Would disagree with this.

In recent times, newer artists tend to blow up off of a hot song or a couple of viral hits, then that initial project is what gets fans to stick around.

Artists like Yeat, Coi Leray, Glorilla, Ice Spice, and PinkPantheress all blew up off of singular songs, and then released projects to capitalize off of that initial hype.

You can obviously raise your chances by dropping project after project and hoping one song will stick, but it’s very rare that a new artist in today’s climate will gain an initial buzz by way of a full length release

Someone who has immediate access to like 300 plays at most. Like really really unknown

I agree with all this, as it pertains to artists with some sizable group of people who already know of them on social media. Or they have connections or funding of some sort. None of this applies to absolutely unknown individuals who are bringing in like a couple hundred eyes at most from the getgo imo

Everyone I named, besides arguably Coi, were virtually unknowns before their songs started blowing up.

PinkPantheress literally released her first song in 2021, the same year she blew up

word i guess you said as much in op, rereading it. idk i'm not so sure it's that cut and dry at that stage tbh. especially in the climate music is in rn. actual examples would strengthen either argument but i'm too tired to think of artists that fit that exact criteria lol

so like the artists here on ktt, for example?

Ohh then I don't think this true at all. I know some ground level artists with thousands of listens just off a random song dropped on soundcloud or whatever.

Even tay k for example got a few thousands listens off his first couple songs before he got sign. A hot single or a viral moment can do much more than a body of work nowadays, especially since playlisting is so big now

Were they ktt user unknown? Cause when I say unknown I mean very very very very very unknwon. I’m not talking “they had a few to a dozen thousand followers on social media” unknown

i don't think albums are necessary until you pop off
they might help but as an underground artist most people won't care
body of work meaning catalog / lots of quality music out then yeah i agree though

Yeah

PinkPantheress was a literal nobody at university in London getting around 15 likes on SoundCloud before she blew up via TikTok

i mean a lot of times unknown artists have poppin singles that catch the attention of a label who give them a deal and help create their first real projects. i'd call that gaining traction

This. Most listeners don’t care about albums until they’ve already formed a connection with the artist through singular songs / social media presence

This is me in a few months ngl

Hmm didn’t know this. That changes things tremendously. I say we make this a tiktok thread now lol

At a certain point, fans will want & expect a full length release from an upcoming artist. You have a short window of time to drop that first initial project before you lose all your buzz and momentum, which is exactly what happened with SoFaygo

TikTok is interesting because it feels like artists are blowing up faster than ever before with it, but it’s such a splintered app with so many different sub-sections that the artists blowing up from it are still relatively unknown on a general audience level.

For example, PinkPantheress’s first project didn’t even debut in the Top 70, but she’s absolutely huge online and on that app specifically

So what should I do when I first release music on dsp?

Yeah so their fans can have them as their pfp and spread their agenda

The last artist I can think of where there was hype around their project rather than a song of theirs was die for my b**** by baby keem (besides the Kendrick relation stuff because that wasn’t known publicly)

yea i actually think in the current media atmosphere it's a total 180 from OP's original contention

sure a project will allow you to present the audience with a fully formed persona to engage with but, like, aint nobody gonna listen to that s*** if you drop it with no internet presence or following

in an era where projects are de-emphasized for singles and social media, you have to build your persona through those avenues and then they will come

Unless you're making music as a hobby with 0 intentions of a career, this is pretty horrible advice. Unknown artists, please don't waste months or even years of your life crafting an album most people will not bother clicking on.

True

Although I think if Faygo just kept dropping singles and loosies he’d have been alright

I agree

We first really started seeing this in the late 2000s/early 2010s when artist’s were putting everything they had into a mixtape that they treated like an album