor instead goes to “Walk of Life,” with over 885 million.
The two were fighting for the silver medal anyway, as “Sultans of Swing” captures the gold with 1.56 million streams. Side two opener “Ride Across the River” is the least-streamed song on Brothers in Arms, with just over 24 million plays.
The Doors, ‘The Doors’
Most Popular Track: “Break On Through (To the Other Side)” – 394,088,265 streams
Most Skipped Track: “I Looked at You” – 18,021,357 streams
The Doors‘ first album does not contain their biggest online hit. Instead, “Riders on the Storm” from L.A. Woman is their most popular song on Spotify, with over 483 million listens. “People Are Strange” is next with 468 million, followed by their debut single “Break On Through.”
Compared groundbreaking psychedelic tracks on The Doors, it’s understandable that the relatively straight-ahead “I Looked at You” is the least-streamed song with a still formidable score of 18 million.
Eagles, ‘Hotel California’
Most Popular Track: “Hotel California” – 1,974,596,449 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Pretty Maids All in a Row” – 18,033,853 streams
The epic title track to the Eagles‘ Hotel California is quickly closing in on joining the two billion streams club, towering far about the album’s next most popular song, “Life in the Fast Lane” (386 million).
Following our rules and excluding “Wasted Time” (Reprise) and its 9.5 million streams, the most-skipped song here is “Pretty Maids All in a Row.” Count Bob Dylan among the fans who think the track deserves better. In a 2020 New York Times interview he said the gorgeous Joe Walsh-sung track “could be one of the best songs ever.”
Fleetwood Mac, ‘Rumours’
Most Popular Track: “Dreams” – 2,281,569,592 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Oh Daddy” – 46,087,871 streams
If you somehow needed another measure of the enduring success of Rumours, “Dreams” is just one of three songs from Fleetwood Mac‘s biggest-selling album to surpass one billion streams, followed by “The Chain” with 1.4 billion and “Go Your own Way” with over 1.2 billion.
Christine McVie‘s dramatic “Oh Daddy” – inspired by the marriage problems of her bandmate Mick Fleetwood – is the least-played track at 46 million – the fourth-highest total you’ll find for a “most skipped” song on this list.
Guns N’ Roses, ‘Appetite for Destruction’
Most Popular Track: “Sweet Child O’ Mine” – 2,388,156,543 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Anything Goes” – 32,540,451 streams
OK, it’s time to admit the second-to-last song curse is real, as that’s the spot where you’ll find “Anything Goes,” the most-skipped song on Guns N’ Roses‘ genre-redefining 1987 album Appetite for Destruction.
The song, which makes good use of a guiro and Slash‘s talk box skills, dates back to Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin‘s days in Hollywood Rose. It’s relative lack of popularity is offset by the fact that three songs from Appetite have racked up over a billion streams: “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Paradise City” and “Welcome to the Jungle.”
Heart, ‘Dreamboat Annie’
Most Popular Track: “Crazy on You” – 237,363,310 streams
Most Skipped Track: “How Deep It Goes” – 2,082,360 streams
Oddly enough, the lead single from Heart‘s debut album currently stands as the album’s least-streamed track. Dreamboat Annie was released in Canada in September 1975, six months before its American debut.
“How Deep It Goes” failed to make much of a dent on the charts, and it wasn’t until “Magic Man” and “Crazy on You” were released as the second and third singles that the band’s career really took off. (As noted above, we’re excluding “Dreamboat Annie” (Reprise) from our rankings.)
Jimi Hendrix Experience, ‘Electric Ladyland’
Most Popular Track: “All Along the Watchtower” – 807,654,779 streams
Most Skipped Track: “House Burning Down” – 5,294,862 streams
Electric Ladyland is home to Jimi Hendrix‘s most popular streaming song, “All Along the Watchtower.” His cover far outpaces the Spotify success of Bob Dylan‘s original, which currently stands at just over 47 million. The socially conscientious “House Burning Down” is far less played, at slightly over five million streams.
Elton John, ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’
Most Popular Track: “Bennie and the Jets” – 555,664,299 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Social Disease” – 3,693,176 streams
Second-to-last song alert! The country-influenced “Social Disease” is the most skipped song on Elton John‘s landmark 1973 double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
To date, John has four songs with over a billion streams: “Your Song,” “Rocket Man,” “I’m Still Standing” and his 2021 Dua Lipa collaboration “Cold Heart,” which is closing in on 2.5 billion streams.
