Until recently, the entire catalog—singles, EPs, albums, and more—lived on a single page. What once felt simple and efficient gradually turned into something else entirely: a dense, heavy, and increasingly unmanageable archive. As the number of releases grew, so did the load times, the clutter, and the complexity of maintaining it all behind the scenes.
The solution? Start over—structurally.
Instead of forcing everything into one sprawling page, I’m now rebuilding the site around a more scalable and future-proof system. Each release is given its own dedicated page, enabling richer presentation, better performance, and a far more intuitive browsing experience.
At the heart of this transformation is the integration of Advanced Custom Fields, a powerful WordPress plugin that enables highly customized content structures. Using this tool, a bespoke “Custom Post Type” has been created to represent individual releases. This means every album, single, or EP now exists as its own structured entity within the system.
Each release includes detailed metadata—album title, artist, short and long descriptions, release date, and more—ensuring consistency across the entire catalog. To further streamline navigation and organization, two taxonomies have been introduced: one for artists and another for release types (single, EP, album, or double album). The result is a flexible framework that makes it significantly easier to both manage and explore the music.
On the front end, the new structure is split into two key experiences. First, a dynamic overview that allows users to browse releases filtered by artist and/or type—making discovery faster and more intuitive. Second, dedicated pages for each release, where listeners can dive deeper into the details behind the music.
The interface itself is already in place, and the migration process is well underway. Transferring a growing catalog into this new system is no small task, but the benefits are clear: improved performance, cleaner design, and a foundation built to scale.
For those curious to follow along, progress is being updated in real time here:
https://music.aerialis.com/album-type/album/
Once the transition is complete, the old all-in-one page—heavy, cluttered, and no longer fit for purpose—will be retired for good.
It’s not just a redesign. It’s a rethinking of how my music lives online.
