Albums that had the wrong single choices

[ColinOr]

I've been listening to Nimrod alot lately and it's dawned on me just how many superhits that album has that weren't chosen as singles and the singles that were chosen don't scream megahit to me.

Specifically Redundant and Hitchin' A Ride, great songs for sure but neither of them scream HIT, there are so many songs on Nimrod that would have been HUGE and album sales would have spiked it to Dookie level possibly.

Nimrod is the album where I feel they really made the wrong single choices, albums such as Dookie, Insomniac, American Idiot, 21st Century Breakdown and Revolution Radio I believe they made the perfect single choices mostly, especially Dookie and American Idiot and that's why they were such huge successes because the singles were so perfect that the albums sold very well.

Nice Guys Finish Last and Good Riddance were fine singles, especially Good Riddance as that was a megahit, but Hitchin' A Ride and Redundant should have been left as album tracks in favour of any of the following: Scattered, All The Time, Worry Rock, Uptight, Jinx/Haushinka (like Brain Stew/Jaded), Walking Alone. and King For A Day. There's the obvious non-singles like Platypus, Reject, Take Back, and Last Ride In (although it did have a music video) and in my opinion Hitchin' A Ride and Redundant sound like non-singles, but that's just me.

Prosthetic Head was originally meant to be the 4th single from the album but Nice Guys Finish Last was chosen instead which was the right choice, it's much more of a single than Prosthetic Head to me.

Anyway, that comes to my topic debate:

Warning has pretty solid choices, but I think Church On Sunday instead of Warning and Castaway instead of Macy's Day Parade, those would have been hits I think!

The Trilogy massively suffered from having Oh Love and Kill The DJ as the lead singles, it's a shame they didn't make Nuclear Family and Stay The Night the proper lead singles instead as they were perfect to launch Uno. If Billie had not been unfit to promote the album then I feel Dos had the right single choice in Stray Heart, but the other songs in the album sticker that were meant to be singles (Amy and Stop When The Red Lights Flash) were the wrong choices I think, to me Lazy Bones would have been a hit. As for Tre the planned singles were X-Kid, 8th Avenue Serenade and 99 Revolutions which are all PERFECT! Shame that the only one was The Forgotten though, never sounded like a hit to me.

Are there any Green Day albums you feel they made the wrong single choices and if they had chosen different songs the albums would have been more successful? If so which songs?

 

[The Grohl]

I disagree with Hitchin' a Ride not being single material. I actually think it's one of their stronger singles. I'll give you Redundant. I like the song a lot, but it does feel more like a deep cut. 

The first albums that come to mind is the Trilogy. Holy hell Oh Love was a terrible single choice. I think Kill the DJ is fine for a single, but it should've been their third or fourth from the album. 

[HAPPY ZOMBIE UNICORN]

I think KYE was the wrong choice for 21CB , I would have probably picked East Jesus, and Stay the night should have been the lead single for Uno. AI was perfect for AI, as Bang Bang for RR, and I can’t go into older eras cause I was not there yet. 

[The Grohl]

I think KYE works really well as a single. Is it their best song? No. But it's got a catchy hook, great energy, and good music. I feel like it gets the job done as a lead single. 

Stay the Night or Nuclear Family definitely should've been lead singles for Uno. I feel like Tre needed better singles too since I can't even remember them aside from The Forgotten, which is very meh. 

[Flashback]

Definitely Stay the Night instead of Oh Love. But I really like The Forgotten tbh, I wonder that it hasn‘t been more succesful

[pacejunkie punk]

It kills me that Stay the Night wasn’t the lead single off Uno. Biggest mistake of them all.

[Little Boy Named Booze]

This title thread should be called the same but without the "s" at the end of the word Album and Choice.

iUno! is the only bad single. 

[Gonzalo17]

F. O. D should be single in dookie

Nuclear family, stay the night, dirty rotten bastards should be singles in trilogy era

Forever now should be single in revolution radio

[That Dude]

6 hours ago, kaylubd said:

I disagree with Hitchin' a Ride not being single material. I actually think it's one of their stronger singles. I'll give you Redundant. I like the song a lot, but it does feel more like a deep cut. 

