The One Thing We Need To Bring Back The Album Format

As anyone who reads this site on a regular basis knows, I’m a huge fan of albums.

Albums allow us to really dig into an artist, and discover songs that will never be released as singles that we can relate to, and love.

This is why I still put together my annual year-end must-hear albums list, and this year I even expanded it with a mid-year list.

That said, I know I’m a dinosaur. The album format has waned in popularity over the past decade-plus. Artists used to be able to go gold, and even platinum in a week. Not so anymore. Now, rather than sales, they have to rely on album equivalent units from streaming for such certifications.

Sure, there will always be a few artists like Taylor Swift, and Beyonce, who can generate album sales simply by breathing, but for the most part people don’t care about the album format like they used to.

Streaming is always painted as the bad guy in this, and I certainly have strong feelings about streaming, and the negative impact it can have on artists (especially financially). In the case of the album, however, while streaming is complicit in the current situation, it isn’t fully to blame.

A while back I posted on social media that I miss street teams, van wraps, and snipes.

For those who read that, and said, “What the heck are you talking about?” let me explain.

Street teams, van wraps, and snipes are all old school promotional methods.

Street teams were groups of people, usually students, that a record label would hire to plaster a city with posters hyping up an album’s release. In the hip-hop world those posters were referred to as snipes, while outside of hip-hop they were referred to as wheatpaste posters due to the fact that a wheatpaste concoction was used to affix them to a wall. Someone would spread the paste, slap the posters on the wall, then move it along.

The posters were cheap, easy to put up, and due to the wheatpaste, kind of a pain in the ass to take down.

Sometimes street teams would also staple posters together all the way up a light pole.

Being that postering a city is an act of dubious legality, the posters would sometimes only stay up for a short period of time, but that actually made people talk about the album being advertised even more. It became a very, “Did you see …” type of deal.

Van wraps are something everyone has seen, as pretty much every business that has a van will wrap that van in their company’s logo, contact info, etc.

In hip-hop, however, van wraps were taken to another level, and it was all in an effort to advertise an album’s release.

A record label would have an entire van wrapped in graphics hyping up an artist, and their upcoming album. The van would then be parked outside concerts, so everyone going in and/or coming out would see the van, and know about the album that’s on the way.

Even though it was a common way to promote an album, each van was a talking point, which was exactly what the label wanted.

After I thought about why I miss these things, I realized what I actually miss is the idea behind them, and that idea is anticipation.

I like the idea of having weeks, if not months, of lead up to an album’s release. I like the feeling of knowing something I’ve been waiting for is getting closer to finally being out, and in my hands.

This led me to realize what the album format is missing in 2024 – excitement.

Being that albums aren’t driving money to the industry, the industry is largely ignoring albums, but if the powers that be were to put just a little effort into creating anticipation for albums we could very easily see a renewed interest in the format.

In the age of streaming, album releases have essentially become giant song dumps. If the artist is well known, Billboard has all but assured every one of the songs will chart for a week before quickly disappearing from the Hot 100, and the public consciousness.

It’s crazy, right? An artist takes a year, or sometimes multiple years, to create