example:

tequila shots by kid cudi got 9 mil streams and its the second song on the album. if solo dolo III was the second song it also got that many streams compared to the others on the album?

name me one album where the 2nd song doesn’t go hard as f***

I always liked Kanye throwing the single/hit as the third song in his tracklists, it's perfectly early in an album

Watch the Throne

Lift Off.

Bruh I f***in love that song never got the hate at all. So chill, what a vibe

It matters way more than it should and it muddles the track list of albums

Mile high should not be track f***ing 2 on assume Form but since trabby is in it they obviously shoved it there

Putting your “most likely hits “ closer to the beginning of the album may help in making them big

Listing a song early means more people listen to it, since people tend to to not finish albums.

But at the end of the day, the "hit" song will usually take off regardless of its place on the track list because of either word of mouth or promotion.

streaming ruins a lot of things for music lovers

A lot

People usually start an album at track 1

double entendre

what I want to understand is if it's the artist already knows if "x track" has more potential than "y track" so that decides which one to put first in the tracklist

Track 2 is almost always the hit

Like what?

BBTM

music permanence

I think if there was a single released ahead of the album you can put it wherever in the tracklist. But if it's a surprise album drop or you just didn't release what you think can be a big hit then yeah you gotta put it early. Just smart marketing.

Even people who really hardcore love the art form and appreciate full albums... how often do you REALLY have time to listen to music that way? That's just not the usual way people listen, even the people who appreciate it that way.

30 track long albums full of filler

Incredibly short songs manufactured to entice the listener to repeat the song

Everyone copying anyone who is hot for this current 5 minutes

The devolution of curated Playlists

Playlists telling casual fans what to listen to which are just paid advertisements

Remember when Carousel was charting top 10 for a week