I love this post! It has me thinking of the artists who have a contentious relationships with their hit songs and their fans' love of those same songs. I remember the Neil Young concert here in Seattle where he, during the first half of his show, played the entirety of Greendale, his "novel in songs." The crowd grew increasingly restless until Young said, very grumpily, "Don't worry. I'll be playing that old shit, too."
The amount of time you must have put into collating and sifting through that data - beyond impressive! I remember Warner Bros gave REM free reign to pick their lead singles. First one off Automatic For The People? Drive, off course. These days it might crop up as an album taster song just prior to the LP release. What happened to Everybody Hurts? Surely an obvious number one contender? FOURTH hit off the album in Britain, peaking at no.7 I think. Still, I always admired their wilfull ways.
I mean, American Girls is Durutti Column cosplay. All the same, I enjoyed everything on the album. I don't mind imitation as respect as long as it's earnest, and in this case it seems to be.
Strategies for picking singles might have changed throughout the years. I don't know where I heard it, but I remember hearing way back in the 90s that the best strategy was to lead with a single that clicks with your core fans and later on release a single that might be popular among a wider audience, preferably for the third single. This would lengthen the shelf life of an album.
Very interesting! Does the artist always have full control over which songs become the single and how much of that is due to the record company/executive decisions? I wonder if that is something that was different in the past when selling full albums was a much bigger moneymaker?
This post should be a book. Seriously, a fascinating topic - for your target audience.
I am sure there must be a lot of cool stories about such selecting. Perhaps in many cases it was strategic to keep some potential best song for single #2 or even #3?
Yeah. I think that is the case for certain artists. Like I can't imagine Michael Jackson believing that "The Girl Is Mine" was better than "Beat It" or "Billie Jean" or "Wanna Be Starting Something"
There were actually several reasons working together, both personal and strategic:
Jackson's own explanation — the star power logic
In his autobiography Moonwalk, Jackson was pretty direct about it. "We really didn't have much choice," he wrote. "When you have two strong names like that together on a song, it has to come out first or it gets played to death and overexposed. We had to get it out of the way." Cheatsheet The logic was that a Jackson/McCartney duet would dominate attention no matter when it came out, so better to lead with it and then let the rest of the album breathe.
Repaying a favor
Jackson felt a moral obligation to work with McCartney, wanting to repay the favor Paul had done him by contributing "Girlfriend" to Off the Wall. He wrote "The Girl Is Mine" knowing it would suit both their voices, and they also worked on "Say Say Say" during the same sessions. Closer News Weekly
The racial politics of 1982 radio
There's a bigger strategic layer that Jackson didn't spell out but analysts have since documented well. In late 1982, Epic Records needed a safe play. MTV was not yet playing Black artists, Off the Wall was more than two years removed from its peak, and it had been nearly two years since an uptempo hit by a Black act had topped the Hot 100. "The Girl Is Mine" essentially got Michael's foot back in the door of a pop radio landscape that had changed dramatically for Black artists. Djrobblog
Fear of alienating audiences with the edgier material
Jackson was afraid that if he released something like "Billie Jean" or "Beat It" first, people wouldn't give the album a chance. SongFacts A soft, friendly pop duet with a beloved ex-Beatle was the safest possible entry point.
It backfired critically — but worked commercially
The gamble had a dark irony: critics predicted the album would disappoint and suggested that Jackson was bowing to a white audience. Wikipedia The song's warm reception was actually lukewarm enough that industry observers thought Thriller might underperform. Then "Billie Jean" dropped and everything changed. In retrospect, the deliberately unimpressive first single may have lowered expectations just enough for the album's real firepower to land with maximum impact.
I love this post! It has me thinking of the artists who have a contentious relationships with their hit songs and their fans' love of those same songs. I remember the Neil Young concert here in Seattle where he, during the first half of his show, played the entirety of Greendale, his "novel in songs." The crowd grew increasingly restless until Young said, very grumpily, "Don't worry. I'll be playing that old shit, too."
The amount of time you must have put into collating and sifting through that data - beyond impressive! I remember Warner Bros gave REM free reign to pick their lead singles. First one off Automatic For The People? Drive, off course. These days it might crop up as an album taster song just prior to the LP release. What happened to Everybody Hurts? Surely an obvious number one contender? FOURTH hit off the album in Britain, peaking at no.7 I think. Still, I always admired their wilfull ways.
I mean, American Girls is Durutti Column cosplay. All the same, I enjoyed everything on the album. I don't mind imitation as respect as long as it's earnest, and in this case it seems to be.
What does it mean to release a single these days? I still think of a single as 7 inches of vinyl.👴
Strategies for picking singles might have changed throughout the years. I don't know where I heard it, but I remember hearing way back in the 90s that the best strategy was to lead with a single that clicks with your core fans and later on release a single that might be popular among a wider audience, preferably for the third single. This would lengthen the shelf life of an album.
Very interesting! Does the artist always have full control over which songs become the single and how much of that is due to the record company/executive decisions? I wonder if that is something that was different in the past when selling full albums was a much bigger moneymaker?
Could there be a cool playlist derived from this post as well?
There could be. I'll see if I can put one together
This post should be a book. Seriously, a fascinating topic - for your target audience.
I am sure there must be a lot of cool stories about such selecting. Perhaps in many cases it was strategic to keep some potential best song for single #2 or even #3?
Yeah. I think that is the case for certain artists. Like I can't imagine Michael Jackson believing that "The Girl Is Mine" was better than "Beat It" or "Billie Jean" or "Wanna Be Starting Something"
LLMed it:
There were actually several reasons working together, both personal and strategic:
Jackson's own explanation — the star power logic
In his autobiography Moonwalk, Jackson was pretty direct about it. "We really didn't have much choice," he wrote. "When you have two strong names like that together on a song, it has to come out first or it gets played to death and overexposed. We had to get it out of the way." Cheatsheet The logic was that a Jackson/McCartney duet would dominate attention no matter when it came out, so better to lead with it and then let the rest of the album breathe.
Repaying a favor
Jackson felt a moral obligation to work with McCartney, wanting to repay the favor Paul had done him by contributing "Girlfriend" to Off the Wall. He wrote "The Girl Is Mine" knowing it would suit both their voices, and they also worked on "Say Say Say" during the same sessions. Closer News Weekly
The racial politics of 1982 radio
There's a bigger strategic layer that Jackson didn't spell out but analysts have since documented well. In late 1982, Epic Records needed a safe play. MTV was not yet playing Black artists, Off the Wall was more than two years removed from its peak, and it had been nearly two years since an uptempo hit by a Black act had topped the Hot 100. "The Girl Is Mine" essentially got Michael's foot back in the door of a pop radio landscape that had changed dramatically for Black artists. Djrobblog
Fear of alienating audiences with the edgier material
Jackson was afraid that if he released something like "Billie Jean" or "Beat It" first, people wouldn't give the album a chance. SongFacts A soft, friendly pop duet with a beloved ex-Beatle was the safest possible entry point.
It backfired critically — but worked commercially
The gamble had a dark irony: critics predicted the album would disappoint and suggested that Jackson was bowing to a white audience. Wikipedia The song's warm reception was actually lukewarm enough that industry observers thought Thriller might underperform. Then "Billie Jean" dropped and everything changed. In retrospect, the deliberately unimpressive first single may have lowered expectations just enough for the album's real firepower to land with maximum impact.