{"id":436102,"date":"2026-02-20T12:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/436102\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T12:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T12:44:17","slug":"the-10-best-double-a-side-songs-ever-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/436102\/","title":{"rendered":"The 10 best double A-side songs ever released"},"content":{"rendered":"

Depeche Mode \u2013 \u2018Blasphemous Rumours\u2019 \/ \u2018Somebody\u2019\"Depeche<\/p>\n

Release Date: October 1984 | Producer: Depeche Mode, Daniel Miller, and Gareth Jones | Label: Mute<\/p>\n

The original synthpop class of 1981 had largely floundered into irrelevancy or hit serious creative stagnation by the latter months of \u201984. Yet, Basildon\u2019s finest Depeche Mode<\/a> trooped on, dark horse Martin Gore filling the lyrical vacancy after original songwriter Vince Clarke had scarpered not long after debut album Speak & Spell.<\/p>\n

With a new creative steer came a darker shroud over their former sugar pop, arriving in good time in tandem with the emerging gothic and alternative hits lurking in the gloomier corners of the dancefloor.<\/p>\n

While Black Celebration would be the definitive mark of their mature sound, potent hints radiated off Some Great Reward\u2019s \u2018Blasphemous Rumours\u2019 \/ \u2018Somebody\u2019, the former a mordant overview of life\u2019s cruel ironies via God\u2019s \u201csick sense of humour\u201d, and the latter a love ballad so tender that Gore reportedly sang the number naked in Berlin\u2019s Hansa Studio.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Soft Cell \u2013 \u2018Tainted Love \/ \u2018Where Did Our Love Go\u2019\"Soft<\/p>\n

Release Date: July 1981 | Producer: Mike Thorne | Label: Some Bizarre<\/p>\n

There was always something far indebted to the 1960s over their peers\u2019 futurist automatons Soft Cell<\/a> were compared to, but the synthpop class of \u201881, they certainly were. Leaning more toward a grubby underground dance sound over chilly synth post-punk, Dave Ball\u2019s warm and decadent electronic arrangements and Marc Almond\u2019s powerful vocal bellow marked a distinct character amid the polyphonic synths seizing the charts.<\/p>\n

They can\u2019t have possibly known they had such a big hit on their hands, however. Dropped four months ahead of their Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret debut, a cover of Gloria Jones\u2019 1965 northern soul stomper \u2018Tainted Love\u2019 by way of Ruth Swann\u2019s rendition ten years later would suddenly pull the two unheards straight on to Top of the Pops as a surprise number-one winner.<\/p>\n

Released with a take on The Supremes\u2019 \u2018Where Did Our Love Go\u2019, the two plucks from yesteryear served as a perfect gateway into Soft Cell\u2019s romantic and strangely nostalgic world, sonically shared with that all-important \u2018bink bink\u2019 percussion courtesy of producer Mike Thorne\u2019s delayed Synare S3X electronic drums.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Stone Roses \u2013 \u2018Fools Gold\u2019 \/ \u2018What the World Is Waiting For\u2019\"The<\/p>\n

Release Date: November 1989 | Producer: John Leckie | Label: Silvertone<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t that long ago that Manchester deities The Stone Roses<\/a> were swirling around in a post-punk garage attack that, while underrated, was never going to mark them out from the superior likes of The Chameleons or even The Cult.<\/p>\n

Then, whatever was in the Mancunian air by the late 1980s, The Stone Roses\u2019 sound got looser, baggier, and filled with psychedelic washes and John Squire\u2019s distinctive guitar jangle that splashed across the swaggering haze just like 1989\u2019s eponymous debut\u2019s Pollock-inspired drip paint cover.<\/p>\n

Six months later, The Stone Roses arguably conjured their finest hour by bottling the chromatic cool and pulling all cultural attention away from London in the forms of \u2018Fools Gold\u2019 \/ \u2018What the World Is Waiting For\u2019, flexing the band\u2019s two dimensions immaculately, one an infectious jam of propsulsive groove and the other a strident slice of indie at its most stirring, fronted as ever by Ian Brown\u2019s nonchalant command.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Specials \u2013 \u2018A Message to You Rudy\u2019 \/ \u2018Nite Klub\u2019\"The<\/p>\n

Release Date: October 1979 | Producer: Elvis Costello | Label: 2 Tone<\/p>\n

Just like fellow ska revivalist Madness\u2019 takes on Prince Buster and Labi Siffre, somehow The Specials<\/a> were able to reach into the old rocksteady hits and make them entirely their own.<\/p>\n

