The era of the traditional album rollout is over. But have we hit peak gimmick?

Rejoice! Or despair! Coldplay have a new album coming.

Chris Martin et al didn’t announce their eighth record, Everyday Life, through a traditional press release. Instead, they took out ads in local papers around the world, listing the tracks for their double album (yep, double) alongside notices for fridge freezers and hay bales. And through this calculated display of humility, they made far more headlines than a bog standard PR email would have done.

This kind of stunt is increasingly frequent at a time when every artist, especially if they’re a big star, is trying to be more “surprising” than the next. I blame Beyonce – ever since the unannounced arrival of her brilliant self-titled album in 2013, gimmicky releases have become the norm, and surprises have become less and less surprising.

It’s becoming a rare event, in fact, for an email to drop into my inbox with a subject line like, “Paul McCartney announces his 4,513th solo album, out next spring”. Because bands don’t need to rely on journalists to spread the word anymore. It’s much more fun to have your fans do the detective work.

And it does often take a detective to figure out when, say, Kanye West, is going to drop an album. A few weeks ago, the world was poised for the teased release of Jesus is King. West hadn’t officially announced a release date, so fans and music journalists alike had been forced to pick up on his misleading, scatterbrained clues. My colleague even stayed up until midnight, primed to review it as soon as it dropped. It didn’t. Just last night, she did the same. Again, it didn’t appear. Has West never heard of the boy who cried wolf?

Perhaps artists are resorting to untraditional rollouts because there is so much noise to compete with these days. A recent Vulture article pointed out that there was seven times more music released this year than in 1960. It might just not cut it anymore to release a press release, do the interview rounds, and release a handful of singles, months ahead of time. Because by the time your album’s out, the world might have moved on. Our attention spans aren’t what they were. I’m surprised you’re still reading this.

I don’t exactly know the reason for artists’ newfound allergy to announcing their albums normally. But if it means one fewer email in my inbox with the word “songstress” in it, then I won’t complain.

Yours,

Alexandra Pollard

Arts writer and commissioning editor