Dear musicians - Does album running order matter any more?

Once upon a time, artists struggled with the perfect running order of the songs for the LP (that’s a big round flat bit of plastic that sound came out of when it came in contact with a needle, and often came packaged in hideously/beautifully designed cardboard).

Which songs should be on side 1, which on side 2? What should open, what should close?

Then CDs turned the two-sided experience into one long experience or a hop/skip/jump experience as people decided whether they liked a track after the first few notes…

Now we have an artist like Zero7 (Zer07?) putting their album up on soundcloud to allow the fans to have a good listen to the album before they buy. Can’t argue against that. But what are the fans listening to? Do they listen to the full album all the way through?

Well, initial results shows that fans a little bit lazy or pushed for time.

There is a clear falling off of listening as you head down the tracklisting. So what do you do if you are a band who wants people to listen to all of your tracks (if you didn’t care, then why put them out in the first place?!)

One simple thing really for starters. Mix it up. Flip the running order on soundcloud and other services and see whether that gets more people listening to track 10 vs track 1. Subjectivity suggests that first track isn’t always going to be the one that defines a fan’s relationship to you. Mix up the listing on myspace.

For many artists the running order will continue to be important. However, if you want fans to discover your music, be warned that they might buy into it that readily. Introducing your music to them might need a little flexibility on your part…