Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own was a horrible single choice

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<< has preordered the single SYCMIOYO just so I can have 'Ave Maria' and Fast Cars. I have no opinion on them releasing it as a single as I no longer listen to the radio. Crap that it is. XM has a few decent channels :blahblah:

I can appreciate the song for what it's about, and listen to it occasionally as a sort of homage if you will, but tune wise it's not my fave.
 
I agree. I was a bit let down because after the success of Vertigo in Australia, they should have followed it up with either All Because of You, Miracle Drug or City of Blinding Lights. Instead, Sometimes debuted at #19 and was out of the top 50 in three or four weeks and then COBL debuted at #31.
 
Put it this way my friend hates U2, and loves Sometimes, to me thats a victory, so good single, if one U2 basher likes a single, it is a good one
 
Chris, I can't get your site to come up, please email me a real link, thanks.
 
Hooray, UK people, we rule. ;) Maybe they released it here because they knew we'd appreciate it? Who knows. Never did I hear anyone say it was too slow. What IS that, anyway? Nothing Compares 2U was a slow song and it was a massive hit. That's just nonsense.
 
ChrisMartini said:
Sorry, but it's way too slow to be played on the radio. I think "City Of Blinding Lights" or even "Miricle Drug" would have been a better choice. I dug the clip, but I still think it wasn't the best decision.

:eyebrow:

It was a big selling hit over here. It's one of the top radio hits of the year here. It was #1 in the UK (first time ever U2 had two #1 singles from one album). In the US it also charted on the Billboard Hot 100, meaning it was a bigger hit than ABOY, COBL (or Walk On or Elevation to go back a few years).
So why was it a horrible choice?
 
It should have gone the route of One Tree Hill and retained a special, rare gem status among U2 songs. Instead, they marched it out there as a single, and it fared poorly (in the US). It's not catchy and has no redeeming qualities as a single - it's slow, agonizingly emotional and personal, and has no real hook; the alleged climax is a barely decipherable falsetto. WHICH IS OK, as a deep cut, but not a single...

So, my :blahblah: 2 cents out there, I agree with the original poster.
 
I dont care about the the US charts and what the public buy there. Fact is, it's a superb ballad full of emotion - and I for one was over the moon when it got to no.1 over here. It restored my faith in the Singles buying public.

Until the Crazy Frog that is....:eyebrow:
 
MumblingBono said:
It should have gone the route of One Tree Hill and retained a special, rare gem status among U2 songs. Instead, they marched it out there as a single, and it fared poorly (in the US). It's not catchy and has no redeeming qualities as a single - it's slow, agonizingly emotional and personal, and has no real hook; the alleged climax is a barely decipherable falsetto. WHICH IS OK, as a deep cut, but not a single...

So, my :blahblah: 2 cents out there, I agree with the original poster.

Good points. It was way too special to be a single, a deep cut album track would suit it better.
 
I guess that's why they put it out in the UK first. The cats down there "dig it".

However, ever since the Green Day takeover in America, people need a faster radio/video hit to grab anyone's attention.
 
I've heard/been hearing Sometimes on the radio more than I remember hearing Vertigo, LAPOE, ABOY....kinda surprised me actually. I didn't really care one way or the other for the song when the CD came out (I don't dislike it, I just really can't relate to it at all like a lot of people can), but it's grown on me since I started hearing it on the radio (or maybe I'll love ANYTHING U2 after hours of total top 40 shite!).
 
ChrisMartini said:

By the way, I don't like Coldplay. At all. The only reason I even set this nickname up is to promote my Martin bashing website, I suppose.

Oh my God. :lol:

ChrisMartini said:

Oh my God. :lmao:

I agree with your original post. I like SYCMIOYO a lot, but it really wasn't single material. I think they would have done better by releasing LAPOE. That song shows that U2 still have balls AND it would have had a better chance of further attracting the teen fanbase that U2 seems so desperate to gain. Oh, and it's a hundred times better than SYCMIOYO.

Then again, U2 can do whatever the hell they want. :shrug: It's their band.
 
I have to say that if a song wasn't released as a single doesn't mean it is not good. IMO, singles are the most commercial friendly and appealing songs on the album. Their aim is to make people go and buy the album. The best songs should be left to the album so that when people get it the best songs aren't the ones that have been released. Sometimes isn't exactly appealing to all, that's not to say it's a great song, it is, but it doesn't have as much commercial value as, say, Vertigo, All Because of You and Love and Peace or Else.
 
To Chris Martini - I wouldn't recommend your site to a young kid, but you put a lot of effort into it and it's pretty funny. Loved the review of Speed of Sound. His voice goes so high on that track that I don't if his voice has broken.
 
It would have been a shame......................if a beautiful song like sometimes you can't make it on your own wouldn't have been a single..............................i don't understand why many try to bash this song
 
'Sometimes' isn't to my tastes (but my 55yr old mother loves it!) but it's hard to argue against a song that comes from a place like that. Personally, I don't think it's a 'single' song and if you can imagine it slightly reworked into something a little different, given that they have no consideration for it being a single, and put it on the album in the One Step Closer position (the middle 'bridge' song) then it has a real place, it would feel like there was more honesty in it or something. It seems like they are stretching for a big single, and falling because it's simply not what makes a big single these days, but as a U2 fan who knows the story, I really want that stories song to fit and succeed in it's rightfull environment, ie, not a single in writing, performance or goal.
 
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