The first albums that come to mind is the Trilogy. Holy hell Oh Love was a terrible single choice. I think Kill the DJ is fine for a single, but it should've been their third or fourth from the album. 

Yep, Hitchin a Ride if one of my favorite singles from the guys.   

[michael1989]

I think they messed up 21CB. KYE and 21 Guns were right for the first two singles, but third single should have been Viva la Gloria or Murder City.

Oh and very obviously Uno. Worst of all. Should have been either Let Yourself Go or Stay the Night for first single.

[Christian's Inferno!]

16 hours ago, HAPPY ROOTING UNICORN said:

I think KYE was the wrong choice for 21CB , I would have probably picked East Jesus, and Stay the night should have been the lead single for Uno. AI was perfect for AI, as Bang Bang for RR, and I can’t go into older eras cause I was not there yet. 

I think KYE was the wrong choice for the lead single. But it's a good catchy radio single even if it's not one of the best songs of the album, kinda like LOTAG. I think the title track should've been the lead single though, it's one of their best songs.

I think the problem with 21CB singles was they didn't promote them well after 21 Guns. EJN, LOTAG and 21CB did nothing as singles

People always bring up the Uno singles when talking about this subject. Idk, to me the Uno singles were fine. I've loved Oh Love since I first heard it, Kill the DJ was different and the most experimental track of the album. Let Yourself Go was just a great GD song. These songs are imo, some of Uno's bests and sound more like single tracks to me than the rest of the songs on the album. These 3 songs stand out from the rest of the songs imo. I don't think Stay The Night or Nuclear Family would've been great as singles, at least not as lead singles

 

[Miko]

From top of my head, Uno definitely should've had Stay the Night as the lead single, Dos should've had Stop When the Red Lights Flash and Tre would've benefited very much by having Missing You as lead single. Know Your Enemy did its job as lead single with having song featured fucking everywhere so it was the best choice, but of course title track and almost everything else would've been better choices in quality wise.

I had to google what was AI's lead single and wasn't surprised that title track was lead single (thought it was Boulevard of Broken Dreams), but I still feel like that Holiday should've been lead single, but then again album had hit after hit so there really wasn't wrong choices.

Warning and Revolution Radio had right choices as lead singles (I remember being soooo hyped because of Bang Bang and god what a shitshow it turned to be) and Father of All Motherfuckers definitely has the right choice as lead single aswell.

[The Grohl]

Oh jeez I forgot about LOTAG. Yeah, that shouldn't have been a single at all. The song is so unnotable. 

[Hermione]

1 hour ago, kaylubd said:

Oh jeez I forgot about LOTAG. Yeah, that shouldn't have been a single at all. The song is so unnotable. 

I think LOTAG was just a single because when the AI musical blew up a few months after 21st CB came out they made a hard shift to promoting the musical/songs from the musical rather than anything else from the album, and LOTAG was the only musical song (or maybe one of two) left on 21st CB that they hadn't released as a single yet. 

[Beerjeezus]

LOTAG is okay but EJN should have been a single

[Lenny]

16 minutes ago, Beerjeezus said:

LOTAG is okay but EJN should have been a single

EJN had more traction here than LOTAG despite it being a European single only. 

[pacejunkie punk]

3 hours ago, Miko said:

Father of All Motherfuckers definitely has the right choice as lead single aswell.

That’s a premature statement if I ever heard one since we haven’t heard the eight other tracks on the album to judge if it was best. I agree it’s a banger so far at least. Maybe others will be even better

[Beerjeezus]

3 hours ago, SnaggletoothRecords said:

EJN had more traction here than LOTAG despite it being a European single only. 

Interesting...I didn't know it was a single in Europe. Weirdly enough, my local rock station never plays it, even though they play rare stuff like trilogy singles and even State Of Shock.

[Yosuke Hanamura]

On 10/31/2019 at 5:29 PM, pacejunkie punk said:

It kills me that Stay the Night wasn’t the lead single off Uno. Biggest mistake of them all.

In my opinion, Nuclear Family should’ve been the lead single. It kicks the doors down with a giant “Let’s fuckin’ party!!”

Also, Scattered was practically begging to be a single for Nimrod.

