BEYONCÉ VS. DRAKE
Superstar albums present an interesting contrast in rollout strategies, writes
The back-to-back release of superstar albums by Beyoncé and Drake this week presents an intriguing study in contrasting rollout strategies — one completely of the moment (and owning the moment), the other measured and laborious and agonizingly taking no chances.
Beyoncé dropped her sixth solo album, Lemonade, last Saturday night in much the same fashion she dropped her fifth, Beyoncé, in 2013: confidently, stylishly and without much warning.
After a couple of weeks’ worth of judiciously seeded rumours that a new album might be on the way — bam! — there’s Bey surprising everyone with an hour-long HBO special stringing its contents together into a slick, provocative filmic narrative, a stunt that bettered even the 14 video clips packaged along with her last “visual album” two and a half years ago.
Cue instant media frenzy, guaranteeing people would be talking about the album the next morning even though no one could hear (or see) the damn thing again for two days unless they subscribed to Tidal, the “prestige” streaming service in which Ms. Knowles and her husband, Jay Z, have a large stake.
In some cases, the Tidal exclusive might have been irksome, but in Beyoncé’s crafty hands — “Is she talkin’ ‘bout Jay cheatin’ on her?” — all the ensuing fuss only triggered an epidemic of FOMO amongst the “normals” who had to wait until Monday to download Lemonade off iTunes.
The lady certainly knows how to make an entrance. No one even seemed to mind that she made pretty much exactly the same entrance with her last album in 2013. Beyoncé was, once again, hailed as an innovator and a master media manipulator, and not without reason.
Drake, on the other hand, has been teasing his latest, VIEWS, for so long that one might be forgiven for thinking the album was out there already.
The dust had barely time to settle on 2013’s Nothing Was the Same when Toronto’s reigning favourite son started talking up his next joint, which everyone subsequently assumed would be called Views from the 6 since, you know, that’s what Drake had been calling it for nearly two years before a hasty change of heart announced late Wednesday afternoon excised the Toronto reference from the marquee.
Two “mix tapes” — If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late and the Future tag-team What a Time to Be Alive — would follow in 2015, but Views from the 6 dwelled stubbornly in the realm of promises, promises, promises until the teaser single “Summer Sixteen” landed in January and it appeared there might be light at the end of the tunnel. An April 29 release date announced earlier this month, and two more singles, gave us hope — although Kanye West’s recent troubles getting Life of Pablo out there on deadline have demonstrated that these things aren’t always entirely set.
Indeed, the endlessly changing album artwork and this week’s 11th-hour retitling of VIEWS suggest Drizzy isn’t letting go of his mas- terpiece until it’s just so. Or until someone, perhaps Universal Music — which, according to a few knowledgeable sources, was still waiting for the VIEWS master to come in at the beginning of the week — physically rips it from his hands.
In any case, VIEWS was scheduled to arrive on Friday as an exclusive on Apple Music and iTunes, following a 10 p.m. “global release party” and a rare, live Drake interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1.
And like Beyoncé’s Lemonade or Rihanna’s recent, rush-released Anti, it will no doubt briefly break the Internet because, as it turns out, making people wait forever for a record like Life of Pablo or the album formerly known as Views from the 6 is just as good a promotional tactic as dropping it on them out of the blue.
Extremes are about the only sure thing the music industry has got. For now.