From a marketing perspective, I guess, what do you think is the best time in the calendar year to release a record?

Gotta give gifts.

FALL. Gotta give the gifts time to reach mass market exposure.

This is the right rationale but wrong season. Late Spring - Summer for the reasons given.

If you look at the new release schedules you'll see that's when the bulk of major label releases come out, and there's always relatively very few that come out after September. The majors are pretty clueless about a lot of things, but I'd say they are right on this score.

edit: of course, a contrarian view would be that the late fall through xmas is a great time to release something and get more exposure because so little is coming out then. I think this works well for indies.

it's the fall. that second week of september is always a monster. (it's september 12 this year - black keys, basement jaxx, dj shadow, junior boys, mars volta, the rapture, tv on the radio (us), yo la tengo, and even john mayer and justin timberlake.) it allows enough time for those albums to consistently get the press to stay in the public's eye up until christmas.

in addition to it being from a marketing perspective, september 30 is the deadline for the following year's grammy-eligible releases. i realize that this doesn't pertain to a lot of what people on this board listen to, but a few of our favorites do get nominated each year and those nominations elicit a rash of sales. like the oscars, where late-year movie releases routinely have a bulk of the nominations, late-year album releases take up a lot of room on critical year-end best-of lists. this also helps sales.

Haha...if you limit it to September I suppose I agree with Z. But the Fall is really September through November. And being in LA, I have a hard time even considering September part of the Fall.

I presume placement on year end lists does factor into an artist's sales. Especially in the indie circles.

Winter and spring releases are very nearly forgotten by that point.

Summer releases... I can't think of any really. It seems to be mostly dance, pop, hip-hop stuff.

Fall's where it's at.

Ahhh the "Bright Eyes/Strokes" construct.

Release your album the beginning of January. You not only get those Xmas dollars you almost guarantee a #1 record because your major competition is "Jessica Simpson: A Very Special Christmas"

this is actually not a bad idea. in the case of the strokes, they released their worst yet and most likely won't get much of a bump for the christmas season of selling. so, when yearly sales and critical best-of lists are released, the label and the band can say, "it was released in january. people forgot about it. they were too busy making new year's resolutions. etc." and they kinda get off the hook.

I voted fall, but's more like late summer/early fall, up until about mid-October. It's seems like new releases taper off drastically after that.

Summer releases have the potential to suffer from over-play but get ample opportunity for exposure while fall releases still seem fresh by the end of the year.

I also agree with fall, particularly for critical presence. I almost think it's shooting a project in the foot to release a big record in the first six months of the year, in terms of having any truly longevitous stay.

I think its like the movies. If you have some hot shit, good action, great tracks, you throw it out right before peak travel/leisure season. Which is why T.I.'s album has remained my favorite over the summer: its got knock, its fast paced, and its serious, but not TOO serious.

If you have an oscar contender/best album of the year contender, wait until Fall, where the critics will have time to mull it over and chew on it.

Strangely, two of my faves came out early this year: Strokes and DBT, and though many of YOU chowderheads will probably forget them come year end, they are soldily in my Top 5.