Christmas and New Year’s Eve right behind us and a new year with new strategies to release new albums ahead of us, it is time to plan the seasonal albums to target those pop up playlists for the upcoming holidays of 2022. Everyone does it. Everyone. John Legend has a christmas album. Sting has an incredible album with christmas and winter themed songs. Genre makes no difference, when it comes to gift giving, love sharing, snow falling, Twisted Sister chanting “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”, we all feel the seasonal spirit around us.
The more you can target people who are more willing to relate to your music and what it represents, the better, and this connection grows stronger at special times of the year, and sometimes in special years.
Important thing is, quoting Iron Maiden, “be quick or…”, because time runs faster near the holidays.
So when releasing seasonal music, independent artists must take a few things in mind.
First of all, a release calendar, which we spoke about before, if you haven’t seen it, do go read https://albumcoverzone.com/blog/how-to-connect-to-the-audience starts weeks before you drop even one beat of the music to the social media. And when it is about christmas, or beginning of the summer break, or valentine's day, or the halloween, the calendar gets even tighter. This means there isn’t any wiggle room for rescheduling the future events, since you can’t push any seasonal event’s day off its place on the agenda of everyone around you.
So, tip number one.
Finish the production one season ahead. If it is a winter album, aim to finish the production by the end of autumn. If you are aiming for an autumn album, it must be ready in the summer. If you plan your moves with this strategy, you gain space in your agenda that allows the distribution service’s delay, the sound engineer’s last twitches, the error in the export of the promotion videos etc. to not create major panic impacts over your nervous system.
Downside: though this approach may come in handy, getting in the spirit of singing bright and shiny summer love songs or producing sweaty and sexy and hot beats under the rainy grey spring or winter sky may not be your forte.
Tip number two:
Finish the production the year before. Now, this sounds far fetched but the confidence you will gain by planning things this much ahead can create wonders during the time of release. By planning your move a year in advance you can stay in the spirit of the season during the creation process, you can feel more engaged with your surroundings from an artistic perspective, and separating that timeline from the management and presentation process can help you treat each step of the production much more carefully and energetically.
Downside: If you heavily rely on a deadline to consider a product “finished”, this one is a tricky path to take, since you have a full year ahead to “better things up” unless you really respect the early bird deadline. We would recommend you to keep your artistic creation and production process within the season, so don’t end up mixing your Christmas songs in August.
Tip number three:
Look way ahead. We mean, a couple of years if necessary. Some events don’t happen every year. If you have an album that has an empowering mood that can be related to sports, chances of more people being interested in that album will coincide largely with times of world cups, olympics and similar events, so keep the calendar as a source of inspiration in front of you.
This also applies to celebratory years. If you are writing songs about a specific place and there is a 100th year celebration regarding the area coming in a few years, waiting for the song release and doing some pitch-work might help you reach a precisely relatable audience. Going for classical music, early music and jazz, if you are planning on releasing pieces of a composer, check for relatable special annual celebrations around their work, their lives, their hometowns for the same reason. Releasing an album on the 600th year anniversary is a bigger deal than releasing it on the 598th. As an extra, checking for the year of turning to creative commons for jazz composers saturate the market about certain jazz and swing hits immediately. If you are about to release a jazz cover album, plan your setlist regarding this.
Tip number four:
No matter which way you take, you don’t have to worry about your cover artwork! Because here in AlbumCoverZone we have seasonal album covers prepared for all kinds of musical genres which you can personalize with a couple of clicks and own it instantly to get you going! May it be summer blasts, valentine’s day specials, christmas and new year’s eve hits, we have you covered.
Also when planning to drop a seasonal hit out there for those holiday playlists to pick up, make sure to check our marketing material to create a solid release strategy ;)