What is a waterfall release?
“Waterfalling” is a digital release strategy that can be used for multi-track products which gives the appearance of an album being released gradually, with one track added at a time (usually with a week or more in between track releases) until the whole product is available.
It is similar in some respects to using instant gratification to pre-release individual tracks from an upcoming album. However, not all services support/allow instant gratification – and critically this includes Spotify. So this technique has become a popular alternative, often used for drip-feeding multiple preview singles in the run up to an album, for example . In some cases, the waterfall release run in parallel with the same tracks being enabled for instant gratification tracks on Apple and other services.
How do I make a waterfall release?
It is not actually possible to add or remove tracks from existing releases. So in practice, waterfalling is achieved by scheduling a series of distinct products (each with its own UPC/Spotify URI). Each incremental product features one or more new tracks in addition to all those previously released and the newest version replaces the last in the “latest release” spot.
Because each iteration is an entirely separate release with a scheduled future release date, you’re able to pitch every newly added track through Spotify for Artists – maximising the chances of editorial placement and potentially increasing coverage in algorithmic discovery playlists like Release Radar. One thing to consider when planning the release schedule is that you won’t be able to pitch the new track until the previous track has been released. And you should also bear in mind that a user’s Release Radar playlist never contains more than one track by the same artist at the same time – so it makes sense to give each release a bit of space.
If you’re interested in setting up a waterfall campaign for any of your key releases you should discuss this with your label manager ahead of release so that we can advise the most effective way to build this into your release strategy.
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