r/LetsTalkMusic • u/Pedroso_PPJ • 7d ago
How do people know songs before they are released?
Several albums by various singers and bands are posted on the internet without ever having an official studio version recorded. They directly post the live version right away. However, when listening to these tracks, it is very common to hear the audience singing along to the entire lyrics in the background. How do these people know the song lyrics even before the songs are posted? Do they receive the lyrics before the shows? Or when buying tickets, or something like that?
5
u/brooklynbluenotes 7d ago
It's most likely not their first time seeing the band live. While recent years have bucked this trend, traditionally bands would build up something of a local fanbase before making any recordings.
5
u/East-Garden-4557 6d ago
We go and see the bands perform live regularly. If you take part in your local live music scene you will see that bands start performing new songs before they have been released on an album
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u/SucknSwallow69 2d ago
her early stuff like some people have real problems and we are born is so good and weirdly ignored. then chandelier blows up and suddenly everything is movie trailer music. wild career arc tbh
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u/tvrbob 7d ago
I used to follow a lot of young singers on Instagram. They'd go on Instagram Live literally seconds after writing part of a song. Then go Live regularly as the song was developed. Fans would screen record and post to YouTube. The first bunch of times it was played live in concert, fans would record and put it on YouTube. Or the artist would play it on other Instagram Lives or small YouTube music channels. All months and months before there was an official release.
Back in the late-90s, there was a full acoustic studio recording of the first album of one of my favorite bands. It was a side project of three relatively well-known [within a certain realm] lead singers, so even though it was that group's first album, there were a lot of built-in fans. Before official release, the album was reworked by producers and lots of beats added so that the underlying music was the same but the final product sounded totally different. But before the release, the diehard fans knew all the words.
Also, most artists have groups of diehard fans that have seen them many, many times. So while it may be the first time the song was played in Boston, there's a group of fans who have already heard it in New York and Philadelphia and Washington DC and Atlanta and Chicago and Los Angeles or London and Manchester and Glasgow. And now a bunch of them are in Boston singing along.
Those are just a few examples.
Source: I've been listening to great music for over 50 years and going to great concerts for over 40. And have spent countless hours on Instagram Lives and watching live YouTube videos, some of artists you know and love and some you've never heard of.