OK, so you’ve already got your best songs selected and it is enough for an Album/EP. Congratulations! Now, what is the best way to release all of this Art to satisfy your own Ego and at the same time to reach as many people as possible?
To answer this question for myself I had to make some research, ask opinion of professional Musicians and get in contact with a large music distribution company.
Read further to see if my answer reaches your expectations…
It all started from answering a question: why do I want to release something at all?
Then came definition of priority: to get bonded with as much people who care.
My Ego screams: Dima, release an album! With your Album you can tell the whole story from the beginning to the end. You can have introduction, culmination and conclusion! What can you say with one song compared to a full Album? You’re a big boy – Album, Album, Album…
OK, now I understand what I want but what do my potential listeners want?
DEEZER reported that 49% of people are listening to fewer albums in full than they were three to five years ago. Only 27% play an album the way the artist intended, others put on shuffle or listen to one-two best songs. Nielsen also reports that consumption of individual songs grows 15% faster than consumption of albums in the first half of 2019.
Good news is that there are 74% of people who want to listen to entire album after they get home from the live show or while driving back home.
Market says that people prefer to consume individual songs over the albums but many people still want albums!
What do People want?
So, I want to release an Album and my potential listeners want to listen to individual songs. Who’s voice is louder? I’ll have to step on my Ego because my Ego had already done it’s core part. It helped me write several songs that altogether make up a nice story from the beginning to the end. Now it’s time for the Ego to shut up and let the Marketer’s work done properly.
So where do we find people? On social media of course.
For me social media from top priority is: Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Everything else is not even taken into account. These are the top saturated ones and I’m not even present enough on other platforms to start with. How does social media work to gain exposure? It’s “simple”: generate high quality (!) content and post, post, post..
What are the main themes of posts: a pre-release where we say that something is coming up soon, then several behind the scenes, then an actual release story with Cover Art, then some post-release stories with more behind the scenes moments. Even if you become very productive and creative within each category (you better be), you will still end up having 5 – 15 high quality posts per release campaign, no matter if it is an album or a single. Stay optimistic but realistic.
Marketing side of things
Let’s say you release an EP with 6 songs. OK it is 15 high quality posts to tell potential audience that you did something and they should check it out. One month and you’re done.
Now, let’s say you release your EP as singles. OK it is 5 posts times 6 songs = 30 high quality posts. Spread it over two months and you’re done. And then what? Then you release your singles again but as a complete EP also! Produce some CDs, etc.
This combined approach will prologue your campaign for at least half of the month. Having more time to deliver you Art to people is also beneficial because you have more chances to attract new listeners with more posts and also keep entertained those who already follow you!
On the technical side of things I asked one big distributer about this combined approach and they said: “In this case it would be best to release an album containing all of your singles after having released and distributed your singles.” Then they also gave some hints about album covers and told me that music platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others don’t have any problems with Artists doing this whatsoever. You can even use same barcodes for individual songs within your album.
Another thing is Spotify curated playlists which are the only way to get somewhere on Spotify nowadays. When you submit your album to curators they will choose only one song. When you submit to them your album as songs one at a time and then also as an album, you get more chances to be featured.
In conclusion
So let’s wrap up an Album Vs Singles deal.
Despite the fact that we worked hard on quality of our Album, releasing it as a whole contradicts what your potential listeners want. Read more in my post where I try to resolve the fight between Music Making and Music Marketing.
On the marketing side of things we have:
Album release = 4 weeks campaign = 15 high quality posts, 1 album cover art, less chances to be featured on Spotify and less chances to reach the audience.
Singles + Album = 16 weeks campaign = 40 high quality posts, multiple album covers, more chances on Spotify and more options for audience reach.