Should You Release Music Every Week? (Probably Not)
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- Should you release music every 1-2 weeks like Russ and Nic D? Or is 4-8 weeks better? Let's talk about!
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You're the j cole of this feud
i love this
😂🪦
😂😂😂
this is hilariously true
haha this is great.
Making music quickly can catch the vibe of the moment, I think Rick Rubin says that in his book. Also many of us have relentless standards and procrastinate, for those Nic‘s method can help. I think it can work for hip hop artists, singer songwriters, electronic music artists, probably not for advanced pop and rock.
How can we stay competitive while thousands of non-musicians are starting to spam Spotify with AI-generated crap, thus increasing the price of ads?
You just ignore all that crap and concentrate on your work. You don’t need the whole world to like your work in order to be successful, you only need a tiny percentage. Keep your eye on the ball and you will be fine.
I agree with WWM, just ignore it and focus on what you have going on. Most of the AI music people will give up when they realize how hard making it in the music industry is and they don't have the passion to push through it like us real artists do.
Also I have a feeling a lot of them won't run ads, they're just looking for a get rich quick scheme. I can't think of a worse industry to try and get rich quick than the music industry lol
@@AndrewSouthworth lol, I agree!
i actually produced a song for nic recently. it’s easier to release more often when you outsource beats but man to make every part of the song and still release once a week would be crazy 😵💫
Yeah for sure. A lot of artists don't want to outsource, but for many it can make sense if they can afford it. Most professional artists have teams helping them.
If I could I would, but I'd rather focus on quality and settle for once, and sometimes twice a month.
great vid on the 'feud' glad to hear your views
Great video Andrew appreciate the kind words and always love your videos. I appreciate that this was a thoughtful discussion of this.
Hi Jesse
Hey Jesse thanks for dropping by! Appreciate the kind words.
One of the issues is that hip-hop is so popular that a lot of its fans and artists apply their assumptions to other genres. They look at other genres and think that we don't want to increase the volume of releases because we're protecting our ego or not willing to put in the work. The issue is that while hip-hop is part of popular music it's almost a genre on to its self with its one rules and expectations. It's like comparing rock to jazz or classical. A jazz artist or an orchestra musician isn't expected to write their own material and a hip-hop artist doesn't suffer from buying beats. Imagine if the Foo Fighters said they were going to release a song a week, but that the songs are written and recorded by other musicians. It wouldn't fly! I know Nic D has some proteges that aren't hip-hop but as far as I can see they are all solo artists working in genres that allows songs to be written and recorded quickly. It doesn't mean artists from other genres can't learn from Nic D. Just understand what will work and what won't work in your genre.
important point imo. Production for rock and pop is often (not always) a lot heavier than rap and hip hop just by the sheer number of instruments & layers that need to be recorded & edited. On top of that, Nic's productions and writing are usually pretty barebones too.
Yeah the genre and brand of the band influences whether or not this strategy is even remotely viable. Some genres have much more production value and require more time in recording etc. Also, you're right that many artists simply can't outsource much because the entire point of the group is that it's the group itself doing the music.
It would be a joke for a progressive metal band to outsource the instruments, unless it's established that the band is actually 1 person then it would be expected that they outsource stuff.
@@AndrewSouthworth I sometimes think that bands / artists should be more open to outside input / collaboration (it only seems to happen when they feel creatively spent, later in their career). With the proviso that the collaborators get their proper acknowledgement. If that's what they want. Because any session musicians don't want to be in the spotlight. Maybe the influence of hip-hop on the rest of the industry will make this more acceptable. As a solo artist I make sure to highlight and promote the musicians that I work with.
I release 1 song a week for 2,5 years now - because I have fun doing it, and I wrote many songs prior without recording them. I 'll never "blow up" because that also depends on your music genre (mine is lofi experimental songwriter), who you are (I'm some old guy), how much u play live & how much time/$$$ u invest in social media (day job janitor). - don't do art for the money or fame, do it for fun and if you have to. (For 10 years I was a fulltime artist)
My issue with Nic is that he appears to me to simply not care about the music. His music ages like bubble gum. It’s cookie cutter crap, so it’s easy for him to create that stuff quickly. I had been planning an album, so I have 14 songs in the can, ready to go. I have since had a rethink on my approach and decided not to release an album. I am going to release and promote a song on the first Friday of every month. So, I have 14 months of stock and by the time I run out, I’ll have another 5 or six ready to go. Will it work? Who knows 😂
The music side is mostly just personal taste. IMO most mainstream pop music ages like bubble gum, but many people love it.
But your strategy sounds good. I would release a song every month, incorporate some waterfall releases along the way and then after releasing 10-12 singles release the full 14 song album.
