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The Weakest Link - Lead Single - Round 11 - Printable Version

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The Weakest Link - Lead Single - Round 11 - gsmacleod - 07-10-2018

Locked in the Trunk of a Car leaves us and we now have the final three.

4 - Locked in the Trunk of a Car
5 - Little Bones
6 - Blow At High Dough
7 - It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken
8 - At Transformation
8 - Vaccination Scar
10 - In A World Possessed By The Human Mind
11 - My Music At Work
12 - In View
13 - Love is a First
14 - Small Town Bringdown

Vote for the song you believe is weakest from the lead singles and after 48 hours, we'll eliminate the song with the most votes and move on to round 12. In the event of a tie, both songs will be eliminated.

Voting will end on Thursday at 11:43am Eastern.

Happy voting,

Shane

Re: The Weakest Link - Lead Single - Round 11 - andrew sharpe - 07-10-2018

I voted for Poets but it was more or less random as these three songs are TITANS of the Hip catalogue.

Re: The Weakest Link - Lead Single - Round 11 - fingernailsonhull - 07-10-2018

So I voted not on the strength of the song, but on the strength of the single. I voted for Grace, Too. It may be that I was younger and less aware of radio play when DFN was released, but Ahead by a Century is clearly their most recognizable song. It still gets airplay not just on rock stations but on pop and adult contemporary stations too. 20 years later. And I remember hearing Poets constantly when PP came out. I'm not sure that DFN, though I think it's their strongest album, gets the same kind of radio play that those other two songs do.

Re: The Weakest Link - Lead Single - Round 11 - direwolf74 - 07-10-2018

Sorry, Grace. You're a beast of a song and arguably the greatest live concert opener in the history of rock, but you're just not as catchy or radio-friendly as the other two.

Re: The Weakest Link - Lead Single - Round 11 - Moof_Milker - 07-10-2018

Agreed. Grace is my favourite song of the three...but as a lead single, I think the others are better ambassadors of their respective albums. DFN has Nautical, which one might argue could have been a better lead single. The other two albums, not even close. These ARE the lead singles.

Random Poets related memory. Remember back in the mid-90s there was a lot of talk about the legality of women going topless in public? It was in the news a lot. I remember in either 1996 or '97 seeing the front page of the Toronto Sun (where else!) a full front page story from Trenton, Ontario about a woman who was mowing her lawn topless and the neighbours called the cops on her. Definitely a story of the times - and ripe of the raunchy Sun. Lo and behold Poets comes out a year or so later with the 'lawn cut by bare breasted women" line. I gotta believe that Gord saw that front page too.

Re: The Weakest Link - Lead Single - Round 11 - direwolf74 - 07-10-2018

Moof_Milker Wrote:Agreed. Grace is my favourite song of the three...but as a lead single, I think the others are better ambassadors of their respective albums. DFN has Nautical, which one might argue could have been a better lead single.

I think the first single from DFN should have been Inch An Hour. From a radio standpoint, it's got that classic UTH/RA style Hip sound, and likely would have stormed the charts. Chosing Grace was basically the band saying "we're not the same band anymore. We've evolved, and this album is gonna be different. You might like it. You might not. We don't give a f**k."

I like that.

Re: The Weakest Link - Lead Single - Round 11 - Moof_Milker - 07-10-2018

direwolf74 Wrote:Chosing Grace was basically the band saying "we're not the same band anymore. We've evolved, and this album is gonna be different. You might like it. You might not. We don't give a f**k."
I like that.
Love it. And I agree. There are so many factors that come into play with choosing a first single. Is it all about greatest commercial impact? I guess to the record company it is. I get that. And does a band (especially one with artistic integrity) want the single to be the best expression of their art? ...even if it isn't the most widely appealing song? To most bands, it's gotta be both. Of course, you want to showcase your best art.....but you also got bills to pay, dammit! I forget if the Barklay book touched on choosing the single from DFN. I know he wrote about the record company's confusion/frustration with the direction of the album...but I would like to hear more about the discussions regarding single choice on DFN. I like to think the band said what you said, direwolf.