I bring this to light as yet again another fairly big act are flopping with the second release off an album. Hard-Fi, one top 10 and then the second single fails to make the top 40. This is the same band who's dedicated fanbase gave them 5 top 20 hits from their first album! And it's not just Indie and established acts it happens to either

 

Also:

 

Bloc Party: The Prayer - 4, I Still Remember - 20

Scissor Sisters: I Don't Feel Like Dancing - 1, Land Of A Thousand Words - 19 (not this year)

Kaiser Chiefs: Ruby - 1, Everything Is Average Nowadays - 19

Kanye West: Stronger - 1, Good Life - 23

Editors: Smokers... - 7, An End Has A Start - 27

White Stripes: Icky Thump - 2, You Don't Know What Love Is... - 18

Maroon 5: Makes Me Wonder - 2, Wake Up Call - 33

Linkin Park: What I've Done - 6, Bleed It Out - 29

Enrique: Do You Know? - 3, Tired Of Being Sorry - 20

Jojo: Too Little, Too Late - 4, Anything - 20

Ne-Yo: Because Of You - 4, Whatever Followed - Flop

 

The Fray: How To Save A Life - 4, Over My Head - 19

Robyn: With Every Heartbeat - 1, Handle Me - 17

The Twang: Either Way - 8, Two Lovers - 34

The View: Same Jeans - 3, The Don - 33

Kate Nash: Foundations - 2, Mouthwash - 23

Just Jack: Starz In Their Eyes - 2, Glory Days - 32

Klaxons: Golden Skans - 7, Gravity's Rainbow - 35 (had to release a cover to save it...)

Newton Faulkner: Dream Catch Me - 7, whatever the second single was - Not top 40

Amy McDonald: Mr Rock & Roll - 12, See above

Hellogoodbye: Here (In Your Arms) - 4, See above

Mutya: Real Girl - 2, See above (although technically you could include the GA duet and put her in the list below)

 

There have been a few albums that have two decent selling singles and then the third performs awfully in comparison; Avril, Fall Out Boy, Kings Of Leon, Gym Class Heroes.

 

It seems it's now more of a rarity for an album to produce more than one big(ish) song with only really Rihanna, Mika, Timbaland and Mark Ronson being the exceptions this year.

 

It seems to have had an affect on albums aswell with 10 of this years top 15 albums being released LAST year and one of the others, Cascada, had two of its three hits last year which is truly appaling. It's no real surprise that the majority of these albums have had consistant singles.

 

So, new singles from James Blunt, Sugababes, Reverand & The Makers, KT Tunstall, Girls Aloud, Arctic Monkeys*, Babyshambles, Foo Fighters, Stereophonics, Plain White Ts & Scouting For Girls to come before Christmas? Are they all going to continue the trend or might a couple get a hit not so far off the others.

 

*To join KOL, FOB, GCH list...

Edited November 14, 200717 yr by RabbitFurCoat

It's odd isn't it, maybe its because they release the first single, then the album quickly after and then they release the second single, but if people have the album why would they want to buy the second single unless they're die hard fans of the band/act?

 

The Enemy released 2 songs, away from here and had enough which went straight into the top 10, then they released the album which went to no.1 then they released you're not alone which I think charted at no. 18 and they'll be releasing a 4th single we'll live and die in these towns on 3rd december I think, hopefully it will go top 20 as it's a great song, so they've done quite well by the looks of it.:)

Tbh I think it can be prevented. In lots of cases - Kanye, Enrique - the first single was a huge hit either because they promoted or because of the hype around their comeback, but then they don't bother with the essential promotion for the 2nd single, so it inevitably flops. In some cases, I'd say the second single choices were just plain mindless - Mutya, Scissor Sisters - and with a stronger choice things would've been a lot different.

I think in a lot of those cases, the first single of the album has been so big that it eclipses the second singles chances.

Yeah i noticed that!!!! It's really annoying!!!!!

