Bad choices for lead-off singles

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by R79, Sep 16, 2020.

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  1. zen

    zen Senior Member

    Go from Asia's Astra album.
    It's a great opening track, but not really top 40 material.
    Perhaps "Wishing"...or..."Voice of America" would've been a wiser choice for lead-off single.
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2021
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  2. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    The band was helped to stay together by Mick's mediocre solo successes and Keith's critically acclaimed success.
     
  3. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    I know this is an old thread but by pure coincidence I picked up a copy of Oh Yeah on vinyl at my used local store as it escaped me at the time, and being a big fan of their’s I was curious. First, neat production and a good sounding album. I think they nailed it putting out Everything Your Heart Desires as a single. In fact, it sounds so much like their hit years on RCA I didn't recall it in fact was newer and on the Arista album. I hope the single did well considering they were in the doldrums at this point. There were definitely other potential singles on there, probably the ones you cited. But all and all, a pretty weird and disjointed album, if not still a fun listen. It would have been pretty hard to pick singles off it, aside from the obvious Heart Desires. I did hear a couple good ones though. I guess they got dropped after the one album?
     
  4. Eric_Generic

    Eric_Generic Enigma

    Location:
    Berkshire
    Everything Your Heart Desires made #4 on the Billboard Top 100, I think. Pretty good going, and it sounds like a classic, always did to me. The rest of the album...hmm, I agree that I'm In Pieces was an obvious should-have-been single. Downtown Life was a plain odd choice. Missed Opportunity was, I think, the other US single. Keep On Pushing Love would have got my vote.

    They stayed with Arista for 1990's Change Of Season, which produced a minor Top 20 US hit, So Close. Everywhere I Look was another strong single from the album.

    EG.
     
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  5. DolphinsIntheJacuzzi

    DolphinsIntheJacuzzi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    Agree to a point. But this is a group that was able to make roller-rink Vox Continental sound cool. So, with them, it was down to attitude. They could make anything sound hip and edgy, even samba.
     
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  6. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    XTC - "Great Fire" from Mummer

    Might have been seen as a reasonable choice, as it bore a passing resemblance to "Senses Working Overtime", but it sunk without trace, as did the second single "Wonderland".
    The third single "Love On A Farmboy's Wages" stalled just outside the top 40. How different things might have been if they had gone with that one first.
     
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  7. pbuzby

    pbuzby Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, US
    I read a quote from someone in the industry claiming "Everything I Need" from Men At Work's Two Hearts was a textbook wrong first single.
     
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  8. Ryan Lux

    Ryan Lux Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, ON, CA
    It’s hard to imagine Love On A Farmboy’s Wages having a great chart run but it’s definitely a better single than Great Fire. Great song though.
     
  9. Tattooed Headshrinker

    Tattooed Headshrinker Accidentally Like A Martyr

    Location:
    Orlando, FL
    Asylum Records released "Johnny Strikes Up the Band" as the first single from Warren Zevon's Excitable Boy. "Werewolves of London" was the album's third single. o_O
     
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  10. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    In the USA, "Stand" was the lead single from Green. "Orange Crush" was released only as a promo single to FM rock stations.
     
  11. georgwithoutane

    georgwithoutane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philadelphia
    What's funny was that Great Fire was written after Virgin Records rejected Mummer on the grounds of a lack of hit singles. I agree that Farmboy's Wages would've been a great lead single, and I think the band wanted it as such, but Virgin said no. So Andy Partridge wrote Great Fire and one other song (can't remember which one) and Virgin was satisfied.
     
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  12. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    Actually, "Heart of Glass" was the third single from the album. The second was another cover, albeit from a more obscure artist than Buddy Holly -- "Hanging on the Telephone," originally by the Nerves:



    I suspect Chrysalis' reasoning behind "I'm Gonna Love You Too" was that, around this time, The Buddy Holly Story was an unexpectedly popular film, which spurred renewed interest in Holly and his music -- the MCA compilation 20 Golden Greats was issued in the summer of 1978 and did better on the charts than the soundtrack album from the movie, and it was a steady seller for a few years. With that in mind, releasing a Buddy Holly cover at that time in 1978 wasn't as horrible a choice as it might appear in retrospect.
     
