Voice Of Reason 9.19.02: Picking Singles
Posted by Nuri Feder on 09.19.2002
When I first listen to a new CD, I like to pick out which song on the album will be the band's next choice for a single. And more often than not, I'm right.
I'm sure everyone has a set pattern when getting a new CD. Mine is pretty simple. The first single has already been playing on radio for several weeks, and is probably the only song I know on the CD. On my first listen, I usually go through each song quickly, hearing the chorus and skipping to the next song, and skipping the single entirely.
After that first run through, I go through the CD a few more times, starting to decide which are the better songs on the CD before putting into a solid regular rotation in my car or in my Winamp playlist.
Finally, after about a week of pouring through my newest acquisitions, I make the pick of which song is most likely to hit big for the band. I don't factor in which song the record company would like, or if the song is the same or different style as the first release. I simply decide which the best song is on the CD (not including the single, although it's not always the best track).
Recently, my picks have been right on the money. After listening to Maladroit for about a week, I picked "Keep Fishin" as the next single, and sure enough, the Muppets were all over MTV2. Sadly, they made an alternative version of the track as the official single, as the album track is stronger in my opinion.
I correctly chose "Breathe" as Greenwheel's second single from Soma Holiday, which is starting to take off at Modern Rock radio. Sadly their first single "Shelter" bombed, even after being including on the Spiderman: The Movie Soundtrack.
12 Stones released "Broken" as the first single from their self titled debut CD, and while it didn’t do that well on radio, the label, Wind-up, has continued to support the band by having them open for Creed on some dates. The second single will be "The Way I Feel" which is exactly what it should have been.
Injected released "Faithless" as the lead track from their debut CD Burn It Black but I always felt "Bullet" was a stronger song and better choice for rock radio. It's doing reasonably well so far, and hopefully it will shoot to the top of the charts.
Looking back a bit, I picked "Gone Away" after my first listen of Offspring's Ixnay on the Hombre and picked both "Stacked Actors" and "Breakdown" off Foo Fighters' There is Nothing Left To Lose.
But I'm wrong some of the time too. Def Leppard's X was not even released in stores before I had sunk my teeth into it, and I declared "You're So Beautiful" as the next single after "Now", but the band will apparently be going with "" instead. Audiovent chose "" instead of my pick, "One Small Chance" from the Dirty Sexy Knights In Paris CD. The first single "The Energy" was a modest hit for them. And I really think "Out of My Head" could be a huge hit for Puddle Of Mudd, although they seem to be doing a pretty good of picking out songs at this point.
Sometimes I wonder what the criteria for releasing a second single are. Many times it seems the label will go with a differing tempo song from the first, like a ballad if the first single was a rocker. But sometimes there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it at all.
Here are the latest songs I've picked as second singles for new rock releases. It will be fun to see in a few months which ones turned out to be right:
Seether – "Sympathetic" (first single was "Fine Again" from the CD)
Bowling For Soup – "Life After Lisa" (first single was "Girl All The Bad Guys Want" from the Drunk Enough To Dance CD)
Breaking Benjamin – "Next To Nothing" (first single was "Polyamorous" from the Saturate CD)
Trust Company – "The Fear" (first single was "Downfall" from the Lonely Positiong Of Neutral CD)
Blindside – "Cute Boring Love" (first single was " Pitiful " from the Silence CD)
Lifehouse – "Out Of Breathe" (first single was "Spin" from the Stanley Climbfall CD)
Maybe with all of my choices now in writing and dated for the world to see, I can finally get credit from friends for picking out the right songs. And why stop there, pretty soon A&R departments of record labels will come knocking, asking the "single picking guru" to work for them.
