Blog: Lessons Of 2012: Release Dates Don't Matter (much)

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As mentioned previously, Dinosaur Planet, bizarrely, DID NOT dominate the End Of Year Lists for 2012, which I put down to one thing only: the release date got CONFUSED and people thought it came out in 2011. It's the ONLY explanation.

Like an idiot I'd agreed the release date of the album BEFORE I'd got the actual CDs made - I thought this would be FINE but it ended up being a RUDDY NIGHTMARE, as we had to have THREE attempts to get it made. I had to postpone the release TWICE, and the carefully orchestrated PRE-RELEASE CAMPAIGN just looked DAFT as things failed to materialise when promised. We did GET the CDs in 2011, and so I put them on sale via the website, but did't OFFICIALLY release it until 2012.

The whole thing was a right old mess, so the LESSON today could easily be "Don't schedule the release of an album until you actually HAVE all the copies in your HOUSE"! However, thinking about it, that was the ONLY time the release date mattered at ALL, and it's another example of what I was saying yesterday: you don't have to APE the conventional music industry anymore.

Because THAT'S where the perceived importance of Release Dates come from - traditionally you'd send out Review Copies to MAGAZINES two months ahead of release date, and to RADIO a month before, then do a SINGLE or something and go on tour in the week of release. Nowadays - as Mr D Bowie has recently demonstrated - this is a NONSENSE. You can put something online whenever you like and THEN tell people about it,so that as soon as someone reads about it or HEARS it they can BUY it. Most music writing is ONLINE now, and radio stations can happily play and MP3 5 minutes after you've emailed it to them.

Even more significantly, it looks like PHYSICAL MEDIA is on the way out too. Now, I know at this point someone will go "OOOOH VINYL! VINYL SALES! VINYL!" but aside from the thousand LOONIES who INSIST on it, pretty much everyone else is getting used to the idea of downloads. I mean, I like getting CDs as I don't TRUST downloads not to get lost, but I also realise that this is Crusty Old-Fashioned Thinking, and that the point of music is THE MUSIC, not the fetish objects you used to have to buy to get AT it.

It's all a bit scary, but also wonderfully FREEING - in future (and, if you're BRAVE enough, NOW) you'll be able to release a song, a selection of songs, a video or whatever the heck you LIKE just as soon as you're ready, without having to giving HUGE piles of CA$H to a manufacturer, ask permission of a distributor or sending begging letters to journalists in the hope they'll cover you. You won't have BOXES and BOXES and BOXES of unsold CDs anymore (hem hem) but CAN still do smaller runs of Beautiful Objects for people who really want them, which is probably the way we'll be going in the future.

The main thing I'll miss, I think, will be the regular trip to The BBC Secret Window to drop off THEIR review copies - doing that has always felt like THE moment when Promotional Campaigns REALLY got going. Pressing "send" on an email never feels quite so special!

posted 15/1/2013 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

Snap with the confusing release dates thing. We were all set for Dec 2011 due to tactics then some US person said wait till Jan so that people don't think "oh that was soooo 2011" then it all just got messy! We did our release party in December but yeah it didn't mean much date-wise.
posted 15/1/2013 by Emma SF

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