All artists deal with this issue, but those at the top face millions of dollars in losses if the album leaks. So the surprise is gonna be a surprise.” A crucial reason that these megastars choose the surprise release strategy is to prevent piracy. Kanye said it best when he proclaimed, “Release dates is played out. All of these albums debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 albums with no traditional marketing strategies used for a pre-announced album release. In the past four years, notable surprise albums include Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, Rihanna’s Anti, Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly, and most recently Eminem’s Kamikaze. Since Beyonce’s success, other high-power artists have taken advantage of the surprise album release to top the charts. The success of Beyonce’s surprise release changed the way the music industry approached album promotion, or the lack thereof. The self-titled album, Beyonce, drew international praise and outsold her 2011 album’s first week sales in under 24 hours. On a Thursday night in December, she dropped the album worldwide, announcing the release with one Instagram post. In response, Beyonce decided to take a huge risk and use zero promotion for her next album. Her previous album, 4, released in 2011, had performed poorly by Beyonce’s standards, garnering the lowest sales of any of her albums. With all the promotion, the pop icon’s album sold 968,000 copies in the first week, the best opening week for a male artist since Lil’ Wayne’s Tha Carter III in 2008.Ĭoincidentally, the first time a surprise album release garnered extraordinary sales was also in 2013, by Beyonce. During the Build Up, the artist can also adjust to whom and where they will promote the album.Īll of these appearances took place during the five-week pre-order window for his upcoming album.
The team can properly manage the number of hard copy albums under production and gauge fan interest. This gives the artist and their management team a frame of reference for future album sales.
Smaller artists will often offer pre-order opportunities for fans. Artists with a few thousand listeners would never take this route because they need the promotional tools and time that a Build Up release allows. It takes a certain caliber of fame to execute successfully. The surprise release is nothing new, but it is rare. The most recent example of this strategy is Eminem’s Kamikaze album, which he released with no warning on the night of August 31st. Instead, top artists have chosen to release an album by surprise, with no warning or promotion. However, in recent years, some artists have been employing the exact opposite of what will be called the “Build Up” strategy in this article. This path allows for the maximum level of exposure and financial security, ensuring that the general public is aware of the release. It’s been implemented for decades by artists of all genres and levels of success. The traditional album release plan entails the artist dropping anticipatory singles, promoting on social media, appearing on radio and TV, and then dropping the album on the scheduled date.