 If you've watched this channel, you know I advocate that you release every song as a single and then bring them together on an album at the end of that run of singles. The fact is the algorithms of Spotify, YouTube, and other streaming services just reward it so much that you're a fool to not take advantage of that. But you probably know this, but what you probably don't know is how to look at the order you release singles in in order to capitalize on your momentum. In this video, I'm going to talk about utilizing singles to their full advantage by giving greater consideration to how you release them. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon and this is Muse Formation. So the first concept I want to talk about in this video are focus tracks. Have you ever noticed that your favorite bands will put out a first single that's not nearly as good as the rest of the singles they release in that cycle? Well, that's actually intentional. In fact, many groups today put out five singles before they drop their album and the one at the end will be what they perceive to be their strongest one. But why the hell would they do that? Doesn't that make a bad first impression? Well, actually, yes, but they see a greater good here so that makes it worth it for them to do this. First off, these focus tracks command attention from audiences who may not have been paying as close attention to them as they previously were. It often takes weeks of doing press announcements for people to realize bands they really enjoy are putting out new music. I can't count how often I see the tweet, oh shit, the band I love has a new record coming out next week. When that band has been putting out singles for 90 days and this person just didn't notice because there's so many things asking for our attention now. There's so much noise and so many things demanding attention each day that it's hard for us all to keep up with everything so this happens from time to time. But more about these focus tracks. They allow us to use a good but not your best track to show people you are back and begin converting new fans to seeing your name regularly and start to wonder why they keep seeing you pop up and check out who you are building the amount of people who are paying attention to you so that when you release your amazing single there's more eyes on you. But you say, Jesse, what does that have to do with an artist like me who has less than 10,000 fans? I thought you were talking to me. Easy. Part of why I encourage you to release a constant stream of singles is that like bigger artists you command attention. Like I said, if people see your name constantly they begin to wonder if they should know who you are and since fans look at people who employ constant sustained promotion just like we always talk about then this is going to help you get noticed. So by putting out your focus track and saving your best single for a little bit later you will hopefully have accumulated more eyes as well as Spotify followers and YouTube subscribers. Also make sure you watch the video in the card linked below on how to do that. So in practical terms you should probably employ a focus track or two before your best single since hopefully you will have more momentum by then. But you know who this goes for especially? Artists who've never put out a song before. The number one post I see on Reddit and in my email inbox is an artist who's never put out a song before wanting to submit it for Spotify playlist consideration but they want to know if their profile is going to be up on Spotify. First off realize Spotify is never going to listen to your first song when you have no momentum. But second this is exactly why you should employ a focus track. But you may say to me that you want to release that song and it's all you have but you want to get started building a fan base and all you're going to do is put out bangers because all your songs are great. Cool I totally believe you dog. But listen I have some great news for you. A common thought on the internet is songs are like toilet paper and once you've released it and you've put out another song it's absolutely useless and flushed down the drain. And while some songs are less useful than toilet paper and that at least toilet paper makes us feel something if you've released a great song and it doesn't mean it's the end of it. But let's talk about what happens if you feel like you released a gem of a song three singles ago but your fourth song is now built you up a fan base. Songs are not like toilet paper they're not useless now. So many musicians ask me if they release a song will a record label see that song is unreleasable and the answer is absolutely not. They also ask if fans won't listen if they re-release it. There's such a long history of re-releasing singles after a few months later after you've had success with another single to make them go on to mass success and that's almost as old as I am. I mean Guts and Roses released Welcome to the Jungle as a Thud but then later re-released it as part of the longest running album to ever be on the charts. The single was massively successful the second time they released it. Years ago Macklemore re-released numerous songs on his breakout record after they'd already been out and he had accumulated momentum from the songs building up after being one of the most successful R's to not be on a major label of the past decade. But obviously this was in a pre-streaming world and all you care about is those damn Spotify playlists which you could constantly write me about. Listen, re-releasing singles that gain more traction for an R's happens all the time. This literally happens every day as R's re-release their song and call it a remix. You know what that remix is half the time? A new mixer master or they added four notes of an intro or a new harmony this song or a new bridge. There's no rules here and if you believe in a song you can always push it again later. Hell in my video on Brock Hampton I talked about how they've made two videos and a remix for Sugar and they've employed it to push that song for over six months now. There's no rules here. Re-release your single if you have more momentum later and use it to blow up the playlist and get you even more momentum. Just put a new fresh coat of paint on it and put it in your pitch to playlist that the old version received so much fan love that you needed to slap this fresh coat of paint on it and give it its due. And all of a sudden that song sounds like it's actually important to listen to. See that? One small thing I wanted to discuss to piggyback off my last video I've talked a lot about is people who aren't comfortable releasing a new single every six weeks. I highly encourage you to watch that last video and think about how you release your music video. You can do more stories around your song and continue building momentum. Just don't see releasing singles more slowly as a time to sit around and create content and stories around your song. You need to keep your name steadily on people's minds and going dark for multiple weeks at a time every few weeks does the opposite of building momentum whereas releasing steady singles builds that momentum. The last thing I want to discuss is why I just talked about is you should always view your singles as a plan as it will be building up the amount of people paying attention to you as times goes on if all goes well. Take a long-term view of how you plan your singles that with each release hopefully more people will be hearing them and then there to spread the word about the next one. Each song sets up the next for greater success. Remember this only gets easier once you have tons of fans doing the work of spreading the word about you. Thanks for watching. That's it. Am I missing anything? Is there any way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you since I want to answer them so leave them in the comments. I hope you like this video and if you did please like and subscribe and get notified for my future videos since I'm going to be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're more happy with. As well I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything, playlist or con artist. Only helpful information for musicians looking to be better themselves. If you want to learn more about me, make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do head to jessecanon.com or at jessecanon.com on any of the socials. Thanks for watching. One last thing if you liked this video there's two playlists here with tons more videos that you'll probably enjoy. One's about how you promote your music and the other's about how you make songs you're happy with. Otherwise you can hit the subscribe button here to see the rest of my videos. Thanks so much for watching.