Albums vs Singles

Author

Andrew Southworth
December 18, 2023

Hey friends!

Today we’re going to talk about albums vs singles.

A lot of people aren’t sure if they should be releasing albums, or how many singles to do for an album, or if they should skip albums entirely. In this weeks newsletter i’ll be:

  • Making the case for singles

  • Making the case for doing albums

  • Telling you what I recommend

This newsletter is also available as a podcast, listen on your favorite podcast platform here.

Music Marketing Monday Podcast

Actionable music marketing advice every Monday. Narrated by Andrew Southworth.

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The Case For Singles

There are many advantages to releasing singles.

  • You’re able to release new music frequently (every 4-8 weeks)

  • You always have something new to promote

  • You can give each song the push it deserves

This means your listeners are receiving a constant stream of new material, and it’s a lot harder to forget about you. You always have something new happening so you always have something to talk about.

Since new releases happen more frequently, you’re able to iterate on the feedback you’re getting and the results you’re seeing much quicker. If you’re a newer artist you’ll be able to show your growth as you improve your music with every release.

Additionally on Spotify there are some distinct advantages to doing more singles…

  • Spotify only allows you to pitch 1 song per release

  • Spotify will only send 1 song per release to your fan’s Release Radar

The Case For Albums

Firstly I want to say that in this ‘albums’ scenario, i’m talking about either release an entire new album OR doing 2-3 singles and then releasing the entire album.

One huge advantage for albums is you’re able to construct a much deeper artistic vision. Songs will feel more cohesive and can play off of one another, since you’re able to spend the time forming this larger body of work.

Albums are exciting, if you love the artist, because you have a ton of new music to consume. As a result albums are more of a press-worthy event than singles. Making merch or touring around an album is normal, but people don’t as frequently make merch or tour for their singles.

Driving listeners to an album is likely to result in more streams per person, and fans that are able to get more invested right away because they have more new content to consume.

What I Recommend

Before I give you my recommendation, I want to point out that certain genres of music do differ. I listen to mostly metal, and prog metal is one of my favorites - this niche is still very much into albums. That doesn’t mean you have to conform, but you should consider the norms of your genre to some degree.

Let’s pretend you have 12 songs, here’s what I would do:

  • Release 9 singles, at a pace of once every 4-8 weeks

  • Release the 12 song album as the next release, and ride that for 8-12 weeks

In a perfect world if you started in January, you’d release singles every month up to September. Then, in October you’d release the album and nothing else for the rest of the year.

With this method you get to take advantage of most of the benefit for singles, while also being able to craft a larger artistic vision with several new songs. You could create the entire album first before releasing any songs if you want a more cohesive record, or you could make them one at a time.

With this release style you can give most of your songs individual marketing campaigns. When the full album comes out, you already know which songs performed best in your Facebook ad campaigns.

Don’t Copy Large Artists

Many artists assume that they should release an album right away, because their favorite artist only releases full albums or very few singles.

I just want to point out that often these large artists can do whatever they want and the release will still be successful. Taylor Swift could put out her next album on Vinyl exclusively and it would likely still crush multiple Billboard charts.

The strategies that work at certain stages of an artists career often don’t work at other stages.

New Content

In this video I show a case study where I grew an artist from zero to 2,500 monthly listeners on one song, using on Facebook ads:

In this video I show an experiment where I spent $300 on Spotify Showcase (Spotify’s new marketing tool):

Did you know you can listen to my music industry interviews on podcast platforms? Click here to listen to the Modern Music Marketing podcast.

News

Here are some music industry news highlights from the past week.

  • Souncloud is finally slightly profitable as of 2023

  • TikTok’s ‘Add to Music App’ feature expanding to 19 more countries

  • Limewire shows off their new AI music studio

  • Spotify is no longer pulling their service from Uruguay

Quote of the Week

❝

Late is just for a little while. Suck is forever.

Gabe Newell

This quote is about video games, but I think it applies nicely to music as well. While we’re all trying to crank out as much music as possible, it’s important to remember the music has to actually be good.

Don’t be a perfectionist, but don’t rush a bad song out to the world. While you can pull music from platforms, it isn’t ideal.

Whenever you’re ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:

  1. My courses. Spotify Growth Machine teaches you how to use Facebook ads to promote your music on Spotify. YouTube Growth Machine teaches you how to grow a YouTube channel organically and how to use YouTube ads. Fan Growth Machine teaches you how to build a website, online store and grow your email list.

  2. My ad agency. Forbid Media specializes in running Facebook conversion ads to promote your music on Spotify.

  3. Website / Store / Funnels. MusicFunnels is the best all-in-one platform for music artists to make a website, online store, sales funnels and build their mailing list.

  4. 1-on-1 consulting. You can book 1-hour calls with myself or my team here.

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