BLOG 27 – RELEASE PREPARATION

When deciding the track names with Connor, we noticed that all of the tracks were love themed, and we decided that this could be used successfully to tell a story through the music!

Below is the track names that we have come up with and in the order that is best suited:

When deciding on this track order, we did some initial research to inform our decision. This is something called album sequencing as highlighted by Hahn (2018) who suggests to consider a variety of areas such as ‘silence between songs’ and ‘fade-ins and outs between tracks’ when putting the tracks together, like a playlist. Hahn (2018) also further suggests to consider these three areas (adapted with my songs):

1. ‘Start Strong’ – Track that will grab attention into the EP > I Need You In My Life (AKUA REMIX)

2. Will I release some as singles? > Lies and Να Μην Σ’εχω (I Won’t Have You)

3. Telling a story through the tracks > Each track order tells a story through love:

> I Need You In My Life (AKUA REMIX) – Really wanting that person in their life

>Lies – Finally have them, in a relationship but they have told lies

>Time To Let You Go – Lies have led to wanting to not wanting to be with them

>I Won’t Have You – Final decision – deciding they won’t have them back

I mainly wanted to do this because it creates something more interesting to each track and the overall presentation of the EP. This is something done by other artists, for example, Marina and the release of her ‘Love and Fear’ album where different song narratives are put into either the love side of her album or the fear side, something she has promoted through Twitter –

Figure 27.0. – Marina Track List Promotion Tweet

Figure 27.1. – My Tweet Track List Promotion

Why Extended Play Title on EP COVER?

The reason as to why I have left the Extended Play as the title of my EP, is mainly because I feel like this title is somewhat straight to the point. Many artists today call their albums or EP’s something simple. For example Charlie Puth has titles his album ‘Voice Notes’ (2018) due to creating voice notes. This was also done similarly by Drakes recently released album called ‘Dark Lane Demo Tapes’ suggesting that they are demo songs. This is something I also wanted to initiate with my EP and being straight to the point, especially as it is my first EP created.

Figure 27.2. – Charlie Puth VoiceNotes Album

Figure 27.3. – Drake Dark Lane Demo Tapes Album

TARGET AUDIENCE:

Throughout the process of creating this EP project as a whole, I wanted to consider the target audience for this project in order to shape the project in such a way to maximise its appeal to it. My main aim from the release of this project through social media, is to mainly gain appeal to a wider audience not just through English Pop, but also to a expanded audience through Greek Pop. Moylan (p.80) states that ‘the target audience for a piece of music is often determined to help focus a project and to seek a way of predicting the success of the music in communicating its message’.

Chertkow (n.d.) also further suggests that creating and posting material will help to promote the album and release which can be done through posters. However, I have done this by posting on Instagram a ‘sneak peak’ of whats to be posted. This is something that many artists do before posting the final EP/Album in order to promote their music and gain attention. I have also tagged each collaboration AKUA (Connor) and ScribbleStache (Alex) to promote their work and collaboration –

Figure 27.4. – Instagram Promotion

OTHER PLATFORMS TO CONSIDER

Figure 28.4. demonstrates the thought process of which platform I will be sharing and promoting my EP on. Although I have considered YouTube for music, something that has become quite a recent feature on YouTube for artists where you can ‘connect with fans in unique ways’ (YouTube, n.d.), I believe that this is something I can consider in the future if I were to further promote the tracks with music videos (something I did consider at the start of this project). The social media platforms that I will be using are also free for artists to use and promote their work on with no cost.

Figure 27.5. – Platform Decision

Given that I have considered other streaming services like Spotify and Apple music, because this is a the first EP that I have created, I believe that this EP is more of a promotion to gain popularity and bigger fan base rather than to earn money. This was also discussed with Connor who suggests that this project can be used primarily as a promotional tool to gain follower for both our music or upcoming projects in future.

Spotify:

Spotify is a popular platform where artists are able to upload their own music with ‘forty thousand tracks per day is the equivalent of 280,000 songs a week, or around 1.2 million tracks per calendar month’ (Ingham, 2019). However, although it is free to upload music to Spotify, there would be a charge through the music distributor (Promoly, n.d.), Spotify did attempt a feature called ‘Beta Program’ where independent artists were able to upload their music directly to Spotify, but was dismissed of during July 2019 (Spotify for Artists, 2019). Spotify FAQ (n.d.) also states: ‘To get your music on Spotify, you need to work with a distributor, or with a record label who already has a distributor’.

This can be resolved in future by signing up to a distributor and paying a price to upload my music like DISTROKID (n.d.) who charge $19.99 for a years worth of music that can be uploaded directly to Spotify (see figure 28.4.).

Figure 27.6. – Spotify Distributor

Apple Music:

Apple music for artists also charges for artist profiles and music uploaded. Apple music requires artists to have a subscription, however, they do offer some free trials (McCauley, 2019). Obas (2019, p.11), states that ‘it pays artists about $0.008 per stream, and it’s the second globally used music streaming platform’. This is also something to consider in the future when releasing my own personal made music or again if I were to collaborate with other artists.

Reference List:

Amazon. (n.d.). Charlie Puth Voicenotes. Available at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Voicenotes-Charlie-Puth/dp/B0766CKWJ5 [Accessed May 6th, 2020].

Hahn, M. (2018). Album Sequencing: How to Give Your Releases Perfect Flow. Available at: https://blog.landr.com/album-sequencing/ [Accessed 29th April, 2020].

Chertkow, R. (n.d.). Planning Your Album from Beginning to End. Available at: https://www.ranchstudio.com/otherstuff/PlanningYourAlbum.pdf [Accessed 29th April, 2020].

DISTROKID. (n.d.). The easiest way for musicians to get music into Spotify. Available at: https://distrokid.com/spotify/?utm_source=s4aDirectory [Accessed May 6th, 2020].

Moylan, W. (2007). Understanding and Crafting the Mix: The Art of Recording. Burlington: Taylor & Francis.

Ingham, T. (2019). NEARLY 40,000 TRACKS ARE NOW BEING ADDED TO SPOTIFY EVERY SINGLE DAY. Available at: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/nearly-40000-tracks-are-now-being-added-to-spotify-every-single-day/ [Accessed May 6th, 2020].

Promoly. (n.d.). How to Upload Your Music to Spotify? The Pros and Cons for Musicians. Available at: https://promo.ly/should-you-upload-music-to-spotify-the-pros-and-cons-for-musicians/ [Accessed 6th May, 2020].

Spotify for Artists. (2019). We’re Closing the Upload Beta Program. Here’s What Artists Need to Know. Available at: https://artists.spotify.com/blog/we%27re-closing-the-upload-beta-program [Accessed May 6th , 2020].

Spotify for Artists. (n.d.). FAQ. Available at: https://artists.spotify.com/faq/access?ref=claimflow#how-do-i-claim-my-artist-profile-before-my-first-release-goes-live [Accessed May 6th, 2020].

McCauley, S. (2019). Apple Music For Artists: New Analytics Tools For Fans. Available at: https://www.octiive.com/blog/apple-music-for-artists [Accessed May 6th, 2020].

Obas, A. (2019). Volume 1: Shifting Your Music Into A Career– A Guide For Independent Artists To Be Full Time Artists. Lulu.com.

YouTube for Artists. (n.d.). Available at: https://artists.youtube.com/ [Accessed May 6th, 2020].