How To Choose the Lead Single For an Album
The album is finished but which song should be the single?
Choosing the Lead Single for your new album is a key decision. The Lead Single is the first song you unleash into the world, weeks or months ahead of the album. This song serves two purposes — it builds up anticipation for the forthcoming album and it draws in new listeners to your music.
Singles are the musical equivalent of movie trailers.
So how do you make the right choice? If you have a record label or management team you may have a process that decides. But you will need to decide yourself if you are one of the millions of independent artists.
Here are 10 things to consider when choosing your Lead Single. And how they worked out for me with the release of my album ‘I’m Too Old to Die Young’.
A 10-Point Lead Single Checklist
1. Have more than one strong song
If you have one standout song, one song that is much stronger than the others and is ‘obviously’ the single, you are not ready to release an album. Trust me.
Independent artists are only sustainable by building listener loyalty. If you release a great song then follow it with an album of mediocre songs, your audience will not stick around. You need to put out quality music that engages your audience. Every time. Every song.
Consider releasing your great song as a standalone single. Standalone singles are useful in myriad ways. They build awareness, they lead to collaborations, they can be used to get people onto your mailing list.
Some artists primarily release standalone singles instead of albums and this is a viable approach. But most independent artists find albums are still the best way to serve their fans.
You can still include the song on your album when you release it. But get back to the studio and record more great songs first.
2. Define your listener
Your music is not for everyone. Some will fall in love with it and will want more. They will be a minority of the population.
Music is like a magnet — it attracts and repels with an equal force depending on the listener. My music is for lovers of Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush it is not for (most) Metal-heads, and that’s fine.
Your Lead Single should be a magnet to your core listeners. But until you define your core listener it is hard to attract them!
Stop saying your music is for everyone and define the people who will love your music, will get joy and value from your music. Turn all your attention to them and ignore those who are ambivalent or repelled by your music (even if they make their opinions known to you, and they will). They don’t matter.
Music is like a magnet — it attracts and repels with an equal force depending on the listener.
3. Stay on brand
If you write ambient downtempo music don’t write a ‘catchier’ song to be the Single. Choose a song that is the best, most immediate representation of your music. Remember, you want to attract listeners that will stick around.
Your Single should be the start of a musical relationship that takes listeners from being a stranger to a casual acquaintance, to a best friend or a passionate lover.
Relationships that start with one side pretending to be someone else don’t last. Stay true to YOUR music.
4. Know why you wrote the song
You will talk about the Single many times, in many ways, on many platforms. You will be asked what the song is about, why you wrote it, what it means to you.
What they really want to know and what you really want them to know is ‘what will it mean to me’ if I listen. Answer this question.
You need a one-line answer and a longer answer, at least a few sentences. A few different answers are useful and stop you from sounding repetitive or disingenuous.
The answers don’t have to be literal, they can be intriguing, quirky or funny, as long as they are true to who you are.
It can be difficult to remember why a song was birthed. Many songs emerge through a nebulous confluence of moods, places, people. Jot down notes alongside your lyrics or chords in real-time, they will be a great aide-memoire.
5. Make it shareable
Your epic 8-min soundscape is not your Single. To achieve your goals a Single must be suitable for sharing on playlists, YouTube and radio. So make it less than four minutes, keep the intro short and avoid expletives.
You can make a ‘radio-edit’ version of a song that is clean and of the desired length. Then you can use the full version to draw your true fans in. Perhaps make it an ‘exclusive’ that is only available to buy, or is only on the CD. Or use it as an enticement to join your email list.
If cutting a song to make it shareable feels like cutting off your right arm, choose another song to be the Single.
6. Make a shortlist
Points 1–5 should help you draw up a shortlist for your Lead Single. For an album of ten or more songs, three is the perfect number for your shortlist. Now you can begin making the choice………
7. Don’t choose yourself
You may be sure which song should be the Single, but make a shortlist and ask others anyway. You know the songs too well to judge how fresh ears will react to them. If you are right you will get data to support your decision. If you are wrong you can change your choice.
8. Ask core fans
You must keep your core fans happy. So ask some of them which song they would like to be the Single.
You should ask your superfans. The people who turn up to your shows, tell all their friends about your music, buy your CDs and comment on your posts. The people who have become part of your musical journey.
They will be thrilled to be an insider.