Case in point was \u2018A Message to You Rudy\u2019. Taking a stab at Dandy Livingstone\u2019s original 1967 hit while also recruiting the same trombonist, Rico Rodriguez, The Specials managed to imbue the easy skank with a strange reflection of the listless ennui hovering over the youth as the political winds were changing for the worse across the country.<\/p>\n

Backed by \u2018Nite Klub\u2019s sticky floor, if lyrically dated, bounce, The Specials\u2019 second single twofer provided the ska explosion, scoring an insecure UK youth one of its most essential standards.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Nirvana \u2013 \u2018All Apologies\u2019 \/ \u2018Rape Me\u2019\"Nirvana<\/p>\n

Release Date: December 1993 | Producer: Steve Albini | Label: DGC<\/p>\n

Pressures couldn\u2019t have been any higher on Seattle\u2019s little Beatles-obsessed punk band when the world was awaiting the mammoth Nevermind\u2019s LP follow-up.<\/p>\n

Eager to avoid their breakthrough sophomore\u2019s beefy radio polish, Nirvana<\/a> frontman Kurt Cobain decided to pursue a schizoid approach to 1993\u2019s In Utero, veering between confrontational alternative rock in the truest sense, and sweet indie melodies not a million miles away from his beloved REM.<\/p>\n

Such a schism was illustrated starkly on In Utero\u2019s second single, \u2018Rape Me\u2019, which was a terse and disquieting lyrical excoriation against said sexual assault, swelling to a blistering ball of feminist rage, and \u2018All Apologies\u2019 stood as the album\u2019s beautiful coda, exploring the pleasant contentment that comes with family stability, a yearning Cobain had chased all his life in the aftermath of his parents\u2019 divorce.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Rolling Stones \u2013 \u2018Let\u2019s Spend the Night Together\u2019 \/ \u2018Ruby Tuesday\u2019\"The<\/p>\n

Release Date: January 1967 | Producer: Andrew Loog Oldham | Label: Decca<\/p>\n

While they weren\u2019t quite an album\u2019s band yet, The Rolling Stones<\/a> were already able to muster some of the 1960s\u2019 most essential singles, having scored the burgeoning youthquake counterculture on both sides of the Atlantic with an infinitely more dangerous and alluring sexuality than those nice Fab Four boys.<\/p>\n

Ever eager to twist conservative knickers, the unstoppable Mick Jagger and Keith Richards songwriting magic wrested the amorous \u2018Let\u2019s Spend the Night Together\u2019 from their glittering lyrical ether, ensuring another reason why mum and dad rued the day their little darlings came home with a stack of Stones 7-inches.<\/p>\n

Yet, standing A-side shoulder to shoulder was the whimsical \u2018Ruby Tuesday\u2019, a gorgeous ode to Richards\u2019 then girlfriend Linda Keith that could have been just as easily gifted to any popstar of the day, \u00e0 la Marianne Faithfull\u2019s \u2018As Tears Go By\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Queen \u2013 \u2018We Are the Champions\u2019 \/ \u2018We Will Rock You\u2019\"Queen<\/p>\n

Release Date: October 1977 | Producer: Queen, assisted by Mike \u2018Clay\u2019 Stone | Label: EMI<\/p>\n

By the late 1970s, classic rock\u2019s near decade-long party finally had its plug pulled when punk\u2019s insurrectionary bulldoze suddenly rendered big lavish productions and arena bluster deathly uncool virtually overnight.<\/p>\n

Naturally, Queen<\/a> were in trouble, yet frontman Freddie Mercury\u2019s ego was too mammoth to ever go down with a fight. Avoiding the multi-layered baroque extravagances and baroque pop of prior records, Queen pursued a leaner and meaner sound for 1977\u2019s News of the World, even spinning a punk pastiche of sorts with \u2018Sheer Heart Attack\u2019.<\/p>\n

Grand ambition hadn\u2019t quite been given the boot, however. Leading the album as well as serving as its two-song opener, \u2018We Are the Champions\u2019 \/ \u2018We Will Rock You\u2019 was everything fans loved about Queen, minus the ornate silliness, all stripped down and focused stir yet charged with their anthemic rousal that would stand as instant classics.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Kraftwerk \u2013 \u2018Computer Love\u2019 \/ \u2018The Model\u2019\"Kraftwerk<\/p>\n

Release Date: December 1981 | Producer: Ralf H\u00fctter and Florian Schneider | Label: EMI<\/p>\n