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  13. marc with a c

    marc with a c Forum Resident

    Location:
    Orlando, FL
    This one crossed my mind, but (and this just furthers your point) I wasn’t too into them at the time for reasons I don’t recall, and “Hitchin a Ride” was so different with such a cool groove that I’d have picked up that record no matter who it was - because I didn’t recognize it as them on the radio at first, wasn’t until I saw the video! Bought the album next day.

    I specify that I don’t remember my deal with not being into them at the time because: I liked them when I heard them riiiiight before the major label debut, liked the ensuing album, and LOVED “Geek Stink Breath” when everyone was saying it shouldn’t have been the single. I must have got real snooty about them after Insomniac for some reason but I can’t fathom why. Really dig those tunes, and it was at American Idiot that I truly stopped relating to them (no real reason, I recognize that it’s all very cool and good, but it doesn’t grab me despite repeated attempts).

    Feels like I have always wanted Green Day to “go back to their roots” and change simultaneously, so the problem was and is me, haha.
     
  14. pbuzby

    pbuzby Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, US
    I remember hearing "Let's Work" on the radio. Once.
     
  15. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    Hehehe. Well I like the guitar riff. It's certainly no worse than most of Steel Wheels.
     
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  16. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    Actually it wasn't the lead single from GHS - it was the ONLY single from GHS (in the UK). I don't think the Stones released a second UK single from an album until 'Some Girls' in 1978. So it wasn't a question of which of two or more songs was a better choice to release first as a single (with the other candidates following as second and third singles) - it was which ONE song do we release from the album as its ONLY single. So the wisdom of Angie's choice as THE single from the album must be judged by that. Since they felt they could only have one, was Angie the right one?
     
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  17. l-l-d

    l-l-d Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denmark, Europe
    Totally agree.
    The plan worked and therefor it's the perfect lead off single from the album.
    Contrary to most other people (it seems) I actually think it's a good song. Apart from that talking bit. Wish the version without was more readily available so I could put it on my Spotify playlist.......

    But if the plan had failed............ would Billie Jean then have been the big hit that it was?

    BTW: the word "doggone" seems to bother a lot of people. I'm not native English speaking, so I don't have a problem with it. I would have thought it was an old fashioned word to use in the 80s, but that can't be all. Is there some other meaning to "doggone" that escapes us foreigners?
     
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  18. bRETT

    bRETT Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    You or I may not think it's anywhere near the best song on the album...but it went to Number One almost everywhere, so it proved a pretty good choice.
     
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  19. l-l-d

    l-l-d Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denmark, Europe
    And none of them had a music video.
     
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  20. l-l-d

    l-l-d Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denmark, Europe
    Imagine if they had released "The Man" as their 1984 single......:eek:


    (IMO That 1983 duet is a very good piece of pop music, though. :righton:)
     
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  21. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    I wasn't judging their choice - I was explaining it....not to mention I was pointing out the flaw in a lot of people's logic in this thread (ie - that you can't/shouldn't release a ballad as the first single from an album). The flaw in that logic/viewpoint is that artists who never release more than one single from an album would then NEVER be able to release a ballad as a single since EVERY single they release would be the first single released from an album.

    If you can only choose one song from an album to be a single, then the criteria for being chosen has to come down to more than just how many "beats per minute" the song is.
     
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  22. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    Can you repeat that for the people in the back?
     
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  23. kaztor

    kaztor Music is the Best

    Not sure about E-bow.
    The other could’ve-been singles on that album don’t sound like first single choices to me.
    E-bow is pretty much in the same vein as Drive, a subtle choice.
     
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  24. kaztor

    kaztor Music is the Best

    Probably a very smart lead single.

    Ebony And Ivory was still fresh in the public’s consciousness and a duet between Paul and Michael was always gonna score back then.
    The end of 1982 was dawning as well (Christmas market) and it gave Thriller legs before it was gonna reveal the singles that really mattered.

    In other words, there was a reason why I Just Can’t Stop Loving You was the lead single for Bad.
     
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  25. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    They very nearly did. It was going to be the third single from the POP album, reportedly with a remix already made for the 12" single, and a B-Side chosen - reportedly 'Blackpool'....then McCartney got busted for pot in Barbados a month before the single's planned release date...so the single release was cancelled. IIRC he said he cancelled the single because he didn't want to drag Jackson into his controversy, but my guess is he just didn't want to do any press promotion for the single so soon after the arrest, since the focus of the interviews would most likely have been questions about the arrest (which granted was a more interesting subject than the release of a new single).
     
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2021
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