Ten superfans are enough, but ask 15 as some won’t get round to it. Run a competition if you have a lot more superfans, to avoid upsetting those you don’t ask. A competition also builds anticipation and excitement for the Single.
Set-up a private link to the shortlisted songs on Soundcloud or Dropbox. Send the link to your chosen superfans and ask them to email you with their rankings by a specific date. A week is plenty of time. Make sure they know not to share or talk about the songs until you give them the green light.
Your superfans will jump at the chance to help choose the Single.
9. Ask people who don’t know your music
Remember that your Single serves two purposes — to build up anticipation amongst your existing fanbase and to draw new fans to your music. To achieve the latter you need to know which song is most attractive to people who don’t know you, on first listen.
Find ten people willing to spend ten minutes to listen to three songs and tell you which is their favorite. That’s all you should ask of them.
You could ask work colleagues, people at your running club, parents of your kids’ friends. As long as listening to music is an important part of their life, their opinion is valuable. Again, ask them to get back to you by a specific date, but remember that you are asking a favor and word your email accordingly.
10. Ask the experts
Is there a radio show host that loves your music? Will you use a PR firm to promote the album? Do you play regularly at a particular venue? Do you know fellow musicians in your genre? If you are releasing an album you will answer yes to most of these questions.
Send your expert network the private link to your shortlist and ask them which song they think should be the Single.
You could offer something in return — the first radio play or the first live performance on the Single’s release. But it’s probably not necessary. They are already invested in helping and you are valuing their opinion and expertise by asking them.
Consider entering your songs to an online music competition. They are cheap to enter and will give you objective, expert feedback about the impact of your song on a virgin audience. Enter the songs well in advance of the Single’s release date to get the feedback in time.
Time to Choose
Review your data
Running through the 10-point checklist should only take a couple of weeks — a few days to decide the shortlist and a week to get feedback. You now have ~30 opinions on which song should be the Single.
If the same song comes out first in all three groups, Congratulations! The Lead Single is chosen. You also have data to decide on a second and third single if you plan to release more than one.
If two songs have about the same support give more weight to the opinion of the group you most want to serve. And ask yourself which song you would prefer to be the Lead Single. Is one song easier to play live? Is one more representative of your music?
Things can get tricky if there is opposing feedback from different groups. This is what happened for me when choosing the Lead Single for I’m Too Old to Die Young.
Choosing the Single for I’m Too Old to Die Young
Two out of three agreed
I released my third album, I’m Too Old to Die Young, in October 2019 and a Single in September. I applied the checklist to decide which song should be the Single.
One song was the clear favorite amongst people who didn’t know my music and the experts.
The song even made the finals of the UK Songwriting Competition in the highly competitive Singer-Songwriter category.
The song is called Ain’t No Love Like This and it’s about the pleasures and pains of parenthood.
I did not choose Ain’t No Love Like This to be the Single.
Why I didn’t choose ‘Ain’t No Love Like This’
My problem was NONE of my core fans wanted Ain’t No Love Like This to be the Single. And, in my heart, neither did I.
Ain’t No Love Like This is ‘on-brand’ but it is at the more conventional end of my music. It deliberately and unashamedly shows its heart instantly.
Most of my songs are layered with meanings, open to interpretation, nuanced.
The more you listen the more you hear.
My core fans do listen more. They want the rewards of deeper attention. They care about the words. They care about the notes. They care.
And, of course, I am delighted when my music connects in this way. Particularly when people derive personal meanings from my music based on their contexts and history.
It is why I share my music.
Ain’t No Love Like This is popular with my core fans, it feels true and resonates with them, but it doesn’t give the umami depth they look to me for.
Midlife Musings – the perfect choice
There wasn’t a clear winner amongst my core fans, which I expected. My fans tend to favor songs based on which are most relevant to their lives. But Midlife Musings scored highest overall.
Midlife Musings was also the second choice amongst the experts and general audience. I was surprised – I thought the title would deter listeners who are not in midlife. But the title is not in the lyrics of the song, and the theme is universal.
Midlife Musings is a rally-cry to live your dreams today because tomorrow never comes — a perennial, age-independent concern! I hope you like it!
So I chose Midlife Musings as the Lead Single for I’m Too Old to Die Young. If I hadn’t sought external opinion I would have passed over it, which would have been a mistake.
Midlife Musings is my most popular song to date with both and old and new fans, reaching 25,000 plays on Spotify and 50,000 plays on Facebook in the first month.
