How smart a choice was MYM as first single?

[Jorge]

Did it do much for them, chartwise? Is there another song that could've done more?
Now that you've heard the whole album, would you have picked a different song?

[BurtReynolds]

I'm not sure what any single does for them if its three months ahead of release.

To me Getaway sounds the most Pearl Jammy. Seems like it would work on radio. Pendulum is probably too dark or slow.

I dunno, radio is stupid.

[Dr. Van Nostrand]

Its no where near my favorite of the album, but i still think lightning bolt would have been their best choice for a single of they were going for radio play and chart placement

[Sgt. Crackpot]

radio is stupid.

[Sgt. Crackpot]

Its no where near my favorite of the album, but i still think lightning bolt would have been their best choice for a single of they were going for radio play and chart placement

Yep, this or Yellow Moon.

[Strat]

I cant remember the last time i listened to the radio.

Truth.

[evenslow]

I think it's smart to come out of the gates with something fast(er) and hard(er), especially after Backspacer.

To these ears, Getaway is the single, but I don't think MYM was outlandish or anything.

[BurtReynolds]

I guess a single isn't all about radio any more, if at all. A youtube vid is probably more important. Still, MYM isn't at all representative of the album.

[Jorge]

I cant remember the last time i listened to the radio.

Truth.

The way I see it, a first single is more than just the first song that goes to radio from a new album. Especially with a band like Pearl Jam (who are calling their own shots, career-wise), there's a certain weight to first-single status. The song becomes some kind of emissary for a larger work, a statement.

I also wonder how we'd feel about MYM if we were just now encountering it as a mere album track.

[malice]

it wasn't a terrible choice as a single - it's reminiscent enough of harder edged pearl jam that people respond to it as a pearl jam song. that was my basic reaction to it, at least upon first hearing it - its not a great representative of the rest of the album though.

[Lament]

There's nothing that would have been a better choice. Even if you prefer Getaway or Lightning Bolt, it's not like it was going to make much of a difference in the long run.

[numbers]

The single should have been Infallible. That's not to say I dont like MYM, though.

[mastaflatch]

i think that it was a smart superficial move on their part because MYM has definitiely more teeth than anything off Backspacer yet it's quite polished. their lead singles always were some kind of statements, not necessarily representative of their respective albums and this one is no exception; it screams "PJ is back and pissed-off" and i'm pretty sure that it's the calculation the band made - Getaway would have been a better choice simply for radio airplay but (even if i think that it's an amazing little rocker) it's still very poppy, too reminescent of Backspacer and a lot of fans would have been disappointed by that similarity alone. i'm also convinced that Infallible would have been an even worse choice.

[CupidStunt]

Had it been anything else I think a lot of you would be questioning why it wasn't MYM. I think the fact that this song is 3 months older (to us) than most of the others distorts our perception significantly.

[Mine]

Had it been anything else I think a lot of you would be questioning why it wasn't MYM. I think the fact that this song is 3 months older (to us) than most of the others distorts our perception significantly.

I don't think a single choice is aimed at "us". It's an attention grabber aimed at the people who aren't more or less guaranteed to by the album.

[Sgt. Crackpot]

Had it been anything else I think a lot of you would be questioning why it wasn't MYM. I think the fact that this song is 3 months older (to us) than most of the others distorts our perception significantly.

I don't think a single choice is aimed at "us". It's an attention grabber aimed at the people who aren't more or less guaranteed to by the album.

Nailed it.

[Lament]

Don't the same 400,000 or so people just buy every Pearl Jam album at this point?

[Heathen]

Don't the same 400,000 or so people just buy every Pearl Jam album at this point?

Some of them 3 or 4 times, too.

[Sgt. Crackpot]

Nah, it's really only about 30 copies that everyone on this forum buys. Then the band makes Boom buy 399,970.

[Lament]

Don't the same 400,000 or so people just buy every Pearl Jam album at this point?

Some of them 3 or 4 times, too.

Gotta cover your bases. There may be variances in the 10C cd/10C vinyl/10C DL/retail cd/retail vinyl/amazon DL/iTunes standard DL/Mastered for iTunes DL/cassette specially mastered for chud's car/etc. YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS OUT.