Plan It Or Damn It: Why Album Releases Matter

The disadvantages of being on a major label during a release outweigh the advantages. The release of an album is a process most labels spend months planning. They set up listening parties, execute direct to consumer packages, have press days in Los Angeles or New York City and have a number of mindless meetings with label executives. These are just a few of the myriad tasks major and indie label artists must go through during the album release process.

All in support of avoiding the artist and label’s ultimate fear: failure.

A failure, according to newer music industry best practices, is an album which doesn’t recoup the expenses spent on the making of the album. To avoid the artist from ever recouping expenses—enough to make a profit for themselves and not the label—the label partners with hit songwriters or producers, sometimes at exorbitant fees, all to ensure a product that is going to be socially relevant and musically inclined to the masses.

When an independent artist releases an album the process is the same but a more concentrated effort, mostly on their part with the definition of success set by the artist’s expectations. The artist functions like their own indie label handling all facets including press, manufacturing, and distribution.

Choosing A Distributor

The most important choice of an album release for an independent release is the distribution model. Distribution controls where it goes and how it is placed on digital distribution sites like iTunes, Amazon and many, many more. Artists get to decide to go with mass distribution sites like TuneCore or more catered to their needs with sites like Rocket Science or DashGo. Both offering completely different models to independent artists but equally good if worked over.

The core of my hesitation with business models like TuneCore is because they do not embrace the artist. Instead they offer the same thing to everyone and insist on charging for merely distributing music to online digital distribution outlets (something an artist can do for free!). As someone who used to work for a music management company, part of the reason I look at this and immediately take notice is because most of my daily work was looking at things that would be beneficial to the artist and to their music (a benefit of working in management versus a label). Sites like TuneCore are great and do offer a significant number of independent minded musicians the ability to put their music out there but they are missing the same ingredient as the major labels are: caring about the music.

At the the company I used to work for, I was fortunate enough to get to see and experience many different sides and perspectives of the music industry. One of those parts is getting to see how albums are released on different scales: major labels and independent artist releases. One of the things I got to work was an independent release, and for the one I worked on the plan was simple:

Manufacture x amounts of physical albums (EPs in this case) and then release digitally via distribution partners all on the same date.

We planned out the release five weeks in advance. Over the course of those weeks we worked with both companies strategically targeting different DSPs for placement and different online destinations for press and contests. When the EP was actually released, it went up without any trouble to the major DSPs (iTunes, Amazon, etc) and the minor ones as well. We even had a placement on iTunes for an independent musician who had not ever released a complete EP. The experience was a success. I think part of the success of the EP, despite it being an amazing piece of music, was because of the work put in to make sure it was placed and distributed properly. The companies we used are two of the better known online distribution companies and because of their experience with artists and music they were able to contribute greatly in making this independent release a success. The definition of success in this case was based on the recoup of expenses spent to produce and release the artist’s EP.

Results May Vary

I believe if the distribution partner had been a more generalized distribution portal instead of something which offered a service catered to the artist, the success of the initial EP sales would have been drastically different.

Sites which offer artists more services than a 24 hour iTunes turnaround offer more satisfaction to their customers enabling them to have a higher retention rate for the artist/band’s next release. What matters at the end of the day with digital distribution and album releases is really the music.

Upon an album being finished musically the artist needs to shift their focus from thinking of it as art to thinking of it as a product. If the artist created a good product they should have enough sense to want to position that product in a way that makes it easily more accessible to their fan (a.k.a. consumer) than being put on the hundredth page of iTunes buried under alternative rock section. Their choice of distribution partners or services helps them enable complete autonomy for their album release ensuring success if chosen carefully.

All of these album release business models have to remember that at the end of the day without the artist they wouldn’t have a business. Offering the same thing to everyone without the artist being able to customize their menu to the their needs, makes the blue plate distribution partners as effective for independent artists as incessant radio play does for major label artists.

The new music industry calls for artists to be at the forefront of their releases and being able to effectively market and execute distribution for their product is crucial. If the artist is ineffective at realizing their album needs a good plan for release, then they might as well put up their album on Myspace with links to their album on iTunes and pray for a few sales.

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Written by Hypebot intern Corey Crossfield (@popqueer), author of Blog It: How The Web Changed Music Criticism and Why Email For MP3 Exchanges Fail.