Six Pak Format – Cutting Albums in Half

In an attempt to combat rapidly falling album sales, Warner Music Nashville is releasing Blake Shelton’s “Hillbilly Bone” on March 2 as a “Six Pak” – a six-song album that will be followed by another six-song release in August.

The advantage of the Six Pak is that it will allow artists to deliver music to their fans on a more regular basis instead of just releasing an album every two or three years. It seems that artists usually release an album, go on tour, disappear for a while, and then release another album. In this age of short attention spans, artists can’t really afford to disappear for a while to write new material. The Six Pak would help to eliminate the gaps in the marketing cycle between new releases. I think the Six Pak would help artists to maintain and grow their fan bases since they would be releasing new music more often.

Of course, the success of the Six Pak rests heavily on the price which is not yet available, but Peter Strickland, senior VP of sales and marketing at Warner Music Nashville, said that fans would be getting music at a “vale price package.” That leads me to believe that consumers would pay for both halves of the album upfront and then receive the second Six Pak later. If the price of two Six Paks is less than what we would normally pay for an entire album, this could signal the end of the full-length album and the rise of the Six Pak (aka the EP).

Source: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i0ff61901827d0c7f480e6534ca117a3d

~Emilia Segatti