There are a few scenarios to think about when considering which songs to put on a release. If you are lucky, you will have more songs to consider than you need. Example; 20 songs for a 13-song release, 15 songs for a 9 to 11 song release and so on and so forth.

If you’ve made it to a third or fourth release, Congratulations! That is successful. First and Second releases are different than the next ones. On these, the most important thing is to pick the RIGHT songs. Getting further along in your career, you can start to think about having a personality within each album. Let’s chat about what strategies are involved with the number of tracks on your first release.

With this one, some of your possible motivations may be making a splash to gain attention from the press. Perhaps you just want to have some content available to people so that they know you’re up to something (also convenient to sell at shows [and for that matter, give them away like business cards]). Maybe gaining exposure within the music industry to add others to your team is your drive. Whatever it may be, you absolutely have to pick the right songs, and put them in the right order!

With three songs, go ahead and make them all aggressive, all slow, or mix it up. When you get into the four-song release; this is when you should consider having a diverse repertoire. Group your songs into three categories, 1, 2 and 3. Call the (1) “soft” (2) “medium” and (3) “hard.” That is the first filter. I mentioned it in the last post, but look at the Meese Ep, released by Atlantic Records. There is a demo listed, but the three tracks after that represent the order of the Ep sans track four (but the song missing on myspace is a 2). I would consider this Ep 3, 2, 3, 2. Let me say this though, don’t be afraid of tossing five or six quality tracks on your first release.

After that first filter of song personality, consider the lyrics. Pick songs that are strong in this category. Diversity is also an important aspect for this filter. Two songs about a girl and two neutral is great. Four, about a girl is great. But when it gets to 5 or 6 songs, diversify.

When you have the songs picked out go into pre-production. At this point you can and it off to the Jacquire King’s or the stinson’s to produce it into a hit!

First Release a Full Length? Well, let’s talk about that next week!

Any choice of Song order on a release stand out to you? Let me know what your thoughts are in the Comments section. Thanks for stopping by.