I am wondering more and more if they led with BTIKM so that it would be an inoffensive, US radio friendly, easily performable re-introduction to Adam and that they are really gonna start to push hard when they drop the supposedly massive Cuckoo right before album drop and then blitz the shit out of it???
I mean I am sure they would want BTIKM to be a hit, but maybe that's not super important to them because they know they have an arsenal of AMAZING songs waiting to go and that's what the reviewers who mentioned *soft opening* and *RCA must be really confident in the material to lead with this song* are going on about?
Just thinking....
Yeah, my thinking about BTIKM is similar. I know Q3 thinks it's the money (HAC-type songs sell more albums, while Top 40 songs sell more singles and they want to push the album). The money may be a part of it, too, but Adam wants to be a Top 40 artist. It would make no sense to jeopardize his entire era just for some extra albums sold. (or maybe I just have too much faith in labels...)
I do think that they need to push for BTIKM to be at least a moderate hit, at least on HAC, because otherwise you get a perception that OMGthisisafailedera and then nobody wants to associate with it (see Aguilera's last album). My thinking is they are going with BTIKM for a Kelly Clarkson-type opening, where the stronger song was clearly Stronger (no pun intended haha), but they opened with MKIA so that the era builds up, and not down.
That being said, it will be interesting for me to see what single they choose after BTIKM. It would make sense, TBH, to go with Trespassing first, and then Cuckoo. Put Trespassing out while the album drops. This gives it the most name recognition (if you have a song on radio of the same name, it's clear this is the name of the album). This is what they did with Kelly (Stronger) and also this is what KP did with Teenage Dream. The Teenage Dream comparison is interesting, because Firework was only the THIRD release of that album, even though many think it is the BEST song of the album and definitely smashed all over.
So, for me, IDEAL situation would be:
1. BTIKM. Goes Top 5 on HAC and Top 15-Top 10 on Top 40.
2. Trespassing. Goes Top 5 on Top 40 and something like Top 10 on HAC.
3. Cuckoo. Goes number 1 all over the place and it's the song of the summer.
4. Shady/other. Does pretty well too.
Now, all of this also depends on how long it takes songs to build on radio. If BTIKM is an impossibly slow builder, whatever they release next will need to be the song of the summer, so my model goes down. ETA: It also depends how strong of a song Trespassing is. If it can't make it to Top 5, I agree, it shouldn't be the second release, because it jeopardizes the era too much. Just put Cuckoo out and smash.
Dunno, I'm just hoping things will work out. Ok, I'm out.
