Rollouts, pre-saves, and release-day velocity.
Ariana Grande entered release day for petal with 3.22M pre-saves and opened with 62.19M Spotify streams, charting all 12 tracks inside 24 hours. The mechanics scale down to an independent release.
A remix album bridged Brat to the next record, three songs dropped on consecutive days, a B-side surfaced on an alt account, and phone-locked shows kept footage scarce. Four rollout mechanics independent artists can run without the budget.