Bad choices for lead-off singles

Note (IMO): Personally not liking a song doesn't make it a bad choice for a single.

I'm seeing many "bad choices" that were VERY successful on the charts. It's difficult to argue against success. I mean, if a song cracks the top 5 was it a bad choice or just a song you didn't like?

Now, if a first single is released and flops, but subsequent singles do vastly better, then I think you can safely say the first single was a bad choice.

Diff-rent strokes...and all that...

 

It was the first single, either in advance of the album or just as it was released.

Nobody remembers it now, but "Who Wears These Shoes" also got loads of airplay.

 

Wow I don't remember that at all, but that was when I was first listening to modern pop/rock, so I may have missed it

 

Green Day kind of had this problem. Geek Stink Breath was a decent song, but didnt have as much of an impact as the Dookie singles did, and Stuck With Me didnt do much either, Brain Stew was the first single off the album to really make waves. Ditto for Hitchin A Ride off Nimrod, which didnt even sound much like Green Day. Granted, their biggest hit which came after (Good Riddance) was an acoustic ballad, so people were ready for a different sound from GD, but they took a chance and got lucky with that one.

 

The Doors - Tell All The People

I think "The Soft Parade" is the best song, but of course, it's too long. If it was me, I would have taken the last two sections.. Starting out fast, and then gets to the "part I really like"

"Touch Me" should have been the first single, and then "Wild Child", but not "Tell All The People" - very lackluster. I think it's wise to start an album with something with a quick-tempo, or an interesting hook like they did on the next album, "Morrison Hotel" with "Roadhouse Blues"

 

“Touch Me” was the first single from The Soft Parade.

If you’re talking about first track of the album, IMO, “Tell All the People” sets the tone pretty decently for the rest of the album, but I can see your take on it. I kind of appreciate how they sort of let the listener know “hey, guys, this one is going to be a little different...” right up front.

 

And was in fact released as a single before parts of The Soft Parade were even recorded.

 

I read this from an old interview, so the interviewer must have made a mistake, but its possible I did.. Thanks for the correction.

Still, I'd use "Wild Child" or "Shaman's Blues", just not "Tell All The People"

 

and Touch Me came out right when his Florida arrest and debacle started

for his appearance at John's Peace Festival in Toronto, Jim's pants crotch was reinforced to make sure he didn't have something happen...

 

As he later admitted in interviews, he felt it was his most important song, because the title was a secret message to Keith. He feels it ultimately kept the band together, and so considers it his most significant solo statement.

 

Not sure if it's been mentioned,
but the song "Danger" as the lead-off single (hell, only single)
from/for AC/DC's Fly On The Wall was a terrible choice.

 

did Keith hear the song or give a royal crap at all about it?

 

Slow Rivers is the overlooked good song on Leather Jackets (a leftover from the previous album). Yeah, that should have been the single.

 

It was a UK single, and it flopped.

 

I like Let's Work, it's very catchy.

 

"Chocolate Cake" was the advance single from "Woodface," Crowded House's best album. It also opens the album.

It might be the worst song they ever did.

 

The single from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers 1985 live "Pack Up the Plantation" was ... a cover of "Needles and Pins" with Stevie Nicks, recorded live in '81.

Irving must’ve been the guy who decided to make “Needles and Pins,” a four-year-old track, the single from the live album?

Petty: I don’t know. I don’t pick the singles. I thought they should have put out “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.” I just thought it was such a great record. And you know what they said? They thought it was too rock ‘n’ roll for the radio. And at that point I said well, guys, we really don’t have anything to talk about. At the time, it was the Number One Airplay song in the country. And they wouldn’t release it as a single because it was “too rock ‘n’ roll.” That’s … you know, let me up, I’ve had enough. (laughter) (July 1986, interview in I Need to Know: The Lost Music Interviews, St. Petersburg Press)

 

It's So Easy was the first single off GNR's Appetite For Destruction. Passing on all the really obviously potential (and ultimately were) massive hits. It doesn't appear on GNR's Greatest Hits album though. In fact neither does Night Train.

 

Don't Let Me Down was my least favourite track on that album - it came across to me at the time as a bit down market.
Loved Confusion and Last Train To London.

 

Again, didnt hurt the album sales at all, but Hitchin A Ride as the lead-off single from Green Day's Nimrod seemed odd at the time. Of course, the next single, Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) was even more out of left field but became their most well-known song. After that we DID get two more "traditional" GD songs as singles (Redundant and Nice Guys Finish Last), but I guess Green Day were out to show people they could do more than just pop punk.

 

We got Shake Your Foundations as well in the UK.

EG.

 

Buffalo Springfield - "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing"

 

"It's Only Natural" may well be the best...and that flopped too.

 

It turned out to be great, because it gave them some cred and then the world was ready for them once the monster songs came out. That kind of strategy looks like genius in retrospect but it could've lost us some all time classics.

 

I love Confusion and Last Train too but I don’t think it matters if Don’t Let Me Down is your least favorite track (it’s not my top pick either for what it’s worth) it was still the best selling single off the album in the US, UK and Australia. And it rocked more than the other singles and would have taken the disco edge off the album that didn’t seem to be going over, at least in the states.