Fuel - Gone

[pen]

According to Tunelab, this will be the second single from Angels And Devils, although it should have been the first. I fear it might be too little, too late now for Fuel. This is a great powerful song, but I think their cred at alternative has slipped too far down for them to recover.

[jvandyck87]

I agree that this should have been their first single, especially given "Falls On Me" did relatively poorly for them off 'Natural Selection.' That should have been a good indicator that they do better with their edgier stuff. I also agree that they've lost a lot of credibility, and that it may be too little too late for "Gone" to do anything. Thus, I would be tempted to say that the best choice for them would have been to release "Halos of the Sun" or "Not this time" to show that they haven't gone soft, get them back some level of credibility, and then release "Gone" as a 3rd single after having recovered somewhat. That scenario seems unlikely to work though. Basically they've screwed themselves over with "Wasted Time." Maybe they should just follow Lifehouse and become a Hot AC band or something.

[Ragin]

I never got why they lost credibility in the first place. Even though "Falls On Me" was pop-friendly, that album rocked harder than Something Like Human, at least in my opinion.

I should give them a chance without Bret, but I can't seem to bring myself to even try listening to this.

[jvandyck87]

The casual listener would be unlikely to listen to an album if they didn't like its lead single. I thought Fuel had gone soft when I heard "Falls On Me" but bought the album because of the soundtrack song earlier that year "Won't Back Down." Had I not heard that, I never would have found out that Natural selection was at least as heavy as Something Like Human. Same with Chevelle's latest outing: "Well Enough Alone" suggested that Chevelle had gotten a bit softer, or at least more boring, but with "I Get It" following it up, I had to have 'Vena Sera.' And the fact is that the album is classic Chevelle despite what the lead single suggested. "Wasted Time" if Fuel gone soft, and if they want any of their casual harder rock fans to give this a shot, they gotta come up with something with more substance, and they gotta do it right now. Anyway, my point is that the majority of music fans have no idea that Natural Selection is as heavy as it is, nor that Angels & Demons isn't as terrible as "Wasted Time" would indicate.

[American Idiot]

I'm happy with this choice since it's a good song, as I would have been satisfied with "Scars In The Making," "Not This Time," "Angels Take A Soul," or "Halos Of The Sun" too. However, I have to agree with penance here and say that no matter what they release, since "Wasted Time" didn't do well at all as a debut single by Fuel standards, I can't see any of the remaining doing any better.

[Nicholas2.0]

jvandyck87 said:

Anyway, my point is that the majority of music fans have no idea that Natural Selection is as heavy as it is.

I sure didn't know that. I assumed they'd turned themselves into a Hot AC band.

[pen]

nicholas said:

jvandyck87 said:

Anyway, my point is that the majority of music fans have no idea that Natural Selection is as heavy as it is.

I sure didn't know that. I assumed they'd turned themselves into a Hot AC band.

Seems kind of stupid to assume that though, since obviously a label is going to put out the most radio-friendly songs from an album as singles, and those likely would be some kind of Hot AC sounding song. It just seems kind of duh.

[Ragin]

nicholas said:

jvandyck87 said:

Anyway, my point is that the majority of music fans have no idea that Natural Selection is as heavy as it is.

I sure didn't know that. I assumed they'd turned themselves into a Hot AC band.

I thought I tried to tell you differently, maybe I'm thinking of someone else. Anyway, yeah, I still pick up Natural Selection and pop it in when I want something really heavy to jam to.

[jvandyck87]

penance said:

nicholas said:

I sure didn't know that. I assumed they'd turned themselves into a Hot AC band.

Seems kind of stupid to assume that though, since obviously a label is going to put out the most radio-friendly songs from an album as singles, and those likely would be some kind of Hot AC sounding song. It just seems kind of duh.

I don't think so necessarily. The label went with "Hemmorhage" (they could have gone right to "Bad Day" with that Hot AC leaning attitude) to lead off 'Something Like Human' and "Hemmorhage" wasn't a Hot AC sounding song, but rather a song that exemplified exactly what the album was all about. Same with "Shimmer" for 'Sunburn.' So then when you hear "Falls On Me" or "Wasted Time," your first reaction has to be, Fuel's gone soft. And "Shimmer" and "Hemmorhage" were pretty damn successful, and were Hot AC contenders while at the same time being pretty interesting rock songs. "Falls On Me" and "Wasted Time" just sound like they're trying to be hits, and so my point is that the label is DUMB to try to release these Hot AC sounding songs first, especially after "Falls On Me" royally flopped. In 2003, they could have basically released anything and had it go to #1 and "Falls On Me" didn't even break the top 10 if I recall. Fuel's success has been with edgier songs. Had they released "Gone" first, they'd be doing a lot better on rock, and as a result would have had a better chance to cross over to pop in spite of the song being a bit heavier than "Wasted Time" or "Falls On Me."

[pen]

You do make good points, but there are problems with that train of thought, starting with the idea that "Hemorrhage" wasn't a Hot AC type of song. On the contrary, "Hemorrhage" remains Fuel's biggest hit on the Hot AC format. Now whether that goes against the grain or not is in the eye of the beholder, but I think on the whole "Hemorrhage" does not exemplify Something Like Human in the same way "Prove" or "Empty Spaces" does. It's not a completely soft song, but it's not Fuel at their hardest either. It's middle ground. Typically, once upon a time, songs like this did a lot better at Hot AC.

