SongLab Deep Cuts Vol. 31: The Release Is Only Half the Budget

There is a conversation I have with artists all the time.

“How much is it going to cost to make my record?”

And that's a fair question.

But it's actually only half of the question.

Because making the music is one budget.

Getting people to hear it is another.

I think a lot of artists seriously underestimate that second number.

You can spend $10,000 making an incredible record and then have $500 left to promote it.

Now you have an incredible record sitting on Spotify that nobody knows exists.

That's not a recording problem.

That's a strategy problem.

The Music Budget Is Not the Release Budget

Let's say you have $15,000 to invest in your next project.

You could spend $12,000 recording six songs and $3,000 promoting them.

Or you could spend $6,000 making three incredible songs and $9,000 building an actual campaign around them.

Neither is automatically the right answer.

But you need to understand that these are two completely different strategies.

Recording is the cost of creating the product.

Marketing is the cost of creating awareness around the product.

And awareness takes money, time, content, strategy, and repetition.

So when you're building your next project, don't just ask:

“How much will it cost to make?”

Ask:

“How much will it cost to actually give this music a chance?”

One Song Can Be More Powerful Than Six

We've worked with artists who had an entire album ready to go.

One of those artists had twelve songs.

He wanted to release all twelve at once.

Our initial recommendation was different.

Instead of dropping the entire album on one Friday and moving on, we decided to release one song at a time.

One song.

One month.

One campaign.

One story.

One opportunity to build momentum.

That gave us twelve months of opportunities to talk about the music instead of one release week.

And it worked.

But when the next project came around, something interesting happened.

He had six more songs.

An entire EP.

And instead of repeating the same six-month release cycle, we looked at the bigger picture.

What if we took those six months and put all of our energy behind one song?

That's what we did.

And the results were remarkable.

We flooded his Instagram and TikTok with content around that one record.

Different clips.

Different performances.

Different angles.

Different stories.

Different pieces of content.

The song kept coming back into the conversation.

And we watched his social numbers grow.

His Spotify numbers grew.

His followers grew.

The audience around the song grew.

We weren't dividing the attention between six records.

We were concentrating it.

There is a tremendous amount of power in one song.

Your Audience Doesn't Know Your Plan

This is one of the hardest things for artists to understand.

You know everything.

You know the album is coming.

You know there are eleven more songs.

You know the song you're releasing next month.

You know the song you think is going to be the biggest song of your career.

You know the five-year plan.

You know the ten-year plan.

Your audience doesn't.

They only know what you're showing them right now.

And artists tend to think:

“I just released this. Everybody should know about it.”

They don't.

I've done this myself.

I'll put out a song, forget about it, and a year later I'll repost it.

Someone will respond:

“Oh my God! Did you just release this?”

And I'll think:

No. You liked this song last year.

They genuinely don't remember.

That's not because they don't care.

It's because they're being exposed to an unbelievable amount of information every single day.

Your song isn't competing with just other music anymore.

It's competing with everything.

So don't be afraid to keep talking about the same song.

You Don't Have to Release Everything You Make

An album can be an incredible artistic statement.

An EP can give you enough music to establish a world.

A single can give you one very specific thing to focus on.

There is no rule saying one is better than the other.

The question is:

What are you trying to accomplish?

If you're making an album because the album itself is the artistic statement, great.

If you're making an EP because six songs tell a story that three songs can't, great.

If you're trying to build an audience and you have limited resources, maybe one song deserves six months of attention instead of six songs getting one month each.

That's a completely different strategy.

And you should know which strategy you're choosing before you spend the money.

Build the Budget Backward

This is something I wish more artists thought about and implemented.

Don't start with:

“I have $10,000. What can I record?”

Start with:

“What do I want this release to accomplish?”

Then build backward.

For example, let's say you have $15,000 total.

Maybe your recording budget is $5,000.

That leaves $10,000.

Now you have money for things like:

Marketing.

Publicity.

Content.

Photography.

Video.

Social advertising.

Playlist pitching through legitimate channels.

Radio promotion if radio is actually part of the strategy.

Graphic design.

Release assets.

Live performance content.

Maybe a music video.

Maybe additional content six weeks after the release.

The exact numbers will change from artist to artist.

But the principle doesn't.

Do not spend your entire budget making the record and then wonder how you're going to market it.

Marketing Is Not Just Ads

This is another mistake.

Artists hear “marketing” and think:

Instagram ads.

That's one piece.

A real release campaign can include press.

Publicity.

Social content.

Short-form video.

Long-form video.

Live performance clips.

Behind-the-scenes content.

Email.

Influencer outreach.

Playlist pitching.

Radio.

