Op-Ed: Metal Bands Should Stop Surprise-Releasing Albums

Late last year, Avenged Sevenfold surprise-released their new album The Stage after weeks of head-fakes and playing coy. The band shifted 72,000 units of the album in its first week of release, a gargantuan total by metal standards but less than half as many as each of their last two albums, and the lowest first-week sales for any Avenged Sevenfold album since City of Evil in 2005. Even now, some five months later, The Stage‘s total of 169,000 copies sold is only roughly 6,000 more than what 2010’s Nightmare sold in its first week.

Now the lads in Northlane have found themselves in a similar situation. After surprise-releasing their fourth album Mesmer last week, the Australian metalcore outfit shifted only 1,800 first week units, a little more than half of the 3,500 first week copies their last release Node sold in 2015.

Completely different scales, for sure, but the same phenomenon is at play.

Members of Avenged Sevenfold tried to downplay the sales drop and defend their decision to surprise-release in the press, but questions lingered over whether the lack of a traditional album promo campaign played a factor. To be clear, Avenged Sevenfold aren’t any less popular than they were in 2013 when Nightmare came out; the venues they’re headlining this spring (before heading out to support Metallica all summer) are in the 10,000-40,000 capacity range. They’re still one of the biggest bands in metal. By a lot.

I haven’t seen the members of Northlane comment on the album’s first week sales yet, but I have to imagine they’re disappointed. And when taken in concert with Avenged Sevenfold’s release, it’s difficult not to see a pattern here:

Surprise-releasing albums is not a good idea for metal bands.

Sure, if you’re Beyonce, or Frank Ocean, or any artist that can fall back on radio spins, high-profile playlists, high-budget music videos and tons of mainstream press, it can be a viable option. The “wow” factor of the surprise alone generates a whole lot of buzz, although that effect will wane the more often artists utilize the strategy.

But metal doesn’t have those safety nets. Bands (and their record labels) announce albums two or three months before their release because they need that time to generate hype, make people aware, get them excited. The album artwork reveals, track premieres, Facebook posts, track-by-track trailers, press interviews, music videos, etc etc are NECESSARY to get metal fans engaged and interested.

MAYBE Metallica could pull this off. But no one else.

Metalheads are a tough bunch. We need to be convinced an album is worth paying attention to. We won’t get on board just because. The wow factor of a surprise release is not enough to overcome the lack of a proper promotional campaign.

So, if any signed metal bands and/or their handlers are considered a surprise release, let the cases of Avenged Sevenfold and Northlane be a lesson to you: don’t do it. It’s not worth it.