The problem with considering "Falls On Me" and "Wasted Time" as soft lead singles is the fact that are actually not technically the lead singles. "Won't Back Down" was the actual first single from Natural Selection, even if people were not totally aware of it at the time, and probably the label was betting on people remembering the song. By the same token, it wasn't "Wasted Time" that Fuel debuted as the first taste of music from Angels And Devils, it was "Gone", a much harder-hitting song, probably released to ease fears that Fuel, as you say, had gone soft. It's not as if Fuel didn't keep these thoughts in mind.

Finally, just as a heads up, "Falls On Me" did fairly decently, since it went to 11 on Alternative, 9 on Active, and 52 on Hot AC. Hardly royally flopping. But you know, can you really blame Fuel for releasing songs like "Falls On Me" and "Wasted Time" as singles? If you look at Fuel's singles track record, their four biggest songs have been "Hemorrhage", "Shimmer", "Innocent", and "Falls On Me", in that order. Their heavier singles have always largely tanked in comparison. So again, it's not as if Fuel doesn't know what they're doing.

Part of the problem is that times have changed since 2000 when Something Like Human came out. I think people still largely associate Fuel more with alternative bands like Third Eye Blind and Matchbox Twenty than hard rock acts like Seether and Shinedown. And that's not so far from the truth considering the evidence. And those are the very bands that were ousted from alternative and pushed to Hot AC, so again, no small wonder Fuel is trying to play to that crowd.

[jvandyck87]

penance said:

You do make good points, but there are problems with that train of thought, starting with the idea that "Hemorrhage" wasn't a Hot AC type of song. On the contrary, "Hemorrhage" remains Fuel's biggest hit on the Hot AC format.

Oh it definitely did well at Hot AC, but it didn't sound like it was tailor-made for Hot AC, in the way that songs like "It's Been Awhile," "Kryptonite," "In The End," etc were legitimate rock songs that were able to crossover by just being highly likeable. "Wasted Time" and "Falls On Me" seem more consciously directed towards that audience, while "Gone" is more like "Hemorrhage," "Innocent," and "Shimmer" which were far more successful.

penance said:

The problem with considering "Falls On Me" and "Wasted Time" as soft lead singles is the fact that are actually not technically the lead singles.

That seems like a stretch. "Won't Back Down" was a soundtrack single that few rock stations around the country actually played that came out a good 6-9 months before 'Natural Selection' came out, with "Falls On Me" acting as the lead single leading up to the album's release. "Gone" was just a teaser, like "Deathstar" by Sevendust, "The Fad" by Chevelle, "Unthinking Majority" by Serj, "Critical Acclaim" by A7X etc. Unless you're a hardcore music fan like people on this site or a pretty intense fan of these bands, most people listening to active rock and alternative radio don't know about these songs, and judge the album based on what I'd consider that actual lead single (you know, with an official add date that's about a month or two before the release of the album).

penance said:

Finally, just as a heads up, "Falls On Me" did fairly decently, since it went to 11 on Alternative, 9 on Active, and 52 on Hot AC. Hardly royally flopping. But you know, can you really blame Fuel for releasing songs like "Falls On Me" and "Wasted Time" as singles? If you look at Fuel's singles track record, their four biggest songs have been "Hemorrhage", "Shimmer", "Innocent", and "Falls On Me", in that order. Their heavier singles have always largely tanked in comparison. So again, it's not as if Fuel doesn't know what they're doing.

That's not fairly well for a lead single following the strength of 'Something Like Human.' When "Falls On Me" was released, Fuel was probably one of the five most popular rock bands, and as I said earlier, alternative and active rock would have been pretty willing to give them a top 5 with anything a little edgier. As for the singles you mentioned that were their most successful, they are just a little bit more rock oriented than "Falls On Me" and "Wasted Time," and that's all it would have taken. I think we agree that "Gone" would have been the right choice for the first single, so I don't think there's really a point to prove. But "Gone" is more like those songs than "Wasted Time" is. I think the real problem with "Wasted Time" and "Falls On Me" are their choruses are just so cheesy. The verses sound like what you would expect from Fuel songs, but both of those choruses are WAY to Major Key, unlike "Hemorrhage," "Shimmer," and "Innocent" which were more minor key throughout. "Gone" thus would be a better choice for this reason as well. The chorus is catchy without sounding like it's trying to be. Jist like Fuel's three biggest hits.

penance said:

Part of the problem is that times have changed since 2000 when Something Like Human came out. I think people still largely associate Fuel more with alternative bands like Third Eye Blind and Matchbox Twenty than hard rock acts like Seether and Shinedown. And that's not so far from the truth considering the evidence. And those are the very bands that were ousted from alternative and pushed to Hot AC, so again, no small wonder Fuel is trying to play to that crowd.

Even though I wouldn't have seen Fuel that way if it weren't for "Falls on me" and "Wasted Time" I think you may be right. But releasing that Hot AC track as the 3rd single would have been the right move, just like they did on 'Something Like Human.' "Gone" (which probably would have been a multi-format hit) followed by "Halos" followed by "Wasted Time" probably would have given them the most success and the most credibility. The Shinedown/Seether fans and the Matchbox Twenty/Third Eye Blind fans alike would dig a song like "Gone" making it the best choice.

I think we agree on the overall idea and are just getting into technicalities at this point, but school work is boring so I'll just go into those technicalities to keep myself entertained .

[pen]

I really have nothing to say in response. Good show.

[unicorns]

Can't wait to hear this...I loooved Wasted Time.

[Nicholas2.0]

unicorns said:

Can't wait to hear this...I loooved Wasted Time.

And then saying that I louved you. Plea-ssssss-see!

[mrclimbfall20]

Sorry but Fuel is more of a Modern AC band than Hot AC since hardly any Hot AC stations play them. I kinda wished they did though since I like Fuel lol