Read More: The 40 Most-Played Songs on Classic Rock Radio (So Far)
Journey, ‘Escape’
Most Popular Track: “Don’t Stop Believin'” – 2,555,714,032 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Lay It Down” – 2,593,223 streams
The addition of Jonathan Cain sent Journey into the stratosphere with 1981’s Escape. “Don’t Stop Believin'” is the band’s biggest streaming hit with over 2.5 billion listens, with “Open Arms” and “Who’s Crying Now” adding 304 and 117 million respectively.
The riff-based rocker “Lay It Down” is by far the most skipped song on the album, with just under 2.6 million. If you’re curious, Ratt‘s 1985 single of the same name has earned just under 72 million streams to date.
Judas Priest, ‘Screaming for Vengeance’
Most Popular Track: “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” – 162,188,925 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Pain and Pleasure” – 3,789,222 streams
Here’s another surprising fact: “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” isn’t Judas Priest‘s second-most popular song on Spotify. “Breaking the Law” is obviously No. 1 with over 331 million listens, but it’s “Painkiller” with nearly 172 million that gets the silver.
The most-skipped song on 1982’s Screaming for Vengeance is the slow-burning “Pain and Pleasure,” which also happens to be the only song from the album that the group has never performed live.
Kiss, ‘Destroyer’
Most Popular Track: “Beth” – 78,006,149 Streams
Most Skipped Track: “Sweet Pain” – 1,389,705 streams
As Paul Stanley recently noted, the disco-styled “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” is Kiss‘ most popular song on Spotify, with over 1.3 billion streams. That’s more than double the take for their signature anthem “Rock and Roll All Nite.”
“Beth,” the Peter Criss-sung ballad that broke the band on commercial radio, is the most streamed song from 1976’s Destroyer, with the Gene Simmons-penned “Sweet Pain” far behind at just over 1.4 million. (We’re excluding the album-closing audio collage “Rock ‘N’ Roll Party.)
Led Zeppelin, ‘IV’
Most Popular Track: “Stairway to Heaven” – 1,174,746,489 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Four Sticks” – 22,580,883 streams
Some kind of crime is being committed here, but we’re not sure who to blame or what course of action to suggest. It’s hard to say any song on Led Zeppelin‘s masterful fourth album deserves to be most-skipped.
But somehow it’s particularly painful that the John Bonham showcase “Four Sticks” has only earned about half as many plays as the album’s next most skipped track, “The Battle of Evermore.” I may have to leave “Four Sticks” on repeat for the next seven years to fix this.
Lynyrd Skynyrd, ‘Pronounced….’
Most Popular Track: “Free Bird” – 817,034,828 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Mississippi Kid’ – 6,736,634 streams
Lynryd Skynyrd hit a home run in their first at-bat with their 1973 debut Pronounced ‘Leh-‘Nerd ‘Skin-‘Nerd’. The album is home to four of their five most popular streaming songs, including “Free Bird,” “Simple Man,” “Tuesday’s Gone” and “Gimme Three Steps.”
The acoustic country blues of “Mississippi Kid” is the album’s least-streamed song with a score of just under seven million. The band’s most popular song on Spotify is “Sweet Home Alabama,” with over 1.5 billion streams.
Paul McCartney and Wings, ‘Band on the Run’
Most Popular Track: “Band on the Run” – 336,697,419 streams
Most Skipped Track: “No Words” – 4,284,820 streams
Regardless of its streaming numbers, “No Words” stands as an important accomplishment for Moody Blues and Wings co-founder Denny Laine, as it was the first song he co-wrote with Paul McCartney.
“FourFiveSeconds,” a 2014 collaboration with Rihanna and Kanye West, currently stands as McCartney’s most-streamed song with nearly 1.3 billion listens.
Metallica, ‘Metallica’
Most Popular Track: “Enter Sandman” – 1,811,398,128 streams
Most Skipped Track: “The Struggle Within” – 34,989,322 streams
Along with selling bazillions of albums, concert tickets and t-shirts, Metallica‘s shift to hard rock has paid off in terms of streaming numbers, as two of the songs from their self-titled 1991 album (“Enter Sandman” and “Nothing Else Matters”) have earned more than 1.4 billion streams.
Given how strongly people reacted to this new sound, it’s not surprising that the album’s most skipped song is also the one that sticks closest to their original thrash metal sound – the album-closing “The Struggle Within.”
Motley Crue, ‘Dr. Feelgood’
Most Popular Track: “Kickstart My Heart” – 830,478,775 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Time For Change” – 5,270,651 streams
“Kickstart My Heart” is not only the most popular song on Motley Crue‘s Dr. Feelgood, it’s their most streamed song ever, doubling the scores of both “Girls, Girls, Girls” and more surprisingly, “Home Sweet Home.”
On the flip side, “Time for Change” is the album’s most skipped song, suggesting people weren’t quite ready for these longtime hell raisers to deliver an earnest power ballad calling for a peaceful social uprising.