@@AndrewSouthworth great idea, thanks.
Yeah as soon as I heard it and found out how he makes it, it all made sense lol
@@Adrian_Franco I know, right. 😂
The emphasis and the message on every Nic video is "look, guys. I make 3.000 dollars monthly. Be like me". When in fact he is not a musician. He paste beat loops on a DAW, put some MIDI files wirh generic chords over, some stupid nonsense rapped lyrics over and that's it. His music lacks absolutely from elements that makes from music MUSIC. Take any song that are still today evergreen (from Vivaldi to Neil Diamond, Verdi, Queen, U2, Albeniz, Led Zeppelin, Chopin, Van Halen, Bach, Beatles and you will realise what I am talking about).
Saw Jessie's video. Saw Nic's video, saw your comment on it, saw this video. I agree with you that the reality is likely more in the middle... And that Jessie's take makes more sense for more people.
Nic's songs are really short and id say they "sound like 'content'" to me. The *quality* may be there, but it doesnt sound like there's much substance, not only in terms of the lyrics, but in terms of the songs themselves sounding like... well, half finished songs.
But if that's what his audience wants, he should continue to give it to them, no? His advice is specifically for those wanting to make a LIVING out of making music. Think about it, Andrew constantly states that the goal of ad campaigns is NOT to make a profit or earn the ad money back; ad campaigns are usually for exposure...which implies you are funding the campaigns with another job...which means you aren't making a living doing music. There's plenty of ways to promo songs that aren't via constant organic content for those that just want their music heard, but that's NOT who Nic's content is targeted towards, and he's always made that explicitly clear.
yeah, blame it to Algorithm lol. 1M view per day bro
@@TrawaazRecords yeah, and he gets a lot of those numbers from driving views on his videos. His stuff is almost more engineered Tiktok content than music, and factually speaking, Tik is responsible for a lot of songs that have blown up lately
@@ariczair yup, thats one of the game today. New medium called Social Media. For indie artist its hell & heaven at the same time
Problem is that Nic D implies his advice IS good for all independent artists. Making videos titled "Spotify strategy 2024" implies that heavily. His advice needs massive caveats attached to it - but then he couldn't make clickbaity headlines. Really respect you taking a moment to try and talk sense about this but don't be too nice to Nic, the more I've looked into him the more convinced I've become that he knows these caveats but leaves them out intentionally for his own personal gain. In his response to Jesse he names 5 artists 'his way' worked for but when you look into it, none of them used 'his way' when they started - he's either lying to us or hasn't even bothered to look.
I haven't dived into it so I can't say anything about his students or case studies not being legit. But I have seen comments on his videos from people saying his strategy worked great for them so I know they exist.
As far as the titles go, I honestly think he's just playing the RUclips game like all of us are. There is no way he could make his title 'Spotify Strategy 2024 For Some Artists' or anything like that. If you want people to find your videos on RUclips you must have titles that people want to click on, and sometimes that means making the title less specific.
From what I can see his 'artists' videos where he gives advice are his smallest platform with no actual monetization outside of his book. So I don't think he's being malicious for personal gain. Maybe i'm wrong but it isn't the vibe I get.
I feel like Russ's advice is more misleading, considering he talks about his releasing music every week strategy and being independent. Without ever mentioning the fact that his most successful albums were released through a major label.
Yeah I think artists just needs to do what works for them. What works for me may not work for you and ect, I typically release music every 4 weeks so I drop one song once a month and that seems to work for me.
it's plainly IMPOSSIBLE to release a really good, finished, compelling, original, good arranged, memorable song in one week. Period. That's the reason why the streams are full of crap. The bands or artists who were able to remain along the decades needed YEARS to release an album with 10 songs. Music needs maturate, evolve, grow, to be critically analyzed, to have things like an element of surprise, dynamic, interesting harmonies, dynamic etc and this is - again - impossible to achieve in 7 days. Maybe under a state of inspiration it would be possible one or two times, but it happens not very frequently. Not to mention the time involved in making a video, mixing and mastering.
Yeah I agree. I've spent months obsessing over songs and that's just not something you can replace in 7 days.
However not all music needs to be a masterpiece for it to be loved. A lot of hip-hop, pop and EDM that people listen to can be quite basic. All that matters is the listener enjoys it. Most of these weekly tracks don't have a long lifespan though.
For the most part you'll never see other genres going for releases faster than once per month for this reason. As soon as you're tracking instruments from scratch you instantly slow down everything. Most of the weekly release artists are hip-hop artists who buy their instrumentals, so they're just writing lyrics and recording vocals.
