Surprise album releases become the new normal

Octavis Lawson
Staff Writer

Album after album, artist after artist, the music industry is constantly changing.

Since Beyonce’s self-titled album dropped seemingly out of thin air on Dec. 12, 2013, there has been a string of headlining artist dropping LPs with little to no advanced notice to the masses.

This bodes well for the artists as well as the record companies.  Each of the last five albums that were released unexpectedly has gone on to sell at least 300,000 records in the first week of release.

This includes the aforementioned Beyonce album, which sold over 800,000 in the first three days of release, Drake’s “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late,” which sold over 495,000 and J.Cole’s “2014 Forest Hills Drive” with over 350,000 sold in its initial week of release.

The most recent artist/album to join these surprised releases was actually not planned by the artist, but the label which “accidentally” released the number one album on the Billboard Top 200 chart.

Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” was actually scheduled for a March 23rd release date but instead released eight days earlier via iTunes because of a problem at Interscope Records as well as iTunes Command Center. This happened to work out for the Compton, California rapper as “TPAB” went on to sell 363,000 copies during its first week of release.

So what’s the future of the music industry? Jackson State University senior graphic design major and local hip-hop artist Toi Lewis said, “In time there won’t be any release dates or even physical CD’s”.

The Jackson, Miss. native stated that eventually everything will be exclusively released online via Google Play and iTunes.

As the industry evolves and become more infatuated with what’s new and next, the majority of artists will most likely go to the surprised album tactics to get a leg up not only on competition but also on stopping album leaks.

The world of music has become so much more amazing over the past couple years and it seems to not have any intention of slowing down any time soon with Kanye West and Drake releasing “So Help Me God” and “Views from The 6” respectfully with no release dates in sight.

The time of being teased with singles to prepare for an album release is over and we will be treated with new music whether we like it or not.