Some of the ways that artists announce new stuff is I guess to build up that anticipation, however I find many of these methods irritating and frustrating.
Example 1 - Fever Ray: They started teasing a something with pictures and then 10 second clips three weeks before a track was released!
Example 2 - Taylor Swift: An album was announced with just an image. No music. No tracklist. Then the names of the tracks were slowly released every 2-3 days. But still no music.
I honestly think my preferred method is when an album just drops. No announcement or Instagram posts just bosh…. New album.
All part of the game, innit. Artists wanting to do something that will mean that media outlets have something to report on. Just dropping an album is fine for gigantic artists, or artists who fit into a specific niche, but I understand why others do things which will get them written about in advance of releasing new material.
Arguably what the Gallagher brothers & Kanye do is all part of the same thing.
Releasing the album one song at a time drives me nuts. I’m always sick of the first few songs by the time the whole thing drops. Same with releasing 3 or four songs first. Now I wait until the whole album is released before I bother checking it out.
I liked Alvvays drip feeding Blue Rev. Wasn’t convinced by Pharmacist at first but by the time they’d dropped the first four songs I was on board and when they released After The Earthquake 2 days in advance I was practically vibrating with excitement. We all need something to look forward to ATM.
I liked the way 36 did it with his latest album: announce that it’s on its way, along with a sign-up for a livestream listening party to hear the thing in its entirety. And then released it right after the stream.
Aye this slow rollout, teasers of teasers, 4/5 songs released before the album is? bollocks!
If it’s a band I like, I just avoid all the songs before the album is released now.
Kind of like Fever Ray’s build-up to the first single. Visually interesting content. Just don’t want more than 1 other single before there’s an album, and I don’t want that album to be more than 2 months away.
I’m basically a 1-single person at this point. Love the album format and I like a single teaser but then just let me have it.
thought it was weird that the new Arctic Monkeys album got announced but there wasn’t a single for another week or two
think the new Bill Callahan was the same - which was surprising seeing as for his last album he released every track in order as a single up until release day. and for the album before that he released an entire side of the album at a time instead of individual singles