If you’re an artist just starting out, and you have no fan base or following — Notice how I separated the two? — I highly recommend focusing solely on building your audience by releasing songs, not albums. The occasional EP also makes sense.

Taking this approach provides creative freedom — you don’t have to marry multiple records to a sound or storyline. It isn’t, however, a green light to prioritize quantity > quality, or churn out disposable records for the sake of releasing *something* every few weeks or month.

Over time, as you build your audience, you can always package previously released songs with new material in the form of an album, which will give those titles new life. For new fans who weren’t along for the entire ride, which will be most, it will all be new material.

Bottom line: Streaming has turned consumers into passive listeners, the type of music fans who don’t lean forward to discover, making songs a significantly more digestible option, especially in an on-demand attention economy where TIME is King.