pop artists have turned suspense into the best marketing

Rosalia is one of the Spanish artists who has best understood the value and possibilities of social networks and internet to promote your work. He has thus perfected a time management strategy for his announcements based on leaving subtle clues about his upcoming works so that his fans immerse themselves in speculation and constant analysis. But she had never been so enigmatic and it had worked so well for her as with the publication of the sheet music of what could be one of her next songs.

Allegrissimo. The unpublished scores are for a melody titled ‘Berghain’, and he has shared them through your newsletter on Substack. Speculation immediately arose: the score suggests a possible turn in her musical style towards arrangements for strings, which increases expectations about her next album, still unannounced, and which may take the artist into unexplored musical terrain. The “leak” was followed by posters in the Plaza de Callao in Madrid, with his face immersed in musical figures and staves.

What is Berghain? But there are more meanings. Berghain is the name of a highly prestigious techno club in Germany, which is considered “the current techno capital of the world”, which somewhat contradicts the idea of ​​string arrangements. A red herring? In any case, the score is written on printed pages by the German G. Henle Verlag. After shipping, changed your Instagram profile picture and tweeted “LUX: LOVE” before deactivating your account. Fans assume that ‘LUX’ will be the title of their new album.

The fans play. The most interesting thing about the release of the score has been that numerous followers have been encouraged to interpret the piece with various instruments, sharing their versions on social networks, especially on TikTok. The result is fascinating, with fans giving their versions of the melody with violins, pianos, flutes and even accordions. The Twitter account @elojoquetodolov has compiled the best, including interpretations of a second page of sheet music that the artist later sent.

A success before leaving: the precedent of ‘Desphá’. In July 2022, when Rosalía sang her new song, ‘Despechá’, at the WiZink Center in Madrid, it had not yet been released on platforms or for sale. But the 15,000 people in the pavilion knew it. Rosalía, knowing how to handle this type of circumstances in her favor, quickly polled the public about the best title for the song and invited 20 people who knew the choreography to dance… on social networks.

When the ‘Motomami’ tour began in Spain, in Almería, no one knew it, but the videos of the concerts running around the internet did the rest. That and 35 seconds of the song that Rosalía uploaded to the internet mid-tour. By the time he arrived in Madrid, influencers like María Pombo had spread it and made it a success. They are decisions like this, and masterful information dosage strategies, like the one that accompanied the release of their album ‘Motomami’ which has turned it into a study center for marketing experts and pop sociology.

Rosalía is not an isolated case. There have been multiple examples of artists using the internet and social media to create puzzles, games with fans, and cutting-edge marketing to generate buzz.

• BTS: For the release of ‘Dynamite’ in 2020, BTS created a web page with multiple countdowns with different dates, without showing clear information. Each countdown gave way to exclusive content such as pre-purchase links or visual previews. This tactic kept the public’s interest for an entire month before the album’s release.​

• Taylor Swift: ‘Reputation’ (2017) was promoted with a complete deletion of his Instagram, followed by cryptic images and symbols, such as snakes, that anticipated a dark turn in his image. This strategy was also carried out by Beyoncé in the releases of Lemonade (2016) and Renaissance (2022) with network deletion and cryptic messages. Although Beyoncé already knew what she was doing since 2013, when she released her self-titled album without any prior promotion, breaking traditional patterns.
• Ed Sheeran: For her song ‘Bad Habits’ in 2021, she created a Snapchat filter with digital fangs, encouraging fans to interact with them and create their own content.​
• Frank Ocean: Known for his secretiveness and his use of absence to create buzz, he disappeared from the public scene for years before releasing his acclaimed ‘Blonde’ in 2016. Before that, he broadcast a live video on his website for several days, showing a figure building a ladder in a warehouse.
• Sabrina Carpenter: In 2018 he deleted his Instagram and for the release of ‘Short n’ Sweet’his team designed a campaign full of “Easter eggs” with clues and teasers. Before the release of ‘Man’s Best Friend’, he hosted secret listening sessions in Los Angeles and New York, allowing a select group of fans to hear it before anyone else. In promoting his song ‘Manchild’, he launched a campaign with eye-catching and enigmatic advertising posters in strategic places, with minimal and cryptic messages such as “Hey men” and “Amen”,
• Daft Punk. Of course.

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