Case Study: The Japanese House “In the End It Always Does”
Today we’re looking at the album release flow of a recent indie pop album by The Japanese House called “In The End It Always Does”.
The album release timeline
Promotional elements
There were four main elements to this release cycle:
The “Boyhood” lead single and music video, released 3 months before the studio album.
The full studio album “In The End It Always Does”, released on June 30. Selected songs from the full studio album were pre-released as an EP titled “One for sorrow, two for Joni Jones” 3 weeks before the full album release.
The “ITEIAD sessions” recordings and videos. These were new, acoustic arrangements of selected songs off of the studio album that were recorded as both audio and a concert film. The full concert film was released on the same date as the studio album. The concert film was also broken up and released as several “video singles” on YouTube leading up to the studio album release date. The audio from these same sessions was released as a separate EP with an additional bonus track, 5 months after the studio album dropped.
The world concert tour, which began 11 months after the lead single was released.
Total time elapsed from the initial release of the lead single to the end of the world concert tour: 15 months.
Caveats
Disclosure: this is a compilation of publicly available information, and is missing elements. You’d have to be on the artists promotional team to have the full picture of how it all really went down. There were also many print reviews from industry journals published on or around the album release date that don’t appear on this timeline.
I’m leaving out what I’d consider the “filler” YouTube content marketing that was done here, where it was just the audio posted along with the album artwork; there was a lot of that. The YouTube timeline I’m showing only contains the “major” video marketing elements, official music videos and such.
I’m including this as a case study because it’s something that worked: this artist has over 100 million streams on one of their songs. That would equate to well over $200,000 in revenue for just that one song, from just one streaming service.
If you can manage to get even a fraction of those results working independently without a label taking a cut, then you would get to keep all of the money yourself. Now we’re getting sustainable working as an independent!
This serves as a simplified primer for how a mid/large indie pop artist working at the international level, with label support, might put together a promotional campaign for a major album release. Even if you’re not a mainstream artist and don’t ever plan on being one, there’s a lot to be learned here.
Caveat 1: this is a mainstream adjacent pop artist, and more abstract musical styles might not ever be able to achieve the “100 million streams” level of reach or popularity.
That’s one of the problems with our digital music streaming services in general: they only reward the most mainstream, popular styles of music. This leads to a gradual “flattening” of our musical culture over time, which isn’t good for anyone.
Caveat 2: this artist has the backing of a midsize indie label’s professional promotional team; this album was released by Dirty Hit. Smaller artists might not have the same resources or connections in the music industry to lean on.
But, overall, this is certainly one example of a sustainable approach to making music as an independent musician, and that’s why I’m highlighting it.
Using promotional timelines as templates
You don't need major label resources to do any of this! Use these timelines as a basic template for your own ideas, then just fill it in with your own stuff, whatever you want to do.
You don’t have to do everything you see on this timeline, and you probably shouldn’t if you’re just starting out. Just pick and choose what you’re able (and can afford) to do.
Be creative! A promotional cycle is a great opportunity to present your work to the world in your own unique way. As artists, we could all do a much better job at applying the creativity we already have in the releasing of our work, not just during the fun time in the recording studio.
This professional-level promotional cycle is pretty complex, and I’m sure was managed by several teams of people working at the artists label. I’d simplify it from this template pretty aggressively if you’re DIYing it, especially if you haven’t done this kind of thing before.
A simpler album release timeline for the DIY artist
This simpler promotional timeline is a bit more manageable, and could be executed DIY-style without the aid of a dedicated promotional team. In addition to the studio album release, there’s a short 2-week local tour, an official release show, a more intimate house show, two singles, an acoustic EP release with additional arrangements, and a “making of” short documentary highlighting the studio recording sessions.
You could absolutely go even simpler than this, for sure, and I’d suggest doing that if it’s your very first time releasing an album. Here’s what that might look like.
An even simpler album release timeline for the first-timer
This simplest version only requires a few promotional elements:
A studio album.
One music video for one lead single off that album.
Two shows: an official release show, and a follow-up house show.
A few miscellaneous smaller videos that are easy to generate yourself: lyric videos and informal live show videos you can shoot on your phone.
Promotional takeaways
The biggest headlines here?
Promotion matters, serious artists commit to doing it well, and great songwriting isn’t enough on its own. Intentionality is a common thread across every aspect of each of these different levels of release cycle. They’re the exact opposite of dumping an album onto the Internet as an unknown artist, and just hoping it randomly blows up.
The music you discover as a consumer was almost always put in front of you with intentional and creative promotional planning, even if it might seem like you just randomly discovered it by accident.
You can do all of the same things the big artists do on your own, at a smaller scale, and you should.
