Case Study: Releasing “color theory” by Soccer Mommy
In this case study, we’re examining two different versions of the album color theory by Soccer Mommy, how their different music production and release styles work, and how these concepts might apply to the DIY songwriter working from home.
Before digging into this case study, I’d suggest listening to both of these albums, if only briefly. The studio version (”color theory”) is here, the demo version (”color theory - selected demos”) is here.
My complete list of different case studies can be found here.
Variations help you get more with less
In our current moment, recorded music has been successfully commoditized by large tech platforms to the point where most people think music should be endlessly free. This means that artists are really feeling the pinch on needing to continuously put out a higher volume of work, without always having the resources to do so.
Taking a release strategy like Soccer Mommy took with this particular album is one great way to get more with less. It allows you to put out creative new versions of selected songs that are different and interesting, while also requiring minimal additional costs from you in both writing time and paid technical production.
Depending on your individual goals as a musician, releasing one full studio album (or a shorter studio EP) plus the demos associated with the writing of that album could be an entire year’s worth of musical releases!
This is a time-honored strategy that’s been used by many artists to great effect for decades, and it still works today. The steps are simple.
Getting more with your songwriting
Release that fully produced studio album first, and do a few shows to support its release.
Follow it up 6 months later with a demo EP of a selection of those same songs, and maybe some additional shows highlighting different versions that feature slightly different arrangements.
Now you’ve got an entire years worth of releases and shows bought and paid for, taken from perhaps just a single weekend of paid recording time (if you’re very skilled and focused when working in the studio).
Plus, the writing time to do the initial demos, and then the new acoustic arrangements for the follow-up shows.
This is a much more sustainable approach than coming up with two full albums of completely new material from scratch over that same time period. And, this is still a very creative approach, where you’re making interesting new variations of your songs, just developed from the same source material.
Maybe you could collaborate with a slightly different team of fun musician friends for some acoustic follow-up shows vs. the studio album.
Production style notes by album
Studio album “color theory”
Professionally mixed and mastered: a pro quality artistic statement.
It uses the full sonic spectrum, and is very clean sounding.
The vocals are clear and easy to follow.
The arrangements are complex and dynamic, with lots of effects.
The instrumentation uses a wide variety of both electric and acoustic instruments.
It was released with a significant professional promotional push across a wide variety of audio and visual media.
It has a lot of streams: the lead single “circle the drain” has over 40 million streams at time of writing.
Put into hard numbers, that’s about $120,000 in gross revenue on Spotify. Imagine keeping all of that yourself without a label taking a cut-now we’re getting sustainable!
Demos album “color theory (selected demos)”
This one is “just for the diehard fans”. It’s rough demos of selected songs from the studio album, recorded on cheap gear (probably cassette tape) then likely touched up with professional mastering. It sounds very similar to the demos you might have made yourself using GarageBand.
It doesn’t use the full sonic spectrum: these recordings are quite telephonic with a majority of the extreme highs and extreme lows completely rolled-off. There is audible hiss on several of the tracks.
The vocals are obscured and obviously raw and unmixed, recorded on a single mic with the natural reverb from the room quite loud and baked into the vocal track.
The arrangements are very simple and stripped down, and contain only a few parts with limited harmony and effects.
The instrumentation is simpler: mostly acoustic, with limited electronic instruments.
Despite the raw recording style, the performances themselves are still well-executed (rhythm is generally in-time, and instruments and vocals are in-tune).
The tracks are clearly labeled as demos.
This release dropped pretty quickly, without nearly as much fanfare. If you’re a big fan and always paying attention to this artist, you probably saw it and loved it, if you aren’t then you might have missed it.
It has many less streams, nearly 3X less to be precise: the lead single “circle the drain - demo” has a bit over 200k streams at time of writing. Yep, production quality still matters, even in the age of streaming.
Put into hard numbers, that’s about $600 in gross revenue on Spotify. This is an example of how commodification by Big Tech has hurt the musical ecosystem and concentrated value at the top: in the past, 200k sales of a $16 CD would have been $3.2M in gross revenue!
Artwork style by album
Studio album “color theory”
Album art for the studio album "color theory" by Soccer Mommy
Demos album “color theory (selected demos)”
Album art for the demos album "color theory-selected demos" by Soccer Mommy
These two artwork styles are related, but different. They both use the same color palette, fonts, throwback to the 1990’s vibe, etc.
Notice: the artwork is not simply carbon-copied and pasted between the two albums.
While you’ll see this being done in pro releases sometimes, I’m personally not a fan of copying artwork verbatim across many different albums: it can come off as a bit lazy, spammy, and it’s confusing to your fans.
Many people identify your music by the artwork they see first, and it’s really annoying to click through into an album, only to find you’ve reached a different song than the one you were intending to listen to.
Let’s not make our music annoying for our fans to listen to, or hard to find.
Doing custom artwork on each release is a good general best practice, and it doesn’t have to break the bank. Maybe you hire out the art for the studio release, and DIY the art for the demo release. Maybe the art is very similar, but not identical.
If you’re planning ahead and really getting smart, you could have your graphic designer do both artworks at the same time: that’s likely what happened here. It’ll be fairly easy and quick for any pro to make multiple variations of their own work done in a similar style.
It’s possible that the artwork used for the demo album in this case was simply a draft that got rejected as the studio album art, but was kept in reserve and touched-up for the demo album release.
Release timing by album
The full studio album “color theory” released on February 28, 2020.
The demo versions album “color theory-selected demos” released on November 12, 2020, 9 months later.
This is a common release strategy used by the larger labels for their records that end up doing well: release the full studio album, and if it’s a hit then you follow it up several months later with an album of demos taken from the same songs heard on the studio album.
You don’t need a label to apply this strategy for you. It’s something every artist can do, at all levels of the industry.