I think you miss out on release radar if there is not 10 day + run. I have an album of out takes that am planning to release every 2 weeks, but otherwise for commercial material with potential of a strong algorithmic bump, 5 to 6 weeks.
Well I uploaded a track 5 days before release on distrokid and I was still on release radar so I am not sure about the 10+ days but I do mostly agree with you
@@MRT00N interesting. I think spotify for artists themselves said to pitch at least one week in advance for release radar inclusion. My current release "a few dollars more", first week got only 65 release radar streams, but now on the second friday alone 3497 release radar streams. From past experience these peaks can continue for 5 weeks.
thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!
I really appreciate your content Andrew. Funnily enough, to me, the debate seems completely pointless once you state the fact "it depends on whether you have the time to do it and not sacrifice quality". That's the gist of it. You're absolutely right. But to me, the boatload of value you give here is about everyone blowing up differently. And it's so true and goes back to the fact that you just have to carve out your own lane and grab the opportunities that it gives you. Thank you for this video!!
100% Thanks dude, I appreciate that!
Випускати музику щотижня або кожних 2 тижні - це просто неможливо. Неможливо, якщо ти незалежний артист і працюєш над всім один. Одні й ті самі речі не можуть працювати для всіх. Nic D може випускати музику частіше, тому що його музика технічно дуже просто зроблена, проте він практично не пише сам музику і не зводить її сам. Наприклад, я цілий рік працюю над синтвейв альбомом, де є інструментали і пісні. І в той час як всі треки вже готові, зведення всіх цих треків займає дуже багато часу в мене. Все для того, щоб досягти належного комерційного рівня. Далі я планую працювати тільки з синглами. Але зробити один крутий поп-сингл одній людині - це складно і довго. І на сингл може піти тиждень або два, або навіть місяць роботи. Відправляти трек для дистрибуції варто за 2-3 тижні до релізу. Отож, це просто неможливо - випускати справді якісну музику кожних 2 тижні. Інструментальні трека - так, можливо. Пісні - ні, це малоймовірно.
Imagine your favorite artist releasing a new song every week. First it sounds great, but later I'm going to be so tired of listening, as much as the artist would be tired of writing. It's exhausting in both ways.
Yeah personally I agree. The thing is most people won’t hear every song, so most fans likely won’t get sick of the artist. Kind of like how on social media it’s basically impossible to post too much, most people won’t see most posts.
Believe it or not, your perspective actually aligns VERY closely with Nic's lol. Maybe it wasn't explicitly clear in his response, but
1) his advice is targeted those that want to make a LIVING out of music, not those that just want to be heard, and
2) he's always said in the past to consistently post high quality content with WHATEVER frequency you can manage.
For him, that's every week because he has a team and loads of music ready, but for some people, bi-weekly or monthly releases works better. Whatever consistent frequency allows you to make a LIVING out of music
His thought process is that if you get a song to go viral, you use that momentum to build your organic audience. Then you can create content for that audience, who will support and give even more algorithmic fuel to your content. Given his current audience size, it makes sense to just throw as many darts at the dartboard and see what the social media algorithms push. For a lot of us, the goal is NOT to make a living off music -- if you're just wanting to build an audience, using a 100% organic approach probably won't work that well unless the algorithm pushes you, which isn't random but may take some time to figure out. You're right in saying that the answer for MOST people falls somewhere in the middle -- IF you can manage weekly releases with high quality content, do it. LaRusell, Russ, Nic D, etc do it. If you can't, or don't want to (it's really this for most ppl but they don't want to admit it), release less frequently.
I do and it only works if u got different genres like me
Andrew Southworth is the Kendrick Lamar of Music Industry Advice. Let the the others fight king!
hahaha thanks dude!
Currently i make synthwave & lofi music all by myself (no samples lol) so Nic’s strategy is currently best for me. Buuuuttt, i’ve been in many original rock-type bands where i would definitely lean more on Jesse’s strategy instead. It really does come down to the type of music you’re making imo.
I feel like in your style it makes sense. Lofi especially, people really crank that music out and it becomes a volume game. Listeners will put it on in the background and listen for 8 hours a day at work or something. Plus, it's pretty fast to write and record compared to a lot of other genres so it enables you to release quickly.
I know people dropping lofi albums every 2 weeks. The numbers are crazy in that genre haha.
it just depends on what you are doing and your pace and work flow. I finished 17 songs in 4 months. It seems like kinda crazy to space that out over a 17 months. Also, you can promote more than one song at once. I tired the one song a month approach, and I hate it. I have one LP that's 4 songs in a 12 month release schedule and I'm just over it. I'm already on the third album and this first album still has 8 months left to go. I don't even want to promote it anymore I'm so far past it.