Joni Mitchell, ‘Blue’
Most Popular Track: “A Case of You” – 117,952,583 streams
Most Skipped Track: “The Last Time I Saw Richard’ – 7,672,893 streams
An important caveat must be included when mentioning Joni Mitchell‘s Spotify numbers, as she took her music off the service for over two years in solidarity with Neil Young and his protest against the service employing podcaster Joe Rogan.
“A Case of You” from 1971’s brilliant Blue stands as her second most popular streaming track, behind only “Big Yellow Taxi.” The album’s closing and least-streamed track, “The Last Time I Saw Richard,” is a gorgeous piano ballad in which she wonders if all hopeless romantics are doomed to becoming cynics.
Stevie Nicks, ‘Bella Donna’
Most Popular Track: “Edge of Seventeen” – 560,978,244 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Think About It’ – 4,014,111 streams
The four Top 40 singles on Stevie Nicks‘ 1981 debut solo album Bella Donna have taken up a lot of the oxygen in the streaming world, leaving fully excellent songs such as “Think About It”
In a 1981 interview Nicks said she wrote the song for friend Christine McVie way back in 1974, when McVie was in the middle of a breakup with her husband and Fleetwood Mac bandmate John: “I really had to be her friend and really be strong beside her at that point because she was really going to leave [the band].”
Nirvana, ‘Nevermind’
Most Popular Track: “Smells Like Teen Spirit’ – 2,545,644,961 streams
Most Skipped Track: “On A Plain” – 79,678,926 streams
The nearly 80 million streams earned by the second-to-last song on Nirvana‘s generation-defining 1991 album Nevermind are nothing to sneeze at. But of course they pale compared to the 2.5 billion earned by “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or the 1.7 billion rang up by “Come As You Are.”
(In terms of both streaming numbers and track listing, we’re ignoring the hidden track “Endless, Nameless,” which stands at 34 million streams.)
Ozzy Osbourne, ‘Blizzard of Ozz’
Most Popular Track: “Crazy Train” – 847,428,805 streams
Most Skipped Track: “No Bone Movies” – 5,059,263 streams
Ozzy Osbourne certainly put his best foot forward when launching his post-Black Sabbath solo career, releasing “Crazy Train” as the first single from his 1980 debut Blizzard of Ozz. The song has 200,000 more streams than his next two biggest singles (“No More Tears” and “Mama, I’m Coming Home”) combined.
The anti-porn movie track “No Bone Movies” has earned just over five million streams, and was reportedly the last addition to the album. Judging from the low streaming totals of the last three songs on the album – “Movies,” “Revelation (Mother Earth)” and “Steal Away (The Night),” anybody who still listens to entire albums on Spotify ducks out after “Mr. Crowley,” which stands at 114 million.
Pearl Jam, ‘Ten’
Most Popular Track: “Even Flow” – 760,246,045 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Deep” – 20,767,618 streams
In chapter three of our “Really, that song is bigger than that one?” book of surprises: “Even Flow” is Pearl Jam‘s most popular song on streaming, over 100 million ahead of “Alive” and nearly double the total for “Jeremy.”
All four songs come from the band’s 1991 debut Ten. “Deep” is the second-to-last track on the album, and guess what? Yup, it’s the most skipped track, with slightly under 21 million plays.
Pink Floyd, ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’
Most Popular Track: “Money” – 588,006,946 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Eclipse” – 101,945,141 streams
As if you needed it, here’s your definitive proof that streaming is a song and not album-based marketplace. Pink Floyd‘s The Dark Side of the Moon might just be the most consistently strong, thematically linked concept album of all time, and yet the gap between its most played and least played songs on Spotify is nearly half a billion streams.
The album closing “Eclipse” is a worthy climax to all the greatness that came before it, and yet it has earned less than half the streams of its predecessor, “Brain Damage.” Makes very little sense.
Then again, don’t feel too bad: at 101 million streams and counting, “Eclipse” is the most streamed least streamed song on this list.
The Police, ‘Synchronicity’
Most Popular Track: “Every Breath You Take” – 2,862,507,449 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Mother” – 2,906,106 streams
I mean…. yeah, no shit. Does anybody really need this explained?
Queen, ‘A Night at the Opera’
Most Popular Track: “Bohemian Rhapsody” – 2,894,317,909 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Sweet Lady” – 12,085,382 streams
Queen are the classic rock kings of Spotify, with eight different songs that have earned over a billion streams so far.
The A Night at the Opera centerpiece “Bohemian Rhapsody” is quickly closing in on three billion streams, leaving the album’s other extremely worthy songs – like “Sweet Lady,” which harkens back to the band’s most guitar based hard rock origins – in the dust with just over 12 million plays.
