Week Eight: SURPRISE!

In 2013, the surprise album became a thing. "This year's most obvious examples are Kanye West's Yeezus, Jay Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail and Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience, but there are also others, like Sleigh Bells, who only gave fans and the press a month's notice that its third album Bitter Rivals would be coming in early October." Most recently, Drake dropped his If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late album. In contrast to films, artists earn a high profit from surprise albums. Growing in popularity, surprise albums will not work for every artist. To try and understand this approach, Eric Ducker got on the phone with Amaechi Uzoigwe, who has been a manager for two decades.

Drake's surprise album cover

Uzoigwe says that surprise albums are both a marketing technique and the reality of how audiences consume music now. He explains that musicians use it because if their album gets leaked it impacts sales, thus promoting and marketing an album months in advance isn’t always the best thing for an artist to do. “[Surprise albums are] an adaption by people on the marketing side to get in front of these things. It can be really savvy and smart, but a very important consideration is that the artist has to already be very established.” He continues to explain by comparing Jay-Z to Four Tet. Jay-Z is a huge superstar while Four Tet has been around forever and has a strong fan base. People know both artist but, if an unknown musician releases a surprise album, it’s compared to having a tree fall down in the forest and no one hears it. When an artist has a brand, surprise albums can be a marketing tool as well as great press. “ It's exciting to people, because everything moves at such a high velocity these days. The enormous volume of music out there also plays a role.”

Amaechi Uzoigwe

Ducker asked, “ If they keep hearing about something, but don't hear it soon, now they're going to lose interest in it.” Uzoigwe responded by say that once the musicians tell press about their album, it's going to get leaked. He emphasizes the fact that it’s inevitable and once an album leaks it’s everywhere. “They don't care if it leaks and destroys your campaign. I'm not saying they don't care in some malicious way, but I don't even think this new generation of music consumer even thinks that way.” Uzoigwe believes that musicians should use audiences behavior as an advantage. In addition, Uzoigwe mentions that surprise album sales are all luck and having good quality music.

Ducker’s question was, if artists, labels and managers were adapting to this or do are they still stuck up on older models? Uzoigwe response was in-between, it depends on age. “The younger artists, they didn't grow up even knowing the old model, so it doesn't matter to them. They're all about immediacy. It's frustrating to them, especially those who end up getting signed by a label who then has a more traditional approach.”

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/10/21/239071510/a-rational-conversation-manager-amaechi-uzoigwe-on-surprise-album-releases

Ducker, E. (2013, October 21). A Rational Conversation: Manager Amaechi Uzoigwe On Surprise Album Releases. Retrieved March 1, 2015, from http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/10/21/239071510/a-rational-conversation-manager-amaechi-uzoigwe-on-surprise-album-releases