Then in January, just one week after announcing a March release date, leaks encouraged Björk to immediately release the magnificent Vulnicura.Ī case like Björk’s may well have occurred regardless but Beyoncé undoubtedly signalled a decisive shift in the way major label stars conceive the release of their works. In December, Madonna was compelled to make available the first six songs from her upcoming Rebel Heart owing to the leak in spates of assorted demos. To some extent, this sudden manner of release is an inevitable result of albums leaking over the internet. Beyond the strengths of Beyoncé’s album – as she explored new sonic territory, with a lush sound palette, looser vocals, and songs split into discrete parts her subject matter flowing between her married bedroom, and a public sphere implicating women’s rights and the standing of women in the entertainment industry – Beyoncé has attained its reputation as a groundbreaking work in large part for arriving unannounced, and accompanied by seventeen videos. You drop the “album” when you are ready to rest your reputation on a single body of work.’Īs for the surprise factor, the pivotal release in this context was Beyoncé at the close of 2013. You drop an “EP” when you think you’ve got your sound down and wanna float a more prestigious project to retail w/o the critics harshing you. You drop a “mixtape” when you’re spitballing ideas out of sight of the charts or trying to regain some lost industry cachet. how badly the artist wants you to buy the product. ‘The distinction between albums, mixtapes and EPs is 100% a matter of marketing intent, ie. Discussing this debate on Twitter, the music writer Craig Jenkins suggested: The second context revolves around the surprise nature of the release and its uncertain form: ostensibly put out as a mixtape, it has been embraced in essence as Drake’s fourth album proper, and the follow-up to 2013’s Nothing Was the Same.
The sudden appearance of Drake’s record has been interpreted as a cursory attempt to fulfil contractual obligations with its title read as a scarcely coded message directed at Birdman. Wayne’s lawsuit thereby implicates Drake and Nicki Minaj, Young Money’s two biggest stars and there are suggestions that both have fallen out with Birdman and Cash Money over personal differences and unpaid royalties. In January Lil Wayne filed a suit seeking the termination of his contract with Cash Money $51 million in damages, citing money owed and joint copyright over everything Young Money Entertainment has hitherto released. The first involves the ongoing lawsuit between Lil Wayne and Cash Money – and Cash Money’s founder, Birdman – relating to issues of copyright and the delayed release of Wayne’s Tha Carter V. Two contextual issues have marked the response to If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. So Far Gone led to Drake signing with Young Money Entertainment, an imprint of Cash Money headed by Lil Wayne, with whom Drake was already a frequent collaborator.
The surprise release of Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late came, a couple of weeks ago, precisely on the eve of the sixth anniversary of 2009’s So Far Gone, the mixtape that established his credentials as one of this generation’s preeminent rappers.