Do Emerging Artistes Really Need To Release Their Music on Fridays?

Before you schedule your music for a Friday release, make sure you have measured the odds and gathered all the necessary momentum. | Emerging artiste guide to music release day.

In recent times, Fridays seem to be one of the most anticipated days of the week. The clubs bang the hardest on Fridays, the weekend is ushered in on Fridays, most importantly, a ton of new music is released on Friday. Some of the most heavily anticipated Albums, singles, EPs are released on Fridays.

Wikipedia explains "Global Release Day (alternatively known as New Music Fridays) is a set international day for releasing of music singles and albums. The new global release day went into effect on 10 July 2015 in more than 45 major recorded music markets worldwide with new music being released on a Friday as part of 'New Music Fridays'.

This move was made majorly to clamp down on music piracy around the world. Shanna Jane, the director of brand strategy at Stem. explains that; "Tuesdays were always the release day for the United States, but other countries released music on Mondays, and others on Fridays," "This meant that someone in a country with a Monday release day could purchase something the day it was available to them and upload it to a piracy site. Fans in other countries could pirate that upload for free while they were waiting for their country’s release day, no longer requiring them to purchase it when it came out officially in their region."

Let's take, for example, if a Jay-Z album was to be released on Monday in the US, the album may not be available in countries in Africa or Asia at the time it was released, someone in a country where the album was available on Monday can purchase it and make it available for fans to listen or download before the album would be available in their countries.

Before the streaming era, music piracy was a major concern, the RIAA reports "The U.S. economy loses $12.5 billion in total output annually as a consequence of music piracy". However, piracy's real effects on music sales are difficult to correctly evaluate. This brought about the need for a global release day, where an album will be available worldwide on release.

While music piracy is no more a major concern, the rise and popularity of streaming platforms create another conversation, does new music need to be released on Fridays? The answer to this question boils down to three major reasons which are chart placements, streaming supports, and playlisting.

Eric Skelton explains that "Releasing on a Friday gives popular artists the best chance to maximize their chart potential. Also, Billboard tracks sales from Friday to Thursday each week, so a song or album released on a Friday has the advantage of being tracked for all seven days of the weekly cycle".

This means, when music is released on Friday, the songs or album has a better chance of charting very high on major charts. This means sales of that song can be accurately analyzed as soon as the chart cycle starts. Since the music performance is taken into the record by Friday, releasing music on Tuesday or Wednesday means that sales before Friday may not be recorded and this may affect chart placements.

New Music Friday playlists are some of the biggest playlists on streaming platforms, these major playlists are updated every Friday, which means a successful release day is marked if your record gets a spot on major playlists.

This brings us to the Conversation, do artists really need to release their music on Fridays? Most especially for upcoming acts.

The fact that everyone anticipates new music on Friday means there is a big chance of many great quality records being lost in the ocean. Take, for example, if Drake is releasing an album on Friday, you shouldn't be told that the whole attention is going to be on drake, there is also a possibility that all of the major playlists are going to be covered and flooded by Drake, this means a talented artiste releasing his debut EP that Friday may not record a successful first day or even first week sales.

So what if major artistes release music every week, for example, Tiwa Savage released her highly anticipated "Water and Garri EP" on 20th of August 2021, exactly one week after, Wizkid released the deluxe edition of his album "Made in Lagos", one week later, Kanye West released "Donda", a week later Drake released "Certified Lover Boy", only Donda was released on Sunday, all other albums were released Fridays, it is obvious that music from upcoming and relatively unknown acts will be saturated or paid less attention to.

What then do upcoming acts do?

Motolani Alake explains that "Artists should think about themselves rather than simply following trends. Do you want to simply follow trends and join in saturating your potential new listener with content or do you want to hope for playlist placement that you might never get or do you simply want to be heard?"

Releasing music on Monday or Wednesday gives you a better chance to be listened to, you may not be featured on major playlists or score incredible chart placements, the goal for every upcoming act must be "To be heard", featuring on those playlists may be in fact useless at the end of the day, imagine you being featured on a 70 song playlist with your song at 64, how many people are patient enough to listen to such playlist till the end. Artistes should be strategic about their releases, release date, and rollouts should be paid more attention to.

There are several factors that make Friday an effective release day—and it remains the industry standard—but things are becoming less rigid. Artistes should be willing to break out of the cycle and do something out of the ordinary.

Before you schedule your music for a Friday release, make sure you have measured the odds and gathered all the necessary momentum for a successful release.

You can contact us to help plan and implement a feasible marketing/release strategy for your next project. We are best at that.

As written by: Philemon