what's up guys it's tom welcome back to the lab
welcome back to another video welcome back to
my life now today i want to talk to you all about
why you should be releasing singles for your release cycle instead of eps
or full length albums now before we get into it i want to remind you all to
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on in today's musical landscape the best way to go
about releasing your content is on a single by single basis
before we get into why that is let's talk about
what the definitions of a single versus an ep
versus an album are according to distribution platform amuse
a single is defined as one to three songs
with all three songs each being less than 10 minutes in length
if one of the tracks is over 10 minutes in length it is pushed into the status
of being an ep an ep is defined as 4 to 6
songs with the entire accumulated run time of those songs being less than 30
minutes anything 7 songs or more or 30 minutes
or more is defined as an album similarly but a
little bit different lander the mastering service defines a
single as one to three songs with each song being less than 10
minutes it defines an ep is one to three songs with one of the
songs being over 10 minutes or an ep is four to six
songs with total running time of less than 30 minutes and then an
album is six or more songs with a total running time of 30 minutes
or more and in digging into spotify's information spotify seems to simply say
that an ep is up to six songs in less than 30 minutes
and an album is six or more songs at more than 30 minutes
the main bullet point is if you have over 30 minutes of run time and six or
more songs it's an album less than that it's an ep
seems to be the definitions of a single are each song is less than
10 minutes in length and only up to three songs but for the purpose of this
video we are going to describe a single as one
song so when i say you should be releasing singles
i mean you should be releasing one song at a time
there are a few different reasons why this is the case
number one and the biggest reason is that it simply gives you more
shots at the net the more songs you release consistently the more
opportunities you have to win over a fan base the main key here
is consistency if you are trying to start from zero and grow a following
grow a fan base grow a group of listeners you
want to be consistently releasing good music on a regular basis i would
argue that at least once a quarter if you can
get that down to every six weeks that's ideal anything more frequently
than every six weeks is probably going to be over saturating your market and
you don't want to lean too far in that direction either so
the sweet spot is about every six weeks but definitely be putting out
one song at least once every three months the next reason
that this is such a big deal is that if you release multiple songs at a time and
you don't have a listenership you don't have
fans you don't have a body of people who are excited about your next
piece of work that you put out most of the songs on that release are probably
gonna get lost in the ether let me explain what i mean say you put
out a three song ep and say the the second track on that ep
is absolute fire but the first track is meh and the
third track is meh well if somebody starts the top of that ep and listens to
30 seconds of the first song and they go ah it's okay
they likely may never get to the second song that's amazing
because you have already given them a mediocre song out of the gate with the
first one so it would be better if you would
release that first one on its own give them the opportunity to go ah not
my thing hit them again with the second song six weeks later and
they may go hey i think i recognize the name i'm
going to listen to this song wow this song's amazing and then they might go
back and listen to the first song you put out and go hey i remember this song
it's okay but they're going to listen to it
again because they fell in love with the other song that you followed it up with
and on top of all of that what you have to remember is that you
can keep hitting the same audience or similar audience with new
material and just because they don't grab onto the first thing you put out
doesn't mean they won't grab on to the second third fourth fifth or
sixth you have to give them multiple opportunities
to come into your world because we have to remember that at the end of the day
releasing music putting out music on spotify and all these other platforms
this is a top of the sales funnel fan acquisition starting point a lot of
people i used to do this make the mistake of
thinking that your music is the end product and
the final goal at the very bottom once you've grabbed
somebody and they're listening to your music they're
in your network and that's not true your music is just the billboard on the side
of the highway that helps them to recognize your brand
after that it is incumbent upon you to give them a
reason to stay in the form of new music merchandise
shows other content all across the board
there's opportunity to bring them further and further into your network
but getting them to listen to the first song they hear from you on spotify
is the very very top first introduction point that you are giving them
and i would argue that you need to do this releasing single by single by
single for several years until you build a fan
base that is big enough and that is hungry enough for you to
release a lot of music at once and only then
once you have proven that you have a fan base that is hungry
for consistent music from you should you consider
releasing a full-length album or even an ep so what's the takeaway the
takeaway is don't really worry about what the
definition of an ep or an album is for now you need to focus on releasing
consistent good music on a regular basis the ideal
version of that being every six weeks but at least every three months over and
over and over again until you have built a solid fan base
and that is the way that you are going to get to the point
that you can start releasing albums and they will pay dividends
for you so that's it for this video i appreciate you watching thanks for being
here if you dig it hit the like button share
it with your friends and hit me in the comments if you have
any thoughts on what i've just talked about thanks for
being here i'll catch you on the next one peace
you