 

I remember thinking that last year with The Killers, Keane and Lost Prophets having a similar 2nd single flop run! :(

I think once the album is out, people are cherry picking the tracks, listen to them, and they don't bother with buying the follow-up singles.

its a sad statistic. most of those followups were great.

Most of those were due to wrong timing, wrong single choice or lack of promotion.

 

Pussycat Dolls had all their singles go Top 10 last year as have Girls Aloud, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce [except ''Listen''] and other acts. So it can be avoided!

Hard Fi and Amy Macdonald have much better songs on their album, than the ones they are releasing, same goes for Kate Nash her next one Punpkin Soup is awful, Merry Happy should be the next one.

 

If Avril Lavigine wants a top 10 hit she should release Innocene, or Best Damm Thing. Her best songs are ones she never releases Fall to Piecies and Naked comes to mind.

 

Amy Macdonald was meant to release This Is The Life, which is a great tune, but now its Youth Of Today, which is good but not a top 20 song, Hope Poison Prince gets a proper Release as that would be a top 10 hit.

 

They should do what Emma Bunton and James Blunt did let the fans say which song they like best by voting on website or what reviews say are the best songs

Its probably just me but those follow up singles were all pretty terrible, main examples: Good life, Mouthwash, Just a little bit, and also some of them did'nt get a great amount of radio play.

Or maybe they should release 2 songs now then the album they way it used to be, or even 3, that may make people a bit sick of the songs and not buy the album but it may do good.

I think it's a variety of reasons really. Sometimes it's a lack of promotion or airplay (Maroon 5), bad single choice (Ne-Yo) or due to the album having huge sales (Scissor Sisters). Some of the acts you mentioned were really hyped with the first release and then charted a lot lower with the follow-up because the hype had died down. Also, the JoJo song Anything didn't have a video so no wonder it flopped :lol:

Edited November 14, 200717 yr by Orlando

I think it's all to do with promotion afterwards, also the video's have to be good and also the song has to get played on radio and on tv. Many of the artists named above have failed to promote their singles afterwards to a great deal. Think Natasha Bedingfield is a good example where her first album was huge success but the last one wasn't because she was concentrating more in the US market which she has cracked. Then you can look at it on the other side and think songs that weren't has big as they shoulda been. I'd include Britney and Christina in this catergory, Gimme More should have been a number 1 and so should have Candyman but because they are struggling/moving on with their private lives they have failed to promote in the UK with talkshows and promo tours which they use to do.

change won't flop. it should do reasonably well

 

just a little bit is inexcusable tbh. b boy baby hopefully will reverse that.

Amy Macdonald was meant to release This Is The Life, which is a great tune, but now its Youth Of Today, which is good but not a top 20 song, Hope Poison Prince gets a proper Release as that would be a top 10 hit.

 

 

Its switched back to This Is The Life now

I personally think it would be interesting to see how sales for albums would be if acts followed the same route as Japanese artists ie releasing the 3/4 singles, THEN the album [+mabye a radio song to help promote the album]

I think the main reason is the continued availability of the previous single. Remember when singles were gone from the charts quickly and, if they weren't, the record company deleted them? Downloads have changed all that. Now the big debut hit hangs around for 20+ weeks, people buy either the whole album or cherry-pick the best songs, and there is no momentum for the follow-up singles, except in exceptional cases.

 

I don't think this is going to change until the record companies wise up. Releasing more than one single before the release of the album might help. So might releasing singles that aren't on the album (like it was decades ago), after all it costs less to produce a non-physical single, so why not? Record companies are so locked into selling albums that they've forgotten how to make money from singles, but downloads could change all that.

Turn the question around. Why do those acts mentioned have such difficulty writing/recording two decent singles?

Turn the question around. Why do those acts mentioned have such difficulty writing/recording two decent singles?

 

You have a point. Looking at the original poster's list, most of the second singles were pretty poor.

many of the aforementioned flops were poor choices by the label or severe lack of promo.

 

or in mutyas case a overdose of each