A "waterfall release" in music distribution is a strategy where artists release a new album or EP track by track, rather than releasing the release as a whole at once. For example, a new song could be released every week, "filling up" the release until all tracks are eventually available. This method keeps listeners interested and allows for continuous promotion over a longer period of time.
For example, if you want to create an EP with 3 singles and it is important to you that the singles come out one after the other and the EP "fills up", then you would have to proceed as follows:
You create release no. 1, which only contains the first single, and select the desired release date.
You create release no. 2 and add both the new track and the already created single and select the desired release date for this as well. It is important that you use the same audio file and completely adopt the metadata and ISRC of the previously released song. You can find all the necessary information in the label copy of the previous release under "My music" > Release > "Release information (label copy)".
You can then delete the first release when the new release is published.
You create release no. 3, add the new track and the two previous singles (also with identical metadata, ISRC and audio files) and select the desired release date.
You can then delete the second release when the new release is published.
And so on and so forth, depending on how many tracks your EP/album has in total.
It is important that the audio files, metadata and ISRCs of the songs are completely identical so that the already published tracks can also be correctly transferred to the new release and the streams continue to be counted. The relevant metadata includes the song title, the artists, any feature artists, the title version (if available) and the composers/lyricists involved.
Please note:
TikTok
In the case of TikTok, a single cannot be linked to the corresponding, identical track of an album/EP. This means that all creations that have already been created with the single count separately and cannot be added to the creations of the album/EP version.
Facebook / Instagram
Meta (Facebook/Instagram) always overwrites the metadata of a song, regardless of which release the song is included on. This means that with every new Waterfall version, the previous release date of the previously released song is overwritten and the song then disappears until the current release is released. In this case, please write to us at [email protected] so that we can send out another update of the current release.