How important are album singles nowdays?

Intro

Single releases containing songs that are part of an upcoming or already released album, are not an invention of modern times. They have existed since forever in the form of physical format. Nowadays the physical product has almost gone extinct for individual songs, yet it is almost impossible to find an album not accompanied by a lyric video or clip. Usually by the moment an album releases we have already heard three to four songs and at times this makes up for half the compositions of the record. The spoiler season also varies from a month to even years (!), like in Within Temptation’s Bleed Out. 

This tactic is not black & white from a listener’s perspective. For instance it takes away some excitement from the album’s full release and eliminates the element of surprise. Gone are the days when you blindly buy a record based on its cover, only to get caught off guard and be blown away from what comes out of your speakers. That is, unless you have strong self control and can avoid spoiling yourself (I can’t). On the contrary, music is made to be shared and heard, so why postpone the enjoyment of experiencing what your favorite band composed? Despite where you stand, we will not discuss this today, but will focus on why this practice is common, by looking at some data gathered from Spotify among other sources.  

Numbers

By browsing any album in streaming services, one can see how inconsistent streams for its songs are, with some of them being two, three, four times more popular than the rest. And most of the time, the tracks with the most exposure share something in common. That is being released as singles, accompanied by a Youtube video and posts in social media. To show some examples, in Powerwolf’s Call of the Wild, all songs stand between 2 to 4 million streams, with Beast of Gevaudan and Dancing with the Dead sitting at 13 million. Nightwish in Human Nature, see Noise and How’s the Heart at 25 & 15 million respectively, with the non-single moments dropping at 9 million. 

There are of course times like Epica’s Omega album, where people saw their favorite non-single Code of Life being absent from their setlist. After public demand it was added to later performances, but guess what. Streaming numbers for that specific song go nowhere near the singles Abyss of Time, or Skeleton Key. In fact, the four tracks made public prior to the album’s release, surpass the number of the remaining album by at least 3 to 1. They could as well release those four songs, call it a day and go out on a tour. What do these things translate to?

Impact

The answer of course is better financial support for bands. If without singles an album would stream a million times and individual songs double that number, this automatically doubles earnings. If we include the traffic this generates in the other platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Youtube), then the benefits are multiplied. It is common knowledge that the financial returns from those platforms are minimal for bands compared to their effort creating music, but when views manage to breach the threshold of millions, it can provide a much needed boost. People will say that record labels may be benefited by those earnings more than the creators themselves, and depending on the deal they have that may be true. But that means that they will more confidently support the band on their tour, promote their album more, or increase their budget the next time they go in the studio. Of course the bands also take a share of the pie. 

For other side effects, by placing certain songs (singles) in people’s attention, musicians create the backbone of their live setlist. By having those moments that everyone loves and waits for, they guarantee that their fans will have a great time, with songs even the least familiar followers will recognise. And nowadays, it is mostly those already shared songs that will find the way to the stage. 

For now, what has obviously changed, is the way an upcoming work is marketed. The structure of the albums is still there, meaning 8 to 10 songs and duration of more than 35 minutes usually. But indirectly, some artists may choose to create shorter songs to cater to the way people listen to music nowadays. It is no surprise that Avantasia’s latest album A Paranormal Evening… consists of smaller songs and the one with the bigger duration is put in the end.  It is always easier to attract attention with a 5min track than a 10min one. Exceptions apply of course, like Helloween did with Skyfall, but even that was cut in its single version.

Conclusion 

I will not hide that at times, knowing half the record before it goes public bothers me a little. But then I also think of how hard it is to be a musician and more, a Metal musician. We have seen bands splitting up because it is impossible to go on anymore. That is the reason individual releases preceding the full length, will not just go away, but increase in volume as we go. I wouldn’t conceive it as science fiction, if in the future whole records are introduced track by track till the end. On the other hand, if we do not agree with that approach, we can always ignore any spoilers and jump to the fray when the release date arrives. I am now ending the article, because my favorite band just uploaded their new single!!! 

Pavlos Pavlakis

On behalf of Metal Domain