Usually there’s a reason a song is a single, most times when you listen to albums those really were the best songs. But there are some exceptions. A couple come to mind for me…
The Police- Omegaman. Andy and Stewart and everyone else around the band wanted this be a single but Sting didn’t. Great song though
Pearl Jam- Elderly Woman behind a counter in a small town. Might be my favorite Pearl Jam song and they got a lot of good ones.
The entire second side of the first Boston album.
I’m not sure what you’re going for Muddy, but how about Tommy, by the Who, or The Wall by Pink Floyd.
Teaser and the Fire Cat - Cat Stevens
Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel
there are songs on albums that are considered to be better than the hits. generally they're referred to as deep cuts. they were not released as hit singles as records companies: -didn't feel they were hit friendly to the public -if the public liked those songs they were forced to buy the whole album. back in the days bands like floyd n zeppelin rarely released singles. their focus was to push lp sales and fm hard rock stations was used as a focus of promoting those records.
This is all opinion based but there are very few bands that have entire excellent body of works.
Example: the entire Police catalog, the entire David Lee Roth Van Halen catalog are two that come off the top of my head. These are bands where I could go through their entire catalog (4 or 5 albums each?) and never skip one song. It’s harder to do that with bands that had 8+ albums. Yeah some of the songs aren’t flawless but I’m still not skipping them.
There are several bands that had 1 or 2 excellent albums where the producer and the band just came together, and out of 10 tracks 8 of them could have been radio hits, I would imagine a couple of guys got together and narrowed the songs down do radio airplay popularity. Sometimes they got it right, sometimes they got it wrong.
Some of my favorites that I view as virtually flawless:
Living Colour - Vivid
Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
Most people would say - Nirvana - Nevermind or a certain AC/DC or Stones or Pearl Jam album.
Now the rest… there are a lot of good bands out there that have several bad albums. A lot of this I feel came from record contract obligations or easy money grabs. A lot of my favorite bands have more shitty songs than good songs when you look at their body of work. The good songs are so good, and the bad ones are really bad. Not really any different than a professional athlete having a great game, only to drop a goose egg the next week.
People worthy of being on this list:
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Metallica
Aerosmith
ZZ Top
… just to name a few
Looks at these bands - so many flawless songs, but also, so much garbage in between too.
Tangled up in bluuuue
Don't forget "Surfer Joe" - the B-side of "Wipeout." Great song, especially on a mini-transistor radio. Definitely a simpler time...
Bridge Over Troubled Waters was number one for something like 18 weeks, so it was a single. Long as I can see the Light -- Creedence Clearwater Revivial
Shailynn brings up an excellent point.
I don’t think there are many “flawless” albums let along flawless bodies of work
I’m not even a huge Springsteen fan but “Born to Run” is as close to a perfect album as there is
I’d include The Rolling Stones “Thru and Thru” and the Doors “Alabama Song”
Here Comes the Sun - Beatles - Abbey Road album
My favorite song by the Smiths, "How Soon is Now", was originally released as the B-side of a single. It was only released later as a single on its own due to the positive reception it received from those who heard it.
The song has a strip club connection. A young Natalie Portman once played a stripper in a movie and this song was playing in the background during one of her strip club scenes. I've never heard this song in a strip club. I've also never seen a stripper in a strip club who looks like a young Natalie Portman.
Van Halen 1 I would consider flawless, AC/DC Back in Black, flawless, just off the top of my head, many other albums fit that criteria for me. It is rare these days for bands to put an entire album of of great songs.
Flawless Albums? CCR - Cosmos Factory - Van Morrison - Moondance.
Every song on Skynyrd’s Street Survivors is good to great
the beatles' sergeant Pepper's lonely heart club band and Moody blues' days of future past. give me the whole album please.
I believe The Rolling Stones had several popular songs that were never released as singles. Gimme Shelter would be the best. But also Midnight Rambler