Hoobastank - If I Were You

[American Idiot]

I heard the full version of this last night surprisingly at 1:45am on WOCL. I have to agree with most of what everyone else said, that its not a bad song at all. It has some harder parts in the song that I didn't notice in the clip earlier, but will surely take quite awhile to get used to.

[Mega248]

This isn't off to that great a start at all. The bullet has gone down the last two days, which isn't good considering the song goes for adds this week.

[reception]

I like it.

[jdmasta289]

I actually really liked "The Reason" when it came out, but it burned out on me rather quickly. I remember being taken away by how different it sounded.

It's poppy, but in this case, there's nothing wrong with that. In my opinion, you would lose no credibility liking a song like "If I Were You."

[Gui393]

Ugh.
This is the worst song from them.
And i was a huge fan...

[Walking Contradiction]

I just heard this last night, not knowing what it was at first. And once I realized what it was, I was pleasantly surprised - it's not nearly as boring as I would've expected based on some of the comments here.

[620 Soul Train]

This is a solid polished record or song if you will. Man if I can listen to this in the gym this really says a lot. I wouldn't listen to it again working out of course, it's way too slow! Anyway, I think that the lyrics straight to the point. They need to hurry up and get this on Itunes, for real.

[singingsparrow]

I like this more than "The Reason", but it is not nearly as immediate as "The Reason" and, frankly, the biggest problem with this track is that this is too overproduced for Alternative and will be of distaste to many Alternative listeners, while on the Pop formats it won't appear that radio-friendly.

This is going to get less than half the airplay "The Reason" got on every format, and this will significantly hurt Hoobstanl's album sales. They might be able to push this new album platinum, but I predict their new album will sell less than half of the triple-platinum "The Reason".

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton

[Chato]

Half of what The Reason got wouldn't be bad for them , that still might be enough for a top20 hit at bb. I haven't heard the album yet but I think it's too early to predict sales , maybe the pull a Nickelback on us and release an album packed with potential hit singles.

[Love Plastic Love]

I wish this were on Itunes-I want to download it for a mix cd :(
I still say its a great song

[jdmasta289]

I really hate to say this, but something tells me this entire album will flop, compared to The Reason. I think platinum may be a little optimistic here.

Even though I like this song, releasing it now seems like the wrong career choice at this point. They need something harder edged, considering they are kind of falling down the same path as 3DD.

[American Idiot]

A new track called "Born To Lead" is now up for listening to at their official website www.hoobastank.com I think its better than If I Were You, but still doesn't have that hard rock edge that I wish it had.

[The Human Strobe]

The intro to this sort of reminds of Carnival from Our Lady Peace off of the Clumsy album.

Still don't like this song much though.

[crash46]

I just can't believe that last album really sold 3 mill. Gotta beleve that 2-2½ of those 3 million were middle aged soccer moms that heard "The Reason" and anticipated an entire album full of easy listening lite rock that they could play during the commercials of The View.

[jdmasta289]

The reality is: I could spend my time criticizing this band for making poor career decisions by releasing consecutive pop-ballads. But the reality is this song is no lighter than, say, "Different" by Acceptance. In fact, it sounds very similar to that song.

Acceptance continues to be a band I really like, and a band that might have more credibility than this one at this point. But my point is, the two songs are no different. So I couldn't understand someone criticizing this song and then liking "Different". My point? Well, that's just my justification for liking this song, I guess.

[pen]

jdmasta289 said:

The reality is: I could spend my time criticizing this band for making poor career decisions by releasing consecutive pop-ballads.  But the reality is this song is no lighter than, say, "Different" by Acceptance.  In fact, it sounds very similar to that song.

Acceptance continues to be a band I really like, and a band that might have more credibility than this one at this point.  But my point is, the two songs are no different.  So I couldn't understand someone criticizing this song and then liking "Different".  My point?  Well, that's just my justification for liking this song, I guess.

Well but then you have to figure in people's expectations of a band. I mean, Hoobastank used to be a harder group, and that's what people tend to remember. Acceptance is pretty much like Jimmy Eat World in my opinion, so them releasing Different isn't all that unusual. Hoobastank going softer kind of goes against the people who liked them for their harder material. It's somewhat disappointing.

I try not to expect too much from bands, because there are groups like Papa Roach that change their sound on pretty much every album and I have to be prepared for that, but I can't say I'm not a little disappointed that Hoobastank is taking the route that they are. I fully expected "If I Were You" to be a hard song considering the inspiration, and it's not, so that's kind of a letdown.

[Callmeatomic]

HOOBASTANK If I Were You 666 666 0

lol...odd/creepy.

[jdmasta289]

As much I hate to do this, I think it's time I go ahead and slap the

FLOP

sticker on this song.

[American Idiot]

Yeah I'd agree its a flop for sure at least for a typical Hoobastank single's run. I mean right now its #39 on Alternative with a -197 in plays since last week. It stills seems kind of like a new song to me since I didn't seem to hear it much. I don't believe it went above the Top 20 on Alt., but needless to say, it didn't do very well anyway.

[Linnethia Monique]

Seems Hype Williams couldnt keep the 3-Screen Videos to just R&B and Rap artists. I just saw the video for this and well it was AIGHT. Even though I dont like Hoobastank I just watched to see if he was gonna do anything different since they are in a different genre. I like the black & white of the video.

[friday]

bigmac2098 said:

Seems Hype Williams couldnt keep the 3-Screen Videos to just R&B and Rap artists. I just saw the video for this and well it was AIGHT. Even though I dont like Hoobastank I just watched to see if he was gonna do anything different since they are in a different genre. I like the black & white of the video.

Oh god, you're telling me there's gonna be a fifth split-screen letterbox video this year? Yuck. Those videos never look good. You keep looking back and forth between the main image and the letterbox, and it just becomes tedious to keep doing it. Plus, I don't like how it doesn't adhere to the rule of thirds.

Not to mention that it's starting to feel like Hype Williams is running out of ideas now. Either that, or he's desperate to start a new hip-hop cliche.

[Nicholas2.0]

I'm not gonna dig it up, but MTV.com just had a piece on Hype that said he knows the 3-screen letterbox idea (which I'd never even fully taken notice of before) is getting played out and cliched, and claims that other directors have started stealing it from him, so he's gonna stop doing it. Although, reading about the brand new Hoobastank video having it negates my entire story. Surely that would've been the last one.

[reception]

I still like it but I had no clue what the video was about with all those images.

[Matt4319]

reception said:

I still like it but I had no clue what the video was about with all those images.

Probably some lame attempt at a political statement.

"Inside of You" is definitely better, and actually a bit different-sounding than anything I've heard from them before.