Bad choices for lead-off singles

Bingo. A satirical attack on the shallowness of American culture didn't seem well calculated to find a receptive American audience. And the album is loaded with obvious singles.

 

Only in the US and only because they thought an anti-war song would play well at the time with the Viet Nam war raging. I do wonder though, if the record company decided to release it as a single just in order to draw some initial attention to the album before releasing an actual potential hit as a follow-up single, or if they actually sincerely thought it could be a hit, because, yeah - it clearly wasn't going to be a hit.

 

"Harlem Shuffle" from Stone's "Dirty Work" album. Mind you, it did chart well but "One Hit (To The Body) would've continued their winning streak of good lead off singles IMO.

 

He took McCartney’s song so maybe he thought everything was up for grabs.

 

I would also say that Discotheque was not a great way to introduce Pop, though the mistake there may have been more to do with the music video and dressing up as the Village People. It would be interesting to see how the same single would do with a different visual approach, but we're in purely speculative territory.

 

I think Harlem Shuffle is one of the few good things on that album.

 

They said this was done to not alienate Pyromania fans from buying the Hysteria album upon its release, as it was the track that sounded the most similar to that album and most likely to appeal to those fans (to give them more of what they already liked). They also said they didn't release it expecting it to become a huge mainstream hit.

 

Tokyo Storm Warning off Elvis Costello and the Attractions' Blood and Chocolate. Terrific song, terrible single. I Hope You're Happy Now or the album version of Blue Chair (an earlier version was released in January 87, well after the album was out of the charts, and wasn't the Attractions) would've been so much better, but Elvis was once again in his contrarian moods and preferred to be confrontational and deliberately antagonistic instead of chasing success.

 

This will always win hands down when this question is posed. The most perverse choice for a single ever.

 

I remember when my rep from Warner Brothers came into my store with a test pressing single for the Fleetwood Mac new album Tusk,I was excited to give it a first listen but when the track ended I turned to him and said:Wrong choice it was a odd choice for a lead off single for this double album maybe Sara or something else.

Don’t get me wrong I like the song but I wondered did the band say this is the first single?

 

Old Siam Sir from Back To The Egg.

 

I signed up for some free Demon records catalog thing in 1994/95 off the back of that Very Best Of album and with it they included a complimentary copy of that 7". They must have had billions of them lying around.

 

It was catchy as hell. I bought the album because of it.

 

Raspberries initial sing off of their debut album was "Don't Want to Say Goodbye". Great song, but "Go All the Way" really seems the natural choice.

 

shhhhhhhhhhhh....don't say anything about Macca that isn't worshipful on here...

 

Maybe not *bad*, but a bizarre choice was Beetlebum by Blur as lead single from their self-titled album.

M.O.R. or Song 2 strike me as better "we're back, and we have a new direction" singles to put out first.

 

A superstar band with a huge fanbase and radio ready to jump on ANYTHING they release as a first single after a year or more away don't need to waste their biggest surefire hit from an album as the first single. If Lindsey was going to get a hit (let along a single) off the Tusk album (with all his songs being so weird/radio unfriendly) it was going to be as the debut single from the album as radio was definitely going to play it - simply because it was first (and because it was released *before* the album). Same thing with 'Big Love' eight years later. Did "Little Lies" have greater hit potential? Well, obviously - but that wasn't the point.

 

I was somewhat underwhelmed with the choice for the first single. I'd have put "Live And Learn" out first (minus the intro, like the radio edit*).

Then I'd have skipped the rest and put out "For The Boys"!






* version without intro issued as both single edit and radio version - the only difference being that the single edit has 30 seconds of silence on the end

 

May’ve been pointed out already, but often back in the day the record label picked the single not the artist.

For example the label picked “Shame On The Moon” as the first single off Bob Seger’s “The Distance” album, despite his strong objections.

They felt it was closer to the acoustic based big hits off “Against The Wind” than anything else on the album, while Bob only recorded it as filler. There were much stronger originals to choose from but they were rockers. Pretty much killed his momentum on the charts.

Mark

 

Chicago had a few average first single choices that were proven to be wrong by the second/third singles:
From "Chicago Transit Authority":
First single: "Questions 67 & 68": #71 (re-release 2 years later: #24)
Second Single: "Beginnings": Didn't Chart (re-release 2 years later: #7)
Third Single: "Does Anybody Really Know What Time it is": #7

From "Chicago VI":
First single: "Feelin' Stronger Every Day": #10
Second Single: "Just You 'n' Me": #4

From "Chicago X":
First single: "Another Rainy Day in New York": #32
Second Single: "If You Leave Me Now": #1

"Chicago 17":
First Single: "Stay The Night": #16
Second Single: "Hard Habit To Break": #3
Third Single: "You're The Inspiration": #3

"Chicago 18":
First Single: "25 or 6 To 4" (New Version): #48
Second Single: "Will You Still Love Me": #3

 

I believe Body Language did them in in the US. I was in high school at the time and no one liked it.

I agree. Very underrated. One of my favorites by them.

Yep. Sarah would have been a better sell for the album. Tusk has certainly aged very well but at the time it sounded radically different from the songs from the previous album.

 

I have the same feeling about "Mixed Emotions" from Steel Wheels. It also charted well but I think it's the weakest track on the album.

 

the video stills staggers any attempt to try to figure out WTH that was all about

 

For those mentioning REM, IIRC they had it written into their contract that THEY (not the record company) would choose the first single from each of their albums, and they tended to go for shall we say "oddball" choices. I would imagine they did that for at least a couple reasons.

They probably chose the song they liked the most from the album that they figured the record company would *never* choose as a single - since I'd imagine they thought "why should we choose something obvious that we know for sure the record company is going to choose for a later single anyway? Let's be bold with our choice".

This would also serve the purpose of reassuring/saying to their long term fans "See - we still haven't sold out."

 

Get On Your Boots - U2, No Line On The Horizon!