"If I Were You," Hoobastank

[tozion]

mms://66.186.0.101/allaccess/hoobifiw_alt.wma

Goes for adds on February 14.

[ffej]

God I hope it's nothing like "The Reason" it got SO annoying.

[agon666]

I hope they aim for a "Crawling In The Dark." They need this to be big on Rock in the worst way, as "Disappear" pretty much proved that, unless they could pull a miracle, they were a one-hit wonder on pop.

[tozion]

They're sending it to Hot AC and CHR/Pop almost immediately after Alternative, so I doubt it's a hard single.

[tozion]

The album's centerpiece, though, is a song called "If I Were You ... ." Robb said the tune, which may end up being the title track, was written from a couple of seemingly unrelated experiences: watching ESPN and touring with Velvet Revolver.

" 'If I Were You ...' was really inspired by, um, the NHL strike. Not like 'Oh, I'm going to write a song about hockey!' but watching all that — and going on tour with Velvet Revolver — you see all these guys who have so much and don't appreciate it," he said. "They seem to have forgotten where they came from. Actually, let me rephrase that: Four of those guys were the coolest ever, one of them is just in his own world. And I'll leave it at that."

-- VH1

[tozion]

The promo is being sent to radio stations on Wednesday.

[tozion]

You can listen to it at hoobastank.com. It sounds okay.. kind of boring, but all their singles start out kind of boring and then a couple of them have really grown on me. I think this could be a big hit just because it's the lead single.

[Punchanello]

I'll just wait until I hear it on the radio, I'm not really dying to hear a Hoobastank song.

[Krypton46]

Here's the song in its entirety.

us.video.aol.com/video.index.adp?mode=1&pls=music.artistid.513644&startid=1460071

When I first heard the 30 second clip, I wasn't exactly blown away but after hearing the whole thing, it isn't actually all that bad. It sounds like a combination of "The Reason" and "Disappear" but I mostly get a "Disappear" feeling out of this. It's not lead single material but I think it will do alright. The thing about their songs is that when they start off, all you wanna do is fall asleep but then as you get deeper and deeper into them, they finally starts to pick up and this song isn't any different.

[TotallyEnormousExtinctDinosaur]

I heard it on Sirius Hits 1 today. Nothing special at all. Pass.

[tozion]

It looks like this is going to peak around #30. BOMB!

They made a big mistake releasing all these ballads.

[moonshadow]

Dear Hoobastank,

"The Reason" was a fluke that doesn't actually represent you as a band. If you want to be relegated to WPLJ and background music on MTV's Laguna Beach, please continue what you're doing. If there's any chance at another "Crawling in the Dark," I beg of you, please reconsider the course your career is now taking.

Love,
Everyone who used to listen to you

[Punchanello]

I heard the "rock mix" last night, lol. Not that bad, I think I actually want to hear it again.