Choosing an album’s lead single is often a fraught process. Sometimes, the band and the label disagree over which track should be released as the first single. There’s also a lot riding on the decision. If the lead single bombs, it usually doesn’t indicate good things for an album’s sales or airplay.
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So it’s notable when a lead single doesn’t catch on, but the album does. In each of these four cases, the albums in question performed exceedingly well—all of them went Platinum, multi-Platinum or Diamond—in spite of lead singles that many of us may not remember. The albums thrived commercially in large part because subsequent singles hit it big.
While these four songs are unusual in the degree to which they were eclipsed by later singles, they aren’t completely unique. Four other modestly successful lead singles from enormous hit albums are featured here. These four will test your memory of the order in which songs from these popular albums were released.
(The sequence of singles released is based on the U.S. market. Peak positions on the Billboard Hot 100 are included parenthetically for each song.)
Sheryl Crow, “Run, Baby, Run” (did not chart)
If you remembered “All I Wanna Do” as being Crow’s first single from her 1993 debut album Tuesday Night Music Club, you probably have lots of company. It is likely to be the first song by Crow that was heard by many radio listeners in the mid-’90s. It reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 and is still her highest-charting single. However, it was neither the first nor second nor third single released from Tuesday Night Music Club. Neither of the first two singles—”Run, Baby, Run” and “What I Can Do For You”—charted in the U.S. The third single, “Leaving Las Vegas,” gave Crow her first Hot 100 single, but it halted its climb up the chart at No. 60.
Tuesday Night Music Club was a deep enough album that it actually produced two more Top 40 hits in “Strong Enough” (No. 5) and “Can’t Cry Anymore” (No. 36). Though it was far from inevitable, given the lack of success the first three singles had, the album went on to sell more than 7 million copies in the U.S. and another 5 million in Europe.
Def Leppard, “Animal” (No. 19)
The chart pattern of the singles from Def Leppard’s 1987 album Hysteria is hard to explain. Unlike Crow’s Tuesday Night Music Club, Hysteria was not by some previously unknown artist trying to break through. Def Leppard’s previous two albums, High ‘n’ Dry (1981) and Pyromania (1983), went Double Platinum and Diamond, respectively. A No. 19 showing was not even disappointing for “Animal,” given that none of the four singles from Pyromania cracked the Top 10. It’s only a letdown when compared to what came after. “Pour Some Sugar on Me” went to No. 2 and kicked off a string of five straight singles from Hysteria that peaked no lower than No. 12, including Def Leppard’s only No. 1 hit, “Love Bites.”
Incredibly, “Pour Some Sugar on Me” was the third single from the album. “Women” was the follow-up to “Animal,” but it stalled at No. 80. While Hysteria didn’t have much momentum on the basis of its first two singles, it ended up with even more robust sales than Pyromania, with more than 12 million copies purchased in the U.S.
Phil Collins, “I Missed Again” (No. 19)
Prior to the release of his 1981 debut solo album Face Value, Collins had a fairly low profile as the lead singer and drummer for Genesis. So it was kind of a big deal that his first single, “I Missed Again,” not only cracked the Top 40 but also outcharted every Genesis single to date, other than “Misunderstanding” (No. 14). In retrospect, it’s hard to believe that “In the Air Tonight” wasn’t the first single from Face Value, given its immense popularity over the decades since its release. It’s hardly surprising that there is a huge disparity in the number of streams the two singles have received on Spotify. While “In the Air Tonight” has been streamed more than 670 million times, “I Missed Again” has just over 18 million streams.
What’s even harder to believe now is that “In the Air Tonight” was not a particularly big hit in its day. It also peaked at No. 19, and its 17-week stay on the Hot 100 was only one week longer than that of “I Missed Again.”
John Cougar, “This Time” (No. 27)
When John Mellencamp (then John Cougar) released his fourth album Nothin’ Matters and What If It Did in 1980, he was still nearly two years away from becoming a household name. He did have a Top 40 hit (“I Need a Lover”) under his belt. Nothin’ Matters and What If It Did had something to say about whether Mellencamp would be a one-hit wonder. With “This Time,” he showed that “I Need a Lover” wasn’t a fluke, but the lead single hardly had the sort of success that would foreshadow the breakthrough Mellencamp would have with American Fool.
On the other hand, “Ain’t Even Done with the Night” would prove to be a momentum-builder for Mellencamp. It went to No. 17 on the Hot 100, and Nothin’ Matters and What If It Did would eventually receive Platinum certification in 1995. While “This Time” is largely forgotten, “Ain’t Even Done with the Night” is one of Mellencamp’s 10-most streamed songs on Spotify.
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