The New Release Timeline You Should Be Following

In the past year, the music industry has been flipped upside down. It seems as though there is very little about the industry that has remained stagnant since 2019, and release timelines were not excluded from the shift in the industry. Through the streaming era, the rise of TikTok, and social media setting the standard for instant gratification, the album release timeline that fans and professionals have grown accustomed to has completely shifted. While artists once announced their projects around six weeks prior to the release date, it is now difficult for marketing teams to keep their artists’ audiences engaged with the release for that long of a time period. Professionals have to be more creative and more strategic than ever before. With an overstimulation of constant new material being fed to fans– whether that be through Social Media content, merch releases, or music– it is up to artists’ teams to keep fans’ attention focused on their artist’s upcoming release. Recently, we have noticed that the fail-proof strategy has become doing all of the back work for the release– reaching out to press outlets, preparing interviews, and planning tours– yet only announcing the album no earlier than two weeks prior to release.

This is a new strategy that feels uncomfortable at first, almost as though artists are procrastinating their album announcement dates. But if you know the music industry, you know that almost nothing goes without strategic reasoning behind it. Fans have been trained to impatiently wait around two months to hear an album, with at least two lead singles building anticipation and acting as promotional tools for the album. Now, artists aren’t afraid to announce their release with a week’s notice– or even a day’s like Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore.’

To see this in action, let’s follow Olivia O’Brien’s recent release timeline:

February, 2021 - Olivia O’Brien first teased her new project in February, when she posted a TikTok allowing fans to “vote” for her next single, depending on which TikTok got the most engagement. This was an interesting technique that truly harnessed the power of TikTok in allowing fans to feel as though they were an integral part of her latest project.

April, 2021 - The single that fans voted for, “Sociopath,” was released on April 9th, and was the lead and only single for her ‘Episodes: Season 1’ Album, not yet announced at the time.

May 27, 2021 - On May 27, just over two weeks before the album was to be released, Olivia posted a teaser to the album.

June 1, 2021 - Her latest album, ‘Episodes: Season 1’ was officially announced.

June 11, 2021 - ‘Episodes: Season 1’ was released.

With only one lead single and the official album announcement coming only two weeks before its release, Olivia certainly tested out a more modern album release timeline. There were multiple advantages to this strategy. First, Olivia already engaged her fans by allowing them to pick the lead single on the album. Not only do fans like feeling as involved in artist projects as possible, but this immediately got fans invested in the album. Fans became passionate about which song they wanted as the lead single, and thus became passionate about the project as a whole. This gave O’Brien less uncertainty when releasing the album. In only releasing one single prior to the album, this also allowed O’Brien to see which songs fans were gravitating towards once the album is out, instead of placing bets on multiple singles beforehand hoping that one catches flame. 

Another way artists have set themselves up for success using this strategy is by utilizing Tik Tok to tease their upcoming releases for extended periods of time. In doing this, fans are anxiously awaiting when they can finally hear the full version of the track, and are prepared at a moment’s notice to download the song. No one does this better than Lil Nas X. Lil Nas X first teased his upcoming single “Industry Baby” in a TikTok of him getting his drivers license over 2 months ago, on May 11. Since then, Lil Nas X has used the sound in countless videos and finally announced the release date of the track– the announcement landing on Monday, July 19 for its release set for July 23. 

Most recently and perhaps most notably, Tyler the Creator gave only one week’s notice before ‘Call Me If You Get Lost,’ and Kanye West just announced ‘Donda’ to be released on Friday, July 23- less than a week after the announcement. As Trapital’s Dan Runcie pointed out, one of the primary motivations between these shorter release periods is the fact that streaming services make releases extremely accessible. “They’re no longer promoting products that customers need to travel to stores and pay $20 for. The era favors artists who can maximize the news cycle buzz of their albums without the anticipation dying down,” wrote Runcie. And it’s true– managers can spend less on marketing and form a more condensed marketing plan with the same, or even better, results. 

Do you prefer shorter album release timelines or do you appreciate the anticipation of drawn out album releases?