Did the UYIs suffer from poor single choices?

[Vincent Vega]

I mean in what world did Axl/GN'R/the record label think songs like "The Garden", "Garden of Eden", "Estranged", "Yesterdays" and "Dead Horse"were single material? Yesterdays of those is the only single I can get, looking for a cross over sort of hit....But what of the others?

I'd think it would've made much more sense to have released songs like "Dust N' Bones", "Bad Obsession" "Right Next Door to Hell", "Don't Damn Me", "Pretty Tied Up", "Bad Apples" as singles. How could anyone have envisioned Estranged as a single?

[volcano62]

Garden of Eden was a bad ass single and video

[TombRaider]

Garden of Eden was a weird single choice, I agree. It's a fun video and song. But it's kind of WTF is you're not into the band.

Edited July 3, 2013 by TombRaider

[EvH]

I agree with the OP, but Civil War, YCBM, LALD, KOHD were the big guns, commercially speaking. They were the obvious choices, and they surely helped the UYIs when released as singles.

[Apollo]

I mean in what world did Axl/GN'R/the record label think songs like "The Garden", "Garden of Eden", "Estranged", "Yesterdays" and "Dead Horse"were single material? Yesterdays of those is the only single I can get, looking for a cross over sort of hit....But what of the others?

I'd think it would've made much more sense to have released songs like "Dust N' Bones", "Bad Obsession" "Right Next Door to Hell", "Don't Damn Me", "Pretty Tied Up", "Bad Apples" as singles. How could anyone have envisioned Estranged as a single?

I respectfully disagree! You listed songs that I never listen to. IMO, Dust N bones, Bad Obsession and Bad Apples would have been horrible choices. Some of the worst songs on those two albums.

And wasn't estranged released a couple years after the albums dropped? And Garden/Garden of Eden were fun songs!

[phaeryen]

You can kind of not care about any other singles when you got November Rain there, one of the very biggest and decade defining singles there to carry the weak chaff.

[DieselDaisy]

Some of those songs were not singles though. They were just videos.

Yesterdays bombed at #72 in the charts.

[shotgunblues1978]

The albums had four songs that hit the top 4 on either the rock or pop charts, so I don't think that was really a problem. Don't Cry, YCBM and November Rain were all big hit songs, with Civil War not far behind; Yesterdays, LALD and KOHD also got decent airplay.

The Garden, Garden of Eden, Dead Horse and Estranged were not official singles were they? Maybe I'm wrong. I know they had videos but I don't think they were actually released as singles.

Bottom line though, the singles from the UYI albums did very well. And the songs with legitimate hit potential were basically all released as singles (and did well, in most cases).

[T.wa.T]

Knockin and Cival War were already out as singles prior to UYI's being released. Knockin had the video from the Ritz, that Mtv always played.

Keep in mind that back then, Mtv and videos were real popular, so GnR having epic songs like Estranged and November Rain and Dont Cry, only made sense. The Yesterdays and Garden of Eden videos are cool but I don't think they got much radio play.As for the Garden, Dead Horse etc..I think Seattle had begun to take hold and Mtv was going through format changes. The big epic videos were fading quick. I think that was around the time when Yestetdays and Garden of Eden came out, cuz they were alittle bit stripped down. I could be wrong about that though.

Even so though, GnR was aware of the change because their videos became more artsie, dare I say. I'm talking about the Garden and Since I Don't Have You. Or the last say, four videos they did, if I remember right.