Thank u, next! Why pop stars fell out of love with albums
What’s your favourite Ariana Grande single of the past nine months? Was it April’s No Tears Left to Cry, or July’s ballad God Is a Woman? Maybe it was September’s anti-anxiety anthem, Breathin. Perhaps you weren’t a fan of Sweetener, the album that housed all three, and preferred November’s Thank U, Next, a single from a forthcoming album of the same title released this Friday. That global chart-topper was followed a month later by Imagine, which has now been replaced by 7 Rings.
Grande’s more-is-more attitude not only demonstrates how rapidly streaming culture has reshaped the way music is released, but, as she outlined in a recent interview with Billboard, how it liberates her from the music industry’s traditionally long-winded release cycle (“Do the teaser before the single, then do the single, and wait to do the preorder, and radio has to impact before the video, and we have to do the discount on this day”). Instead, she releases music direct to her fans, “in the way that a rapper does”.
Grande’s rapid-fire release strategy aligns her with a host of emerging pop artists who pepper streaming services with tracks, collaborations, acoustic covers, EPs and so-called “retail mixtapes” (basically an unofficial album) on an almost weekly basis.
“It’s genuinely creative freedom,” argues publicist Rob Chute, whose employer Toast works with the rising solo artists Mabel, Billie Eilish and Grace Carter. “You can put out what you want, when you want, and don’t have to stick to one genre or idea.”
Australian pop star Betty Who says it is about circumnavigating the music business “middlemen” rather than seeing which songs connect with fans. “I don’t feel like I’m trying to find what sticks. I get to make the music I want to make and I don’t have to get permission from anybody.”
Fellow Australian singer-songwriter Emmi has a more complicated relationship with streaming services. In 2016, Taylor Swift included Emmi’s track Sleep on It on her playlist of new music, and more people started paying attention. “Every artist falls prey to the notion that doing anything is better than doing nothing, particularly when there’s a buzz, and your fans are filling up your DMs with: ‘So what’s next?’” she says. “It’s possible you just release because you feel the pressure to keep people happy.” Still, she’s currently releasing a trilogy of playlists. One, out already, follows a relationship from start to finish; another is inspired by Shakespeare. “Much like curated playlists on Spotify and Apple, each one has its own mood, style and concept,” she says.
Neither Betty Who nor Emmi are on major labels. But for acts that are, such as Anne-Marie and Dua Lipa, this kind of strategy, where a succession of songs are released until one takes off, and then the album follows, can risk boring fans who were in at the start.
“While it does take longer for artists to get to their first album, once they are there, everything accelerates,” says the music business journalist Rhian Jones. “Suddenly they reach a level that might have previously been reached by album two or three. Are they rising fast to then decline just as fast? Only time will tell.”
For Mabel, another major-label pop artist, the trek to her debut album has been a long one. Since her arrival in 2015, she has released 12 singles, an EP and a mixtape, Ivy to Roses. An album is mooted for this year, close to two years after her biggest hit so far, Finders Keepers, a song that took months to build and ended up spending five weeks in the Top 10. Ivy to Roses, originally released in 2017, has recently been expanded to include her new single, Don’t Call Me Up. It has a lot riding on it after her previous single, One Shot, peaked at No 44. In the world of streaming, however, artists can quickly move on from a flop with tracks used to tide fans over before a hit kickstarts an album campaign.
So what of pop’s old guard, used to things called “CDs” being sold in places called “record shops”? “Big pop artists need to re-establish themselves in a modern context,” says Chute. “You might spend years planning a new album only to return to a landscape where you have to give half of that music away pre-release, as it boosts your profile.”
Olly Murs, who hasn’t added to his tally of eight UK top 10 singles since streaming data was added to the charts in 2014, released a double album last year featuring one side of new songs and one of greatest hits. Recently, Dido rolled out a campaign involving two “promotional singles” ahead of what then turned out to be the proper lead single, a tactic that might have worked had either of the early tracks taken off. Cheryl, meanwhile, is releasing songs on a track-by-track basis, with no threat of an album as yet; her comeback, Love Made Me Do It, peaked at No 19.
This shift in the mechanisms of pop is embodied by one of its most interesting practitioners, Charli XCX. Having released two traditional albums, in 2017 she put out two album-length mixtapes. Over the next two years, she released six “proper” singles including the Troye Sivan-assisted 1999. When the latter became a hit, she announced that 2019 was the year she would record a new album, tweeting “about time, right??”. Ultimately, the album remains attractive to artists – it can get you Brit and Grammy nominations and a No 1 position, and can allow you to craft a narrative.
Perhaps, then, the future is an overlapping of the traditional and the disruptive. “Artists are just putting out what they want, when they want these days, and calling it whatever they need to,” says Emmi. “I think it’s an exciting time.”
Artists are just putting out what they want, when they want these days, and calling it whatever they need to