I wish more artists would reconsider the standard approach to releasing new music.
This is a long-held conviction, but rekindled by the release this Friday of Wildflowers, Vol. 1 – a new album by Kurt Elling and Sullivan Fortner that was recorded, mixed, mastered, and released in a week.
The standard approach involves a long recording process, a long mixing process, a long pre-release marketing campaign, and a long post-release supporting tour. Most artists go for years between albums this way.
In the new world of streaming, I think many – maybe most! – artists would be better served by recording and releasing new music much more regularly. There’s historical justification for this. Consider three examples.
- Ella In Berlin: Mack The Knife was released to acclaim (and a Grammy) in 1960. It’s a fantastic album. But it wasn’t her only record that year. She also released Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas and The Intimate Ella in 1960, and released 4 albums in 1959 (including The George and Ira Gershwin Songbook and and Get Happy! 3 in 1961 including Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie! and another live album, Ella in Hollywood.
- Sinatra’s ’50s and ’60s output on Capitol Records included such classic albums as Songs For Swinging Lovers, In The Wee Small Hours, and Nice ‘n’ Easy but no album was the only record he released that year. They kept making and releasing music.
- The Grateful Dead famously released album after album, including official and bootleg live recordings. Flooding the market was kind of their thing.
I think a lot of artists have a lot of music in them, but hold off because of the industry standards of an album every few years. But with the advent of inexpensive high-quality home recording, and easy virtually free access to streaming, I don’t see a downside to recording and releasing more music.
Seth Godin has written that “half of Miles Davis’ albums were below average.” The trick is to make more music, so you have more chances to make great music. When it cost big recording companies thousands and thousands of dollars to release and market an album, it made sense to wait, recoup those expenses, and then begin again. Now? Not so much.
Make more music! The cream will rise to the top.
(And go listen to that new Kurt Elling record. It’s a good one.)