When Is The Best Time To Release An Album?
With so many moving parts in the music industry, finding the right time to release an album that works for you and your team can be a challenge. Here Amber Horsburgh breaks down some key statistics gathered during 2019 to help inform the optimal 2020 release strategy.
by Amber Horsburgh from her marvelous Deep Cuts newsletter [Subscribe here]
The release date. It is a constant tension between artists and labels, departments, vendors and team members. Production wants an evenly balanced schedule, press wants to release in a quiet period but not too quiet, the artists want to release yesterday and marketing wants to leverage the right cultural moment.
How the heck do you choose the best release date for your album?
I analyzed all the US album releases from 2019 to figure out the optimal release weeks for 2020, which can help you better plan your album campaigns.
The results were super-duper interesting.
In this piece you’ll find:
- 5 best and 5 worst dates to release an album
- How Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift have bigger impact than Christmas and July 4
- Why looking at the sun isn’t as woo-woo as it sounds
⟶ Read ‘What 2019 Album Releases Can Teach Us About 2020 Planning’ via Medium.
⟶ If you’re here for spreadsheets, here’s the raw data and analysis via Google Spreadsheets
Cultural planning
Knowing what’s going on is key to knowing when to release. E.g.: if you release your record smack bang in the middle of Coachella, will that have any implication for your audience or category?
To stay on top of that here’s two I-cannot-believe-this-is-free resources for your 2020 planning.
1) Key Entertainment and Sports Events Calendar by Shore Fire PR. The most comprehensive list of events, deadlines, awards and holidays impacting music and you can add it directly to iCal or Google Calendar.
2) Cultural Moment Encyclopedia by Brooklyn strategist, Sean Choi detailing global music, arts and etch events. He’s gone the extra mile to estimate the reach potential so you can weigh up the vale for activating at such events
Digital marketing budgets research study
Do you want to know how other digital marketers spend their budgets?
I wrote an analysis on how to spend $10K vs. $100K to promote a record, which has been my most viewed article to date.
Building off this I am going deeper on an analysis of digital marketing and advertising strategies by comparing real world marketing budgets across labels/management.
This one will only be available to those who participate in the study so if you want access to the deck, reply to this email with your recent digital marketing budgets for album campaigns.
All data and participants will be anonymized.
Spotify Co.Lab Interview
Last year I presented at Spotify’s Co.Lab conference on the first steps artists should take when they’re getting heat from labels and attention from playlisting and press. ⟶ Read a shortened interview via Spotify I was wearing my favorite shirt, a bald Britney Spears with the satan logo engraved on her forehead however, they blacked it out so we’ll see if someone has to do that frame by frame on the video when it’s posted, stay tuned.
Love,
Amber
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If you want to release an album in December, it’s better to be sure that people will like to listen to your songs on Christmas and New Year. We had something similar with a topic selection for essays. You need to choose the right topic, too. For example, reviews on the edusson.com writing service are issued before the start of the school year, when they will be relevant. There are two simple rules: choose a theme that fits or wait for the right time when your sound will be relevant.