Blog coverage.

Interviews.

Collaborations.

Shows.

Merch.

Visual content.

Community building.

And most importantly:

repetition.

One post isn't marketing.

One press release isn't marketing.

One Instagram ad isn't marketing.

You're trying to create enough repeated exposure that somebody who didn't care about your song yesterday suddenly starts caring about it today.

Spotify itself now emphasizes that release week is only the beginning, noting that 75% of a release's first year streams happen after the first month. It also provides tools designed to continue promoting both new and catalog music. Spotify for Artists

That's important.

The song doesn't die because the release date passed.

Don't Confuse New With Important

We have become obsessed with new music.

New song.

New song.

New song.

New song.

But your audience doesn't necessarily need something new every four weeks.

They need something worth remembering.

Spotify's own tools actually recognize the value of catalog music, including tools that allow artists to promote older releases and reconnect listeners with songs that aren't brand new.

That matters.

Because sometimes the song you released six months ago is the song you should be promoting today.

Maybe the original campaign didn't work.

Okay.

Try something else.

Run a different Meta campaign.

Create a new video.

Shoot a live performance.

Make an acoustic version.

Create a different visual treatment.

Find a different audience.

Change the story you're telling around it.

Play it differently live.

Collaborate with somebody.

Repackage the song.

There is no expiration date stamped on a good record.

Look at “Unwritten”

Natasha Bedingfield released “Unwritten” in 2004.

Twenty-two years later, she's still performing it.

It's still one of the songs people come to hear.

It's still part of her live identity.

And in 2026, she is still performing the song at festivals and major shows. Recent coverage has specifically highlighted how audiences continue to sing along to it more than two decades after its release. The Washington Post

Think about that.

She doesn't walk onstage and say:

“Sorry guys, I can't perform that one anymore. It's from 2004.”

Of course not.

It's a great song.

It still works.

It still connects.

It still sells tickets.

It still SYNCS!

It still gives people a reason to come see her.

That's the point.

There is absolutely no shame in continuing to promote a song that is a year old.

Or two years old.

Or ten years old.

If it connects with people, keep using it.

You Don't Need an Album to Play a Show

This is another place where artists sometimes overestimate how much music they need.

If you're an emerging artist playing a 30 or 45-minute set, you don't necessarily need twelve or fifteen original songs.

A handful of great songs can be enough to build a compelling live set, especially when you incorporate intros, transitions, audience interaction, covers where appropriate, and other performance elements.

Five or six great songs can take you a long way.

And guess what?

That's an EP.

You don't need to spend two years and $50,000 making an album just because you think that's what a “real artist” is supposed to do.

Maybe you do need an album.

Maybe the album is the point.

But don't make an album because you're afraid people won't take you seriously if you don't have one.

Make it because the music demands to exist that way.

The Album Can Still Be the Goal

I want to be clear about this.

I'm not anti-album.

Far from it.

Albums can be incredibly powerful.

I’ve released 4 full-length albums during my career, not including EP’s.

They can establish an artist's identity.

They can tell a larger story.

They can create a body of work that lives together.

They can give fans a deeper connection to an artist.

And sometimes the album is exactly what you should make.

But if your goal is building a fanbase, you have to ask yourself whether putting twelve songs out at once gives you twelve times the opportunity to connect with people.

Or whether it simply gives you twelve songs that you're now responsible for promoting simultaneously.

That's a huge difference.

The Marathon Is the Strategy

Your career is not the release date.

It's everything that happens after it.

You might release a song, and nothing happens.

Then six months later, somebody uses it in a video.

A year later, you perform it differently.

Two years later, a new audience discovers it.

Maybe a sync opportunity happens.

Maybe a creator finds it.

Maybe you finally have the money to properly market it.

Maybe you simply become a better artist and suddenly the song has more context.

Don't bury good music just because it didn't explode immediately.

Give it another life.

Give it another campaign.

Give it another story.

Give it another chance.

And when you're planning the next release, don't just ask what you're going to record.

Ask what you're going to do after it's finished.

Because the recording is the beginning.

Not the end.

Final Musings...

You don't need more music.

You need a plan for the music you already have.

You don't necessarily need an album.

You might need one great single.

You don't necessarily need six songs.

You might need six months of attention on one song.

And you don't necessarily need to move on because something is six months old.

If the song is good, keep working it.

Build your budget before you build your tracklist.

Know what you're spending to make the music.

Know what you're spending to market the music.

Know who is going to execute the campaign.

Know what you're trying to accomplish.

Then release with intention.

Because putting music into the world is easy.

Getting people to care about it is the work.

Keep creating. Keep showing up. Keep learning.

- SongLab