Deluge of new albums by big artists has vinyl factories in a spin
Pop music fans have never had it so good. After the pandemic led to a dearth of new releases, global superstars such as Adele, Ed Sheeran, Elton John, Abba and Coldplay are among the dozens of major artists that have clamoured to release new albums in the run-up to Christmas.
While the deluge of A-list records is a welcome boost for retail, it’s not without its pitfalls. Smaller artists are warning they risk being drowned out, and supply problems make it more difficult than ever to get vinyl records pressed.
“It’s really hard to recall a quarter four which was as jam-packed as this,” said Martin Talbot, the chief executive of the Official Charts Company. “It’s certainly a long, long time since we’ve had albums with the pulling power of Ed
Sheeran, Adele, Coldplay, Abba, Elton John competing in the Official Albums Chart.”
And it has created friction between the stars too, as it has forced them to compete for limited factory space to have lucrative vinyl printed.
“There’s like three vinyl factories in the world,” Ed Sheeran recently told Australian radio hosts Kyle and Jackie O. “So you have to do it like really upfront – and Adele had basically booked out all the vinyl factories, so we had to get a slot and get our album in there. It was like me, Coldplay, Adele, Taylor, Abba, Elton – all of us were trying to get our vinyls printed at the same time.”
Other big releases include Bruno Mars, Lana Del Rey and Lil Nas X – plus a slew of “heritage acts” such as Rod
Stewart, Neil Young and Sting.
“The final six to eight weeks of the year are always incredibly competitive,” Talbot said. “But in recent years the odd one or two big hitters have found themselves surrounded by Christmas albums – this year it seems like we will have a genuinely packed lineup of the biggest hitters on the planet.”
Though it is difficult to ascertain why everything is being released at the same time, Talbot believes “Covid has certainly had an impact”. The pandemic has encouraged artists to delay their releases, as well as give them time – away from promos and touring – to create new material.
Gennaro Castaldo, from record
labels association the BPI, said there was “something extra special” about “icons of popular culture” releasing records around the same time. “The stars don’t align in such a way that often.”
However, some music lovers are gloomy about these blockbuster releases – many of them from stars who have been around for decades – clogging up Spotify playlists and record store shelves.
“It’s interesting to look at exactly why we’re talking about new records by Elton John and Abba in 2021,” said John Doran, editor of the Quietus. “It must be utterly dumbfounding to be confronted by stuff like this as a 17year-old. The equivalent for me would have been opening the NME in 1988 only to read about the latest LP by Fred Astaire or Shirley Temple, while acid house was just kicking off and Public Enemy, Sonic Youth and the Pixies were releasing great records.”
But Doran said it was unfair to criticise artists like Adele for their popularity. “Where Adele (via her label Columbia) needs to be heavily criticised is not in the hogging of headlines but in the overproduction of vinyl on her behalf. Vinyl as a medium was kept alive in the UK primarily by the UK dance and the independent rock and metal underground when no one else cared.”
Last week, Variety reported that more than 500,000 copies of Adele’s new LP 30 have been pressed to meet demand. With waiting times now anywhere up to a year long, the magazine said Adele had to finish her album early to ensure records would be available on the same day the release hits streaming services.
For Doran, a reasonable solution was for major labels to invest some of the money they make back into opening a new vinyl pressing facility or strengthening existing plants.
“The world’s biggest stars aren’t ‘stealing’ attention from the underground but by leaving artists, bands and DJs without the means to make records to sell to fans, in many cases they are stealing their sole means of keeping their heads above water,” he said.