On January 31, 2025, I released my first song to Spotify- “Gray Days.” As a new to the public artist with no following, limited funds, a full-time job outside of music, and the production quality of a home artist who is still learning how to produce, I had tempered expectations. Even so, I wanted to give this release a full go as I believe in the potential of this song. It may not be perfect, but what is? I didn’t want this song and all its potential to sit isolated in a folder forever, so I picked a date, January 31st, and I made a plan.
My Song Release Plan
The primary goal of my release of “Gray Days” was to get the song out there so that listeners who might resonate with it can hear it. As a Spotify user, I assumed Spotify was the best bet, so that is where I started. To get music onto Spotify, however, you need a distributor. Instead of spending tons of time researching to find the best distributor I just picked the distributor I was somewhat familiar with- DistroKid. While I tend to research everything to death before making a decision, in order to make this release happen I had to prioritize and only spend time on my top priorities. Researching distributors was not a priority as I already knew of one that was reputable. Determining my priorities became the most important step in crafting my plan for a new song release- the release of “Gray Days.”
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To determine my top priorities, I referred back to my goal. My goal was to get “Gray Days” out there so that potential listeners could find it. How do you help potential listeners find a new song? Marketing.
There are a lot of marketing options that can be considered when releasing a new song (pre and post release), including an artist webpage, social media accounts, streaming platforms, ads, submitting to Spotify official and unofficial playlists, friends and family, and websites that allow you to submit to multiple playlist curators, journalists, bloggers, and/or music industry people at once like Groover or SubmitHub.
Since I didn’t have an existing following pre-release, I decided that social media is off the table as a priority at this time. It wouldn’t help me right away as I would have to build a following, and building a following on social media is a time commitment that requires content and a regular posting schedule. When starting a new social media account, algorithms matter. If a brand new account sits stagnant, it will have a harder time growing. For this reason, I decided to start my artist social media accounts when I can devote more time to them. Pre-release of “Gray Days” I wanted to focus on the current release, not building a social media account.
The priorities I decided to focus on include an artist webpage to use as a hub for my content, new songs, news, press kit, and contact information, my Spotify artist account, and submitting my song to playlists, journalists, and bloggers to help drive traffic to my Spotify account.
Artist Website
Building an artist webpage was insanely easy with Bandzoogle. I only used Bandzoogle because DistroKid seems to have a partnership with them so I figured why not give it a try. I have experience with other website builders but given that Bandzoogle is specifically for artists, this seemed like a time saver. I highly recommend Bandzoogle for beginners as it is super user friendly, specified, and has awesome customer support.
Spotify Artist Account
Claiming my Spotify artist account was super easy with DistroKid. It did take a while for my artist account to show up though so a little patience is needed. Once my account was established, I made sure to update my bio, cover image, and if I had social media I would include that information on my Spotify profile.
Submitting to Playlists, Journalists, Blogs
Pre-release, I submitted “Gray Days” to official Spotify playlists. I scheduled the release a month in advance to give Spotify reviewers a chance to see my proposal and hear my song. I understand it is challenging to get onto Spotify official playlists, so I didn’t expect anything to come of this. Even so, it was still worth a try and the experience. While I wanted to submit my song to other playlists, journalists, blogs, etc., pre-release, I ran out of time and was under the impression that SubmitHub and Groover had to happen post-release. So, I didn’t submit anywhere else until after the release.
Post-release, I submitted “Gray Days” to some unofficial Spotify playlists. I searched for individual playlists through Spotify but eventually realized DistroKid has a feature for this that made it so much easier. Even so, this takes some time and patience. Next came Groover and SubmitHub, mostly due to curiosity but also efficiency. I’ve read very mixed reviews on these sites so I had to find out for myself. So far, I have received a lot of good feedback from both sites but a whole article could be devoted to my experience with these so I will expand on this topic later.
What I Learned 4 Days Post Release
It has only been 4 days since “Gray Days” was released to Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and probably others through DistroKid that I am not so familiar with. While I feel accomplished for just doing it, there are things I could have done better looking back. Here are some things I learned.
- You don’t have to release a new song to Spotify right away. Looking back, I should have gained feedback and hype from other platforms, maybe even building a social media following, before releasing to Spotify.
- DistroKid was a great decision.
- SoundCloud is awesome and I should have used it sooner. Much much sooner.
- I should have reached out for feedback from professionals and playlist curators on my new song pre-release. That way, I could use the feedback to improve the production quality before releasing it everywhere.
- People love my cover art, and matching the mood of the song gets noticed.
- Genres are confusing if your music splits between a few different genres. I should have devoted more time to figuring out what genres my new song falls into let alone what genres I fall into as an artist.
- Spend more time on production. I am not a professional producer and this probably impacted my results the most.
My Results 4 Days Post Release
My post-release results of “Gray Days” pretty much matched my expectations. While I didn’t get playlisted on any official Spotify playlists, I am on one unofficial playlist so far. Check it out here. I also didn’t blow up in Spotify streams but that was 100% expected with no following. However, my website did pick up in traffic quite a bit! This doesn’t do much right off the bat but this is an indicator of progress. Additionally, I will be featured on KICKDRUM MAGAZINE’s Instagram story at some point which I am very excited about!
How You Can Help “Gray Days”
If you like my song, please like it and follow me on Spotify. This would be a huge help! If you have any feedback on the production of the song, I am all ears! You can email me at GLITAmusic.com. I am also open to collaborations.
~GLITA
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