Despite the synthpop explosion that struck the UK charts, Kraftwerk<\/a> still sounded like the future. Navigating an electronic pop sphere paved by their landmark 1970s LP efforts, the D\u00fcsseldorf quartet maintained their unbroken trend of always stepping ahead, both sonically and conceptually, for 1981\u2019s Computer World.<\/p>\n

For their fifth official LP, Kraftwerk looked to the emerging world of computers, data, numbers, and information technology to guide its digital direction, immersed in meticulous drum beats and crisper, proto-techno spark.<\/p>\n

Computer World\u2019s centrepiece is the sweeping \u2018Computer Love\u2019, a stirring electronic exploration on digital intimacy presciently anticipating AI romance a good four-odd decades ago. Initially released in June with The Man Machine\u2019s \u2018The Model\u2019 as the B-side, the December re-release would boost their 1978 hit to double A-side status, winning them a UK number-one with a song crafted three years earlier, such was their visionary pop vantage.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Then Beach Boys \u2013 \u2018Wouldn\u2019t It Be Nice\u2019 \/ \u2018God Only Knows\u2019\"The<\/p>\n

Release Date: July 1966 | Producer: Brian Wilson | Label: Capitol<\/p>\n

There was a staggering pace to the California surf group\u2019s output across barely five years, counting as many as ten studio albums and a plethora of singles before The Beach Boys<\/a> finally arrived at their lauded pop opus.<\/p>\n

The path to 1966\u2019s Pet Sounds had been clamoured at by principal songwriter and chief visionary Brian Wilson, lyrically exploring more melancholic pastures away from the surf and hot rod numbers of old, and a passionate love of Phil Spector\u2019s wall of sound production plus the studio\u2019s role as an instrument and canvas would coax some of the 20th century most celestial marvels from the little vocal harmony group.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, the last single to come from Pet Sounds, \u2018Wouldn\u2019t It Be Nice\u2019 \/ \u2018God Only Knows\u2019 stands aside \u2018Good Vibrations\u2019 as The Beach Boys at their most radiantly exquisite, an almost chiming gospel communiqu\u00e9 with a lover or a higher power, supported by Wilson\u2019s rousing stomp of rippling whimsy that opens the record\u2019s enchating beckon.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Beatles \u2013 \u2018Penny Lane\u2019 \/ \u2018Strawberry Fields Forever\u2019\"The<\/p>\n

Release Date: February 1967 | Producer: George Martin | Label: Parlophone<\/p>\n

Once an exhausted Beatles<\/a> finally put a stop to their punishing touring schedule and took their first real break in 1966, some in the music press apparently had sniffily suspected the Fab Four were \u2018drying up\u2019, noticing the atypical absence of material since Revolver six months earlier.<\/p>\n

Behind the EMI Studios\u2019 closed doors, The Beatles were in fact breathing a sigh of relief, free from the road\u2019s burden and liberated to pursue infinitely more imaginative compositions without care for how they\u2019d be translated on stage. Heading to the studio in late 1966, John Lennon and Paul McCartney both possessed pop sketches that reflected their new chase for intrepid creative terrain.<\/p>\n

They were both psychedelic gems dwelling in a realm of surrealist nostalgia toward their old Liverpool suburbs. McCartney penned the sprightly \u2018Penny Lane\u2019, a kind of multi-coloured Busytown interpretation of the Mossley Hill street, and Lennon\u2019s ruminative \u2018Strawberry Fields Forever\u2019, a swaddling retreat of shimmering childhood fancy that adds a deeply personal reverie to the otherwise lysergic wander.<\/p>\n

Dropped early 1967 as the Summer of Love slowly began to rise above the West\u2019s cultural hinterland, \u2018Penny Lane\u2019 \/ \u2018Strawberry Fields Forever\u2019 heralded the arrival of The Beatles\u2019 artistic Mk II, two gems of dazzling ingenuity which set the sonic stage for Sgt Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band\u2019s kaleidoscopic grab for immortal rock and pop cornerstone.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Depeche Mode \u2013 \u2018Blasphemous Rumours\u2019 \/ \u2018Somebody\u2019 Release Date: October 1984 | Producer: Depeche Mode, Daniel Miller, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[27942,96,596,115422,128,6796,1006,67211,130479,15745,10447,15747,159035,112569,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-436102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-depeche-mode","tag-entertainment","tag-homepage","tag-kraftwerk","tag-music","tag-nirvana","tag-queen","tag-singles","tag-soft-cell","tag-the-beach-boys","tag-the-beatles","tag-the-rolling-stones","tag-the-specials","tag-the-stone-roses","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}