The album format is a beautiful, holistic approach, yet there are various reasons to release new music track by track. To give you some input on this matter, we gathered some solid reasons why this release strategy makes a lot of sense. Check it out:
1) Crowded release space / limited attention
Gaining some attention on release friday is hard enough, considering the amount of new music constantly being pushed out into the streaming sphere.
By narrowing down your release to a single track and repeating that with a strong frequency – for example monthly – you’ll elevate your chances of getting heard.
Hitting it big with a strong album is a great task, but also very risky in the current fight for attention. So, split up your release and and try to get some attention for nearly every piece of it!
2) Distributed leverage
The great thing about leverage – you can make a lot of buzz with a single release.
The problem – if you don’t, then you wasted a bunch of time and ressources on something that will drop off of the radar very soon.
By distributing your ressources and media leverage across a wide variety of tracks, less risk is set on one release and poor performance can be absorbed by the success of another.
Think about distributing your leverage!
3) Playlist reserve
Streaming services like Spotify are alle about fresh musical content.
By releasing an entire album in one instance, you minimize your chances of getting several tracks playlisted. Its common that you can only pitch 1-2 tracks pitched at a time.
By not giving away all of your ammunition, you reserve a great deal of fresh music for future releases.
4) Narrative development
Throwing out an album is like laying down a blueprint of everything you worked on. This can be great and entirely reasonable, especially if the album is a conceptual work of art.
Chances are high, though, that you’ll loose some of the mystique of building a strong narrative around your artist brand
Releasing music track for track let’s you control the pieces in play – to an extent.
5) Creative peripheral development (visuals, videos etc.)
The whole creative periphery, like visuals and videos, can hugely benefit by a single-track strategy.
Releasing videos alongside fresh tracks will always boost the way these videos gain attention. If you create a video for a several month old track, it might only generate a fraction of that momentum.
6) Selective release partners
Some release partners in media or streaming will merely jump if they are presented new music.
By keeping it track by track, you elevate your chances of working with very selective release partners.
7) Sense of acceleration
Publishing songs in a regular frequency builds and maintains a sense of acceleration surrounding your project. Dropping an album, on the other hand, CAN cause a great stirr and boost – but also a long period of waiting.
Especially if a release runs below expectations, be it a single track, the next release can conjure the reaction you were hoping for!
8) Creative adjustment
Releasing track-by-track let’s you adjust certain creative paramters.
Working on music, releasing it and getting some valuable feedback can be a fluid process in this case.
You’ll be able to really work out the definite strengths and identify hot-spots within your production.
9) Flexible strategy testing
Similar to the create adjustment, you’ll also be able to undertake some important strategy adjustments.
By keeping your strategy flexible and always connected to a single release, you’ll learn from that and carry it into the next one.
This way you’ll gain a creative but also business learning curve, with constant ups and lows and possibilities of improvement.
10) Lighthearted workmode
Working track-by-track will keep your workmode lighthearted. This is incredibly important, especially considering the competetive nature of your environment.
The whole process will stay up-beat and viby if you limit the amount of stress connected to a single release. Try it out!
We are about to launch an analytics platform that will show you the true potential of your tunes. Be among the first to get your hands on the ForTunes app: Head to ForTunes.io and leave your e-mail address or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
2 join the family and show some love for this!