[TRE is underrated]

This post is perfect for the whole Trilogy. This are the changes that I would have done:

¡UNO!: Stay the Night as Lead, Let Yourself Go, then Kill the DJ since it had some potential.

¡DOS!: Stray Heart with good promotion would have been a major hit, same with LAZY BONES (I still listen to that almost everyday).

¡TRÉ!: X-Kid with a great MV, maybe Brutal Love, but that is a personal favourite so idk.

I belive is well distributed and afordable for what was GD at that point.

[Lenny]

3 hours ago, Yosuke Hanamura said:

In my opinion, Nuclear Family should’ve been the lead single. It kicks the doors down with a giant “Let’s fuckin’ party!!”

Also, Scattered was practically begging to be a single for Nimrod.

The first verse makes the song feel like it's flat soda

[Miko]

15 hours ago, pacejunkie punk said:

That’s a premature statement if I ever heard one since we haven’t heard the eight other tracks on the album to judge if it was best. I agree it’s a banger so far at least. Maybe others will be even better

True, didn't even think about it. I first hated FOA so fucking much but now I love it so it made sense in my head to say it was the best lead single without thinking that there are other songs to be released.

Fire, Ready, Aim is not horrible but whole song sounds like it was made for that NHL commercial so we'll see do they ever play that song live or not.

[michael1989]

On 11/1/2019 at 8:51 PM, Christian's Inferno! said:

 Let Yourself Go was just a great GD song. These songs are imo, some of Uno's bests and sound more like single tracks to me than the rest of the songs on the album.

LYG was never a single from memory. It may have been a promo track but not a proper single. 

Kill the DJ was an unusual choice for a single. Back then radio promo was important and I can't imagine many playing that song, even a censored version.

[Jirachi]

I like Stuck With Me. Its a good song. That being said, I ALWAYS forget it was a single. I feel Stuart and the Ave. or something should have been a single instead. As for Trilogy...i feel Stay the Night or Nuclear Family'd be good for Uno. Lazy Bones and Stray Heart for Dos. X-Kid and maybe Amanda or 99 Revolutions for Tre. I don't like 99 Revolutions much, but Billie did at the time so much so that the tour was, iirc, called The 99 Revolutions Tour or whatever, so its odd it wasn't. Everything else? Uh...AI's were good choices,I wish East Jesus Nowhere got a music video RR's were fine. Nimrod I agree Redundant should have been something else.

[Lenny]

On 11/3/2019 at 2:17 AM, Jirachi said:

I like Stuck With Me. Its a good song. That being said, I ALWAYS forget it was a single. I feel Stuart and the Ave. or something should have been a single instead. As for Trilogy...i feel Stay the Night or Nuclear Family'd be good for Uno. Lazy Bones and Stray Heart for Dos. X-Kid and maybe Amanda or 99 Revolutions for Tre. I don't like 99 Revolutions much, but Billie did at the time so much so that the tour was, iirc, called The 99 Revolutions Tour or whatever, so its odd it wasn't. Everything else? Uh...AI's were good choices,I wish East Jesus Nowhere got a music video RR's were fine. Nimrod I agree Redundant should have been something else.

Stuck With Me was a music video release, not a single. It's similar to EJN, it was a single overseas but not here in N.A but had a music video. 

For your single choices I would agree with Stay The Night for Uno (but re-recorded of course). The recording that we got was not the greatest. I do think Lazy Bones would have been a decent try for Dos. For Tre it's quite difficult. Imo it's probably the worst GD record to date. Missing You is probably the most complete and well written song on the record. That would be my choice for that one. 

For RevRad I'm a bit disappointed Troubled Times didn't get a release as a single. I thought it had potential to be picked up instantly by classic rock stations and alternative stations. 

For FOAMF I think Father of All has been a good lead single choice. It's in no way as successful as AI, KYE or even Oh Love at this point, it seems to be on par with Bang Bang but I've heard it in more diverse settings. I think this song will stick around for the next little while. I wouldn't be surprised to see it or another GD song featured in the next NHL game as the partnership carries through to next season as well. If the album really is short fast and not so sweet they would also have potential to get themselves into the next installment for Madden as well.