The Music Marketing Strategies Behind Recent Mitski, Burna Boy, and Jungle Releases
There's no single formula for effective music marketing strategies, but these are the stats and strategies behind some of the best performing releases of October 2023.
Welcome to The Forest’s Canopy Review, a monthly examination of successful music marketing strategies.
As labels struggle to break new artists and artists struggle to get traction on their own, it’s important to understand what music is breaking through and why. With this month’s review of some recent successful releases, I’m breaking down the music marketing stats and strategies that made these drops from Mitski, Burna Boy, and Jungle some of the most successful records last month.
My Love Mine All Mine by Mitski
The Stats
Since My Love Mine All Mine’s mid-September release, Mitski’s TikTok posts, TikTok Views, and Spotify Monthly Listeners have grown 167 percent, 68 percent, and 171 percent, respectively.
The track’s Spotify streams and YouTube views have been growing about 6 percent a day, on average, since release.
The track’s Spotify streams and YouTube views have been growing about 47 percent a week, on average, since release.
The Strategies
Rather than the traditional single-per-month campaign (usually 2-3 tracks before the album drops), Mitski’s team dropped a lead single in July followed by a double-drop of singles in August. Three weeks later, the album The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We came out.
A day after My Love Mine All Mine dropped, Clairo posted a cover of the track. It’s impossible to know whether this was the result of coordinated social marketing or whether it was an entirely organic post. Either way, it really seemed to jumpstart the algorithm for Mitski.
Compounding that success, Mitski’s passionate fans poured their hearts out on TikTok, soundtracking their confessional posts with My Love Mine All Mine.
Three weeks later, Mitski explained the background and intention behind the track as part of Genius’ Verified video series.
City Boys by Burna Boy
The Stats
Since City Boys’ late-August release, Burna Boy’s TikTok posts and TikTok Views have grown 21 percent and 15 percent, respectively, but his Spotify Monthly Listeners have remained stagnant.
The track’s Spotify streams and YouTube views have been growing about 2 percent and 5 percent a day, on average, since release.
The track’s Spotify streams and YouTube views have been growing about 11 percent and 27 percent a week, on average, since release.
The Strategies
Leading up to the release of the album I Told Them…, Burna Boy went with the single-a-month approach, ultimately releasing City Boys with the album itself.
Two weeks before City Boys dropped, Burna Boy teased the track on TikTok.
It wasn’t until two months after release that Burna Boy dropped the official music video for the track on YouTube.
Back on 74 by Jungle
The Stats
Since Back on 74’s late-July release, Jungle’s TikTok posts, TikTok Views, and Spotify Monthly Listeners have grown 139 percent, 47 percent, and 58 percent, respectively.
The track’s Spotify streams and YouTube views have been growing about 3 percent and 2 percent a day, on average, since release.
The track’s Spotify streams and YouTube views have been growing about 20 percent and 16 percent a week, on average, since release.
The Strategies
Jungle went with a different release timeline than Mitski and Burna Boy, choosing to drop four singles spaced out 1-2 months from one another before releasing their album Volcano in August.
Back on 74’s music video has been crucial to the track’s success on TikTok, largely because of how easily the video’s choreography translates to TikTok dance trends.
As such, Jungle coordinated the music video release with the release of Back on 74.
If there’s one consistency in all three of these campaigns, it’s this: The track closest to the album release tends to do best, suggesting that lead singles whet listeners’ appetites while album focus tracks represent the culmination of a multi-month marketing campaign. Success doesn’t last long though, with viral growth tapering off within the first month of an album’s release date.
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