Radiohead, ‘OK Computer’
Most Popular Track: “No Surprises” – 1,067,386,139 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Electioneering” – 49,824,067 streams
First things first: We’re not counting “Fitter, Happier,” which is more of a spoken-word interlude than a song. That leaves the jangling “Electioneering” as the most-skipped song on Radiohead‘s 1997 masterpiece OK Computer.
The deceptively soothing ballad “No Surprises” is the band’s second biggest streaming hit, second only to their 1993 debut single “Creep,” which stands at 2.3 billion.
The Rolling Stones, ‘Sticky Fingers’
Most Popular Track: “Wild Horses” – 338,992,949 streams
Most Skipped Track: “You Gotta Move” – 9,939,058 streams
Here’s another “you might not guess this” fact: “Paint It, Black” is the Rolling Stones‘ most popular streaming song with 1.5 billion plays, nearly double the total of “Start Me Up.”
Confining ourselves to just one of the band’s most famous albums, in this case 1971’s Sticky Fingers, reveals a gigantic range between most and least streamed. “Wild Horses” is nearly at 340 million, while the equally awesome cover of the blues standard “You Gotta Move” languishes (again, relatively) at less than 10 million.
Bruce Springsteen, ‘Born to Run’
Most Popular Track: “Born to Run” – 429,983,898 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Meeting Across the River” – 6,682,784 streams
Somehow “Born to Run” is only Bruce Springsteen‘s fifth-most popular streaming track, behind three big hits from Born in the U.S.A. (“Dancing in the Dark, “I’m On Fire” and the title track) and “Streets of Philadelphia.”
The least popular song on the newly 50-year-old Born to Run is the jazzy “Meeting Across the River,” a jazzy song about a desperate robber that was originally going to be called “The Heist.”
U2, ‘The Joshua Tree’
Most Popular Track: “With Or Without You” – 1,278,587,202 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Mothers of the Disappeared” – 12,897,520 streams
U2 somehow only have one song in the billion-plus streaming club, although “With Or Without You”‘s The Joshua Tree neighbor “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is nearly at 900 million.
“Exit” from the same album barely escapes our “second-to-last song” curse, edging out the album closing “Mothers of the Disappeared” by about 400,000 streams.
Van Halen, Van Halen
Most Popular Track: “Runnin’ with the Devil” – 277,798,843 streams
Most Skipped Track: “On Fire” – 9,620,547
This is the first one that legitimately makes me mad. “On Fire” might be the best all-around display of Eddie Van Halen‘s talents on his namesake band’s earthshaking debut album – remember, “Eruption” doesn’t feature any rhythm guitar – and somehow it’s nearly five million streams behind the tepid “Little Dreamer?”
Of course “Jump” is Van Halen‘s most popular streaming song and their only entry in the billion streams club, with “Panama” closing in on a half-billion.
The Who, ‘Who’s Next’
Most Popular Track: “Baba O’Riley’ – 688,883,274 streams
Most Skipped Track: “My Wife” – 5,766,592 streams
The opening track of the Who‘s stripped-down 1971 landmark Who’s Next is by far the band’s most popular streaming song, with over 688 million streams. Their second most popular Spotify track, “Behind Blue Eyes” appears on the same album.
John Entwistle’s showcase “My Wife” is the least streamed song on the album with just under six million streams. He reportedly wrote the track because he was tired of playing “Boris the Spider” at every show.
Yes, ‘Fragile’
Most Popular Track: “Roundabout” – 155,499,702 streams
Most Skipped Track: “Heart of the Sunrise” – 1,878,206 streams
“Roundabout,” the only single from Yes‘ 1971 breakthrough album Fragile, is the band’s second most popular song on streaming, behind only their unexpected 1983 smash “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”
The eight-minute run time of “Roundabout” doesn’t seem to have hurt its online success, but the same can’t be said for sure about the album’s closing 11-minute opus “Heart of the Sunrise,” which lags far behind at less than two million streams.”
ZZ Top, ‘Eliminator’
Most Popular Track: “Sharp Dressed Man” – 598,810,660 streams
Most Skipped Track: “If I Could Only Flag Her Down” – 3,154,648 streams
’70s or ’80s? That’s the eternal debate among ZZ Top fans. While millions clearly loved the band’s more organic early records and 1973’s “La Grange” tops their Spotify list with 814 million streams, there’s no denying their commercial peak came with the synths and drum machines of 1983’s Eliminator. Perhaps that’s why “If I Could Only Flag Her Down,” the album’s most old-school sounding song (and once again, the second-to-last song on the record) is most skipped in terms of streaming.
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Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening, except as noted below.
