This article offers a breakdown of the album release cycle explaining why, in the digital age, the conventional timeline for releasing and promoting an album is riddled with inefficiencies and examines how one metalcore band figured out the right way of doing it way back in 2008.
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Guest Post by Dan Wagster on LinkedIn PulseIn my previous article The Job That Steve Didn’t Finish I said Steve Jobs left a part of the disruption of the music business unfinished. By launching iTunes in 2003 with songs for download he succeeded in disrupting the Album Distribution System, cutting in half the cost to distribute new music and freeing singles from their captivity in the album.And most of the red ink you’ve been hearing about since then was from the logistics divisions of the Music Majors, as half of their volume shifted over to a cheaper and better value distribution channel. So don’t be too taken in by the music industry’s screaming foul. Imagine if drones become the delivery method for diapers, how sympathetic will you be when Proctor and Gamble starts writing-off Pampers distribution warehouses? It’s the same thing.The part Steve left undisrupted was the Album Release Cycle, which provides a continuous supply of fresh music product for distribution and the spending on promotion to pull it through. It is the label divisions of the Music Majors along with the independent labels who perform this, signing bands to multi-album contracts and using a codified series of steps to produce and promote each album.For a band to complete each Album Release Cycle takes about 18 months:Writing and Recording - the band produces a master recording of enough songs to fill a 10-song album, which can take months to complete all 10. Bands exit this stage only when all the songs for the album are done and a release date for the album has been set. Since bands are in competition with other bands for a release date they are often stuck in this stage for months after completing the album.Pre-release – With a date set for release, promotion planning begins around this single-day launch event. Spending commitments are made for radio play, advertising and in-store shelf placements. This mass media approach is really expensive because it isn’t efficient and that’s what’s behind the single-day launch event strategy. The belief is that spending around a single event caps the total amount and concentrates its effect.Album release –On the day of the album release the promotion spend begins and it peaks very quickly over a few week period. The majority of sales are pulled into the first several months, and word-of-mouth continues to produce sales for another 6 or 9 months.Touring – The band’s prior album successes factor large in the size of the tours they are booked on, as does early results of their new release which is used by tour promoters to forecast ticket sales. Bands go on tour with new songs to freshen their set list, increasing crowds and the number of performances because they can return to venues they’ve played recently.But the Album Release Cycle and its codex of practices foster inefficiencies that look senseless.
- Fans were now digitally connected to their friends causing word-of-mouth to happen exponentially fast
- What fans like most to share with their friends is new music (not new but really important)
- The band didn’t know each individual fan, but they could reach them through the internet
- Songs in digital format can be downloaded by anyone at zero cost
Six months after To Plant A Seed’s album release, bassist Andy Glass said,”Releasing that EP for free was like the best thing we ever did. Just from it being online, we have so much recognition from it and then from it being on Pure Volume, kids would download it and then it would be on torrent sites. It just spread so far, there were just under 90,000 total downloads.”Equal Vision says To Plant A Seed “was their most successful first-release of all time.” Sure, but it had nothing to do with them. The seeds for success were planted in December 2008 before Equal Vision had entered the picture, but they still got to enjoy the bountiful harvest.Maybe this was not the very first, but it was early proof that new digital forces could make band income grow faster. Taking just the lessons learned from the free download, look at how it changes the thinking about the Album Release Cycle.
- When you can grow new fans exponentially fast it makes going for album sales look short-sided
- Digitally connected fans now have super powers for promoting bands
- New songs have a new role… promotion to rapidly grow new fans
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