Many
artists follow all the rules and advice that are given to them at conferences, online or in workshops, etc. One rule seems though hard for them to understand,
format.

Format is
how the general audience listens and is presented to music. You have every artistic right and
freedom to not follow these format rules. You need to be aware that you are
excluding yourself from a lot of listeners. No, you cannot change people. Either
you change for them or you accept a smaller range of audiences. Either way is
the right way for you, it’s your choice. Right now however I have too many people that have chosen
to leave formats and then doing PR and efforts that are in a format world, and
then complaining that they don’t get the same chance as other artists and that the
world is to shallow.

What are the
format rules? It varies, but I can take an example. I got in a demo from an
artist. Every song was over six minutes long and an album of ten songs. Me
working on the radio know that you need to make a really good exemption to play
songs over 4:30 minutes. Why this rule? Studies have shown that the audience
starts to change the channel if there is a song playing for too long that they don’t
like. Of course, there are exemptions like Don Mcleans, American Pie that is eight
minutes long. But then they usually fade it in the middle. And if you look at
online radio, fading is not that easy to do, so you rather stay in the format
of three minutes to four minutes. This is that the audience hangs on. Playing long songs is risky for me as a radio producer. If you then do songs that don’t fit
that it’s my artistic freedom to choose to not play them. It’s your artistic
freedom to release longer songs because they should be that way. You take a bigger chance though by leaving the format that I will play it.

Same rule that
you should release it on a Friday. Friday is the official release day of music in
the world. Many blogs, magazines, and stations has built up their release systems
around that. Their working schedule is put that way. Many algorithms are
programmed that way. You can release on a Tuesday you have to full right to do that.
Don’t expect that all these people should change their schedules just because you
don’t want to stay in the format. You can release it on a Tuesday but take a chance that you are not picked since it won’t fit the editor’s schedule.

A lot of
complaining I seen the past weeks has just been around this. Either the artist
didn’t know or understand that they broke a format rule, or they just wanted to
be cool and different and think that would help them to reach an audience. The choice is simple. You lock your self inside the format and try to be creative inside that. Or be totally outside the rules. Whatever you do don’t try to do it halfway that just gonna make people take things off.

If the
things you release is mediocre, well then it doesn’t matter if you follow the
format or not. It won’t fly. It’s only if it’s great and you follow the rules
you might have a bigger chance if you also follow the format.

It’s no rules,
it’s a choice but don’t complain about the system or if people mark it out.