Elton John "Bennie & The Jets"

Credit a single mother of three who worked at a Michigan radio station for "Bennie & The Jets" becoming a big radio hit. Rosalie Trombley turned her gig as a switchboard operator at Detroit/Windsor's CKLW into the radio station's Music Director in the late-1960s. At the time, Trombley took note what people bought at local record stores and the titles of the station's most-requested songs. In particular, folks keep asking record stores about Elton John's "Bennie & The Jets" -- a song not yet released. Trombley phoned MCA, Elton's record label, and urged them to release the song. CKLW added the song to its playlist and it became Detroit's #1 song. MCA released the song in 1974 which led to a phone call from Elton himself to Trombley to thank her for her input and for expanding Elton's audience. The African-American community embraced "Benny & The Jets" and, a year later, Elton performed the catchy tune on Soul Train.

Smash Mouth - "Walkin' on the Sun"

Before downloading MP3s through iTunes, you would drive over to your local record store and purchase CDs.  In case you just wanted to buy one song instead of the full album, you'd buy a single.  Despite its name, singles contained more than one song.  Much like records, singles had a B-side.  In the case of Smash Mouth's "Walkin' on the Sun", the B-side was a song called "Sorry About Your Penis".