The first single is promoted because the album is about to be released. Often the follow up singles are not promoted as much and many of the fans then have the album so why buy the single.

 

There are big artists with lots of hits from an album P!nk and Nelly Furtado.

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

Good point. B)

HOW CAN YOU GUYS FORGET THAT TIMBERLAND HAS HAD 2 NUMBER 1S AND A NUMBER 3 ON HIS ALBUM SHOCK VALUE, its all about the singles and how strong they are....... infact those albums mentioned its those singles that sold the albums not the second or third singles and all the really big selling albums (wordwide) like justin, tinmbo, nelly etc they all have to have big singles 1, 2,3 etc or they wont get massive numbers whereas in the uk cos the market is so boring (in my opinion) those first singles can infact last a year on tv and radio and the shops so the consumer keeps buying thinking those albums are really really good when infact they might get boring after 2 to 3 months.

 

thats m opinion

what do u think

Oh come on, there's a really obvious answer here.

 

Singles are bought mainly by young people - mainly because kids don't have a great deal of money at their disposal. Pretty much every act you've listed there had successful albums which were bought by slightly older people. The initial single will sell well because it's the only means fans have of getting the song, but once they have the album most people won't bother making the trek to the record shop to pick up a song they already have.

 

It's been like this for years, that's why bands who don't sell a great number of albums (and I mean in terms of longevity in the album chart - so what if they reached the top 10 for a couple of weeks) like the Pussycat Dolls sell well in singles terms.

 

As for saying these bands can't write a decent follow-up, did it not strike you that in many cases the 'flop' follow up was much better than the lead single off the album?

There is the other interesting points that singles from acts like Amy Winehouse or Paolo Nutini's New Shoes are not high peakers but trickle sell over a period of time

 

Perhaps singles don't sell in the same patterns as they used to nowadays...i.e. 30-50% of total sales in the first week sometimes

As for saying these bands can't write a decent follow-up, did it not strike you that in many cases the 'flop' follow up was much better than the lead single off the album?

 

 

Frankly, no! In most cases the second single was weaker than the first. :P

Oh come on, there's a really obvious answer here.

 

Singles are bought mainly by young people - mainly because kids don't have a great deal of money at their disposal. Pretty much every act you've listed there had successful albums which were bought by slightly older people. The initial single will sell well because it's the only means fans have of getting the song, but once they have the album most people won't bother making the trek to the record shop to pick up a song they already have.

 

It's been like this for years, that's why bands who don't sell a great number of albums (and I mean in terms of longevity in the album chart - so what if they reached the top 10 for a couple of weeks) like the Pussycat Dolls sell well in singles terms.

 

As for saying these bands can't write a decent follow-up, did it not strike you that in many cases the 'flop' follow up was much better than the lead single off the album?

 

It doesn't really happen that often. Take the list of acts I put first. White Stripes had 3 top 10 hits from their previous album, Linkin Park had 3 top 20s, Kanye West had 3 top 10s. Yet with these albums they take a huge tail off. It's not as if the albums have sold that much either.

Edited November 15, 200717 yr by RabbitFurCoat

 

you can add hard-fi to this list a flop to come from them.

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

 

or in mutyas case a overdose of each

Just a little bit was a bad choice but it depends wether she wanted it released or not, because if she did then i could respect her for choosing what she wanted...If not then it was just a bad choice by the record company lol!

I think singles that sound pretty different are needed to have continued success throughout an album, like Fergie (although the next single isn't looking good) who had #3, #6 and #2.

Edited November 15, 200717 yr by Harve

It doesn't really happen that often. Take the list of acts I put first. White Stripes had 3 top 10 hits from their previous album, Linkin Park had 3 top 20s, Kanye West had 3 top 10s. Yet with these albums they take a huge tail off. It's not as if the albums have sold that much either.

 

Maybe the answer's in your last post? It's not the singles perhaps, it's just that the acts just aren't as popular as they used to be. And that's always happened. Acts have a peak for a few years, and then start to tail off. Maybe this is what's happening to the likes of Linkin Park, Kaiser Chiefs, Maroon 5, Enrique Iglesias etc. Their next albums will probably sell less still, they might be lucky to have even the one big single.

Just a little bit was a bad choice but it depends wether she wanted it released or not, because if she did then i could respect her for choosing what she wanted...If not then it was just a bad choice by the record company lol!

yeah, but there was no promo what so ever

yeah, but there was no promo what so ever

I know im sure it would have been top 40 had there been some but i just feel that if the record company made that choice it wasn't wise, it wasn't a fan favourite and strung out or B boy baby are much more comercial. Saying that i respect artists who release what they want because they like the song instead of what the public wants to hear.

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

 

The second singles were not flops - just less successfull

 

Maybe the answer's in your last post? It's not the singles perhaps, it's just that the acts just aren't as popular as they used to be. And that's always happened. Acts have a peak for a few years, and then start to tail off. Maybe this is what's happening to the likes of Linkin Park, Kaiser Chiefs, Maroon 5, Enrique Iglesias etc. Their next albums will probably sell less still, they might be lucky to have even the one big single.

 

Indeed. Also indie can be such an elitist genre that bands can have a very short shelf-life if they become household names. The likes of Hard-Fi, Kaiser Chiefs, Editors started off by selling a decent amount of their album to quick-off-the-mark fans before it dropped and then began to reclimb the chart as more people became aware of them. Many of the original fans' snobbery then put them off the album they'd bought some 6 months earlier. When these bands put out their second album a lot of the original fans snubbed them, and a lot of the people who'd come to them late just weren't aware there was another album out.

 

I know this to be the case being a self-confessed snob myself...not that I'm proud of it.