Case Study: Releasing “Tiger’s Blood” by Waxahatchee
In this case study, we’re going over the promotional release structure of the Waxahatchee album Tiger’s Blood, which received a “Best New Album” nod from Pitchfork, along with a slew of other accolades upon its release.
If you like this kind of thing, my complete series of practical creative case studies can be found here.
The release timeline
Here’s a partial version of this release sequence presented visually, including singles, merch, and some concert dates:
The release timeline for "Tiger's Blood" by Waxahatchee.
The pre-release singles & album release
This album was initially promoted with three different pre-release singles, each released a month apart and leading up to the full album release, which dropped ten days after the last single.
“Right Back to It” single (released January 9)
“Bored” single (released February 13)
“365” single (released March 12)
“Tiger’s Blood” full album (released March 22)
The post-release single & alternate album version
In addition to releasing several lead singles to promote the full album release, as would be a traditional approach, there was also an addition of a post-release single that dropped seven months later, called Much Ado About Nothing:
“Much Ado About Nothing” single (October 24)
“Tiger’s Blood” full album re-release (October 24)
released as both a standalone single, and as part of an alternate version of the Tiger’s Blood full album, which was re-released and uses this single as the new closing track on the album.
Both of these different album tracklists remain up and streamable as two independent albums: the original Tiger’s Blood track list released in March, and the updated track list with the addition of “Much Ado About Nothing” released in October.
Taking a collaborative album approach
For Tiger’s Blood, Waxahatchee took a collaborative approach to the writing: many of the songs feature a younger artist collaborator who performs in a similar musical style named MJ Lenderman, who had opened for Waxahatchee on an earlier tour. He’s credited as a co-writer on one of the most-streamed songs off of this album (the lead single Right Back to It), but he also appears uncredited performing backup vocals and more across many different tracks, throughout the complete work.
There were also some joint shows, interviews, and a tour that started and continued up to 12+ months after the initial album was released.
Lessons learned
To summarize some of the promotional lessons to be learned from this release:
Try flipping the script with your singles
If you’ve already done a few releases taking the traditional approach of releasing a lead single to promote your album before it drops, try switching it up! You don’t only have to do pre-release singles; try adding one or two post-release singles to follow up the initial album release.
Combine audiences by working with a featured collaborator on a joint album
There’s many different ways to make this work. You could do a full-on split album, where two different artists combine tracks on the same record, each working as themselves. Or, you could take a Waxahatchee-style approach and feature a prominent co-writer on a majority of the songs on your album, and put out the album under your own name.
Don’t be afraid to change the track list on your album after release
Nothing’s set in stone. If you have an album release that’s been successful and you want to modify it with an additional track or two released as an alternative version, it’s no problem to have both versions up and streamable independently.
Avoiding what doesn’t work
Items to avoid when it comes to album promotion:
Not promoting at all.
Dropping albums or singles randomly, without any lead-up.
Always doing the exact same thing with your album promotions. Be creative and mix it up a little!
My complete series of practical creative case studies can be found here.
