If you are planning to release an album’s worth of material, your best bet is to figure out your sequencing ahead of time - meaning, before you record your songs.
With that goal in mind, here are some tips on how to sequence your songs to create your best possible album. When an album is sequenced well, the songs flow together in a way that make all the songs feel necessary, with each song building on the one that came before it and enhancing the one that comes next. Although a greatest-hits compilation is, by definition, packed with hits, a great album, thanks to sequencing, tells a story. Compare the experience of listening to a great album as opposed to a greatest-hits compilation. Even in this age of streaming, albums aren’t going away any time soon. Perfecting your song order when you sequence an album can mean the difference between a great artistic statement and a nice mixtape.