Every week? Dude I’m releasing a new album everyday with Udio! /s
Yeah this advice is definitely not applicable to AI music haha. This is for people who make their music from scratch.
Great video Andrew! I think its important people know that what works for some people doesn't work for other people. I'm releasing every 2 weeks like Nick and its going well, but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone.
Every two weeks is a possibility if you are doing music that doesn't require a lot of instrumental recordings or vocals (for instance EDM, instrumental electronica, single instrument recordings, or simplistic folk songs). I wouldn't do it. Three to four months seems reasonable; faster than that seems shaky if you are a singer-songwriter or one-person operation.
Every two weeks is a possibility if you are doing music that doesn't require a lot of instrumental recordings or vocals (for instance EDM, instrumental electronica, single instrument recordings, or simplistic folk songs). I wouldn't do it. Three to four months seems reasonable faster than that seems shaky if you are a singer-songwriter or one-person operation.
Should i remove countries if they’re expensive or keep them ?
I watched both videos and think, as your video says, it depends. Mainly on genre and what level of marketing you can sustain your releases
Even the Beatles would struggle to release a great song every 4 weeks.
If they were a new artist in modern times I think they'd have no problem releasing music that fast honestly. They've gone on record saying a lot of their hit songs were written in an afternoon or a couple hours.
I bet the recording, distribution and marketing was the biggest slow down for them back in the day.
@@AndrewSouthworthBut we are talking about 5 geniuses - I included the great George Martin - and not these clowns making rap and EDM claiming they are musicians.
I used to release songs about every 5-6 weeks. My last 3 songs came out 2 weeks apart and now my career is ruined 😢
I’m guessing you didn’t watch the video? Nothing wrong with releasing every 1-2 weeks, it just doesn’t make sense for most people
@@AndrewSouthworth haha, just clowning on the headline of Jesse Cannons video. Though honestly I don’t know how you can judge whether a new single is your next hit with only 1 week to test content before moving on to the next
oh okay gotcha haha. In a lot of cases 1 week isn't enough time to know, and it definitely isn't long enough to properly run an ad campaign either. However, the people that release this fast will keep promoting songs for longer than the 1 week, they're releasing fast to find winning songs fast.
I'd imagine Nic D might post about a winning song for months if it gets results, and do a lot less content on songs that don't get momentum.
@@AndrewSouthworth yeah, he says something to that effect in his reply video. But like you say, being able to put out that much content (daily content for new songs plus new content for past “hits”) on top of the actual music is probably impossible for most of us
Love your work Andrew and this isn't directed at yourself or anyone in the comments. I've just finished reading Nic's book and thought there probably needs to be a little bit more context.
You need to understand this about Nic D - he's not your typical artist - he is an entrepreneur who wanted to make a living from music. If you don't hear the whole strategy behind the way he approached his career, the one song a week thing won't make sense. He was also well prepared to create content because he was a videographer prior to trying to build his career in music.
He produced so many songs so he had product to test in the market place. He was trying to find something his audience would like and stream which would then help him earn a living from the streaming. He was also using a numbers strategy to make more song do more of the lifting so that his stream revenue didn't rely upon 20 or less songs in his catalogue. In the end he was coming up with content ideas first and then writing the songs to fit them. That's not how most artists want to play the game.
So just keep that in mind, he's not a typical artist, he's not trying to find the kind of notoriety and success most musicians desire. He's more interested in discussing business than the art of his music. His strategy does work BUT it's not the only strategy and it's not for everyone.
Yeah I actually got his book too, just only had a chance to skim through some sections so far. That's the vibe I got too though, for him while he loves making the music it seems to not be the single most important thing like it is for most 'regular' artists.
I completely agree that once a week is way too much!
Great video!
Thank you!
I know people who release often, and listening to the music, I can tell.
what if I release tracks on every 3 weeks?
how hard do you hustle
I release every week and have been doing so again for a while. I did a 5 track beat tape every week in the past, so now doing one track a week is easy. Scheduling the tunes way in advance also has made it a lot easier, but I am doing mostly lofi so I'm not especially worried about quality of recordings, just looking for a vibe. Gonna be pairing it with a ton of content soon.
Releasing every week or 2 weeks only works when you are already have a big audience, then it get's picked up by the algorithms emmidiately
No more one eye symbolism thumbnails pls...😅 just joking with ya...luv the content
haha does only showing one eye in a thumbnail mean something?
@AndrewSouthworth illuminati 😅 but I know you didn't do it with that intent
as far as you know 🕵️
wow I only do one per year
Hahahahha