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The Album IS The Marketing

The thing people miss is that the album itself is so much of the marketing. I know a lot of people get really uncomfortable about that because they don't want to be thinking about marketing while they make their music.

And I always say this - it's what David Byrne, Questlove, Rick Rubin and my book are all about - you need a wall between the songwriting and the marketing. You need to think about the marketing after you do an authentic expression of yourself. You try to make your songs as powerful as you can, but you can't let them be intertwined.

The choices you make of what songs go on the album, how high quality the record is, how enjoyable it is for people - that's one of, if not the most determinative thing you can do to make that album blow up.

It's very similar to podcasts. People are like, "What do I do to make my podcast grow?" and I'm like, first and foremost, you make it a great podcast.

What Makes An Album Marketable

What's the shape of the album? What's on the album? I'm breaking this down so you can understand the different decisions that help market it. If you didn't get that section, what I'm really trying to say is that a 30-song album where a lot of people skip over tracks doesn't hit as hard as a really effective album where 18 of them hit hard.

This is why Rick Rubin does something many producers do. I have this line in my book from an interview with him: Black Sabbath came to him with 16 songs, and he goes, "Great, you have an eight song record." He likes to set aside half the material and let the other half develop further until it's actually usable.

All this stuff with the album are choices that help make it more marketable. Let's say you do vinyl bonus tracks - that can help sell vinyl more if that's your goal. If you want to push digital more and you're just putting vinyl out because your fans are 14-year-olds who won't listen to it anyway, you can do whatever you want with that.

The Album’s Definition and Purpose

The Story Around The Album

The story around the album is very important. So many people are just like "Here's a collection of songs," and that's fine. Some of the best albums ever made are just collections of songs.

The longest-running record on the Billboard charts is Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction, which took Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon's place. Appetite for Destruction is just a collection of songs. Dark Side of the Moon is a concept album - a moody piece of concept music. Both things work.

Enjoying this? Forward it to a music friend you’d like to be closer to and start a discussion!

But when you have a story, just like Charli XCX had with "here's my COVID album" or "here's how I'm feeling now," having that story creates conversations around it. It creates things for your fans to share with others when they discover you.

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