It's one of the most important parts about an album's release: the release date. But in many ways, the music industry (both on the label's end, and the media's) can't even get this right.
The one thing I've noticed in the many many years of reading countless music news websites and blogs and what-have-yous is that, following a label's press release, an upcoming album's release date is widely publicized. It's pretty straight forward.
But when an album's release date is changed--whether it's only by a week or a few months--the album's new release date is significantly less publicized. This usually confusingly leaves the internet torn in half between websites broadcasting the old release date, while the rest inform the public about the new release date.
If an album's release date gets changed three or more times, I can pretty much guarantee I don't know the official date anymore, and I should just wait a couple months past when I think it might get released before stepping foot into a record store. It must've happened to me a dozen times where I think an album had already been released, walked into a record store to find it, couldn't find it, went to the clerk to help me find it, and he informs me it won't get released for another few weeks. Fuck.
Also a pain in the ass: international release dates.
Why do we even need these anymore? Labels are aware these are one of the biggest ways that albums leak onto the internet right? You know, that thing that the industry is trying ever so hard to combat?
In some cases, international release dates can be years apart.
I was a pretty big fan of Lostprophets in 2004 when Start Something came out. I wasn't terribly excited about their January 2010 release The Betrayed, but I still wanted to check it out since I used to be such a big fan. We're slowly approaching the two-year anniversary of that album's release, and it still has yet to see any indication of a North American release.
My advice? Pick one day to release an album internationally and stick with it. Even if it's just the digital version, and physical copies can be obtained on later days depending on the region's typical day of release (in America it's Tuesday, in the UK it's Monday... I never understood this). So release an album around the world through all digital platforms on Friday, then the states could have the CD version in stores on Tuesday and the Brits could have it one day earlier.
It's clean and simple. If everyone gets it at the same time, less people would be included to find it earlier than the rest of the people in their region. Win-win?
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