How to market an album

Consider this to be something of a companion piece to the previous post. The newest Jack White album, titled No Name, almost did not arrive at all. With its original release being as a handful of sneaky, unlabelled vinyls snuck into Third Man Records customers’ orders, it was never clear at first if it was ever going to be traditionally released, either widespread physically or through DSPs. This was left even further up in the air when he seemingly encouraged fans to pirate the album in lieu of getting their hands on a copy, on his Instagram story where White shared an image of the record with the caption “rip it.” Suffice to say, it was looking bleak for a release. But the way it was released, and the absolute lack of marketing at all for it, intrigued me so much that I heeded the man’s advice, hopped onto Soulseek, and downloaded it myself. An album that flew directly away from how you are supposed to market an album drew me in probably more than almost any other marketing in the last couple years. No singles, nothing trending on social media, nothing that was getting any airtime on the radio. Just some mystic appeal from one of the greatest guitar players of all time, and I was hooked. Suffice to say, this album absolutely rips, but that is not the focus of today; with its release on streaming this past Friday, surely you have listened by now, or at least read your fair share of reviews. Instead, I wanted to look at some of the other fun and creative ways that artists have marketed and released their albums in the past. 

One of the most notable ways to release an album, outside of the conventional means, is through pay-what-you-can (PWYC) means. Now known mostly as the backbone for the streaming service Bandcamp, as well as the primary way to get into most local rock shows, the first album that usually pops into someone’s mind for this method is Radiohead’s In Rainbows. Newly released from their record deal following their 2003 album Hail to the Thief, they announced it a few days prior and put it up on a new website under the same name as the album, where it could be pre-ordered for as little as $0. This was noted as being innovative at the time, as it had not frequently been used in the past in regards to music. However, even earlier than this, veteran punk rocker Jeff Rosenstock founded Quote Unquote Records, which he has dubbed to be “The First Ever Donation Based Record Label.” Every release on that label, beginning with Bomb the Music Industry’s debut Album Minus Band, has been released under the PWYC model.

We have looked at a couple of methods that have worked successfully, but what has not been so helpful in promoting an album? In 2011, The Flaming Lips released a new EP, in a limited quantity of 500, inside… a candy skull. In order to make your way to the four-track release, you had to eat your way through the head of the beast. Cool in theory, and maybe a fun fact to drop on some of your more indie-adjacent fans, but not really something that would make me go out of the way to try and hear the album. Famed Irish rock band U2 had their 2014 album, Songs of Innocence, was pretty much air-dropped onto hundreds of millions of iPhone users’ devices, leading to a massive amount of scrutiny and also some pretty middling reviews. Similarly, Jay-Z also had his 2013 album, Magna Carta Holy Grail, appear for free on the first one million people who downloaded it on a series of Samsung phones. Funnily enough, the vinyl distribution of this album was later handled by Third Man Records, Jack White’s record label. 

And now onto some of the weird and wholly unique ones. While nowadays this would not be seen as the most interesting or innovative release, back in 2007 Nine Inch Nails released an alternate reality game to accompany their album Year Zero, which ran from before the album’s release to shortly after. It was fairly well received, earning two Webby Awards for the game studio 42 Entertainment, but has not seen much recognition in the years since. Now-disgraced Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire made a couple different attempts at weird promotion, first by releasing some odd street art in support of their 2013 album Reflektor, and then by posting a fake review of their 2017 album Everything Now from a parody of the website Stereogum. Hard to say if these ever really worked, as they were not successful enough to have become notable all these years later. And of course, we cannot speak on odd album releases without mentioning the man himself, Richard D. James, famously known under his stage name Aphex Twin. The man who launched a blimp over London with a logo and a year, the man who went to the dark web to announce his album on a Tor-only website. What the fuck was he thinking doing all of this, and how did it work? He really seems to know his fanbase, I guess.

And finally, this takes me to my favourite way to release an album: just a good ol’ surprise release. You can never go wrong with this, so long as you have a fanbase that will notice when it gets released. While far from some of my favourite albums, two of the most notable surprise releases ever come from Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, for their albums Beyoncé and Folklore, respectively. Not my go-to listens by any means, but these two were absolutely massive upon their release and took the world by storm. Taylor Swift would go on to use this method again in the future, first for extra tracks following the release of Midnights, and then for the release of The Anthology hours after the release of The Tortured Poets Department. Eminem went for the same approach as well, in 2020 for Music to be Murdered By, but it was such a mediocre album that I completely forgot it was even released in this manner. In a sneaky little twist, Frank Ocean used the surprise release of Endless in 2016 just as a way to get out of his record deal with Def Jam, so he could independently release Blonde merely a day later. Surprise releases aren’t just for the fans, after all. People tend to credit the previously mentioned In Rainbows as the first-ever surprise album, which I find stupid as it was announced a bit more than a week before the official release. While most definitely short notice, if we are just counting the surprise of the announcement, then any album can be put onto this list. Using the surprise release just to deceive was also common at times; the release date for Watch the Throne by Kanye West and Jay-Z was frequently advertised falsely just to get ahead of any leaks (Jay-Z seems to really enjoy weird releases, huh?). And to return to Ocean, in an attempt to get ahead of leaks as well, he released his debut album Channel Orange a week earlier than its announced release date.

There’s no definitive way to release an album. While a good number of artists still go for the typical route of releasing singles, touring in support, and making interview appearances to drum up excitement, numerous examples from above help to prove that it isn’t the only way to go. While the methods above aren’t foolproof, and are sometimes bound to fail or be subject to criticism, how does that differ at all from the release of an album in general? You never know if something will be successful until it is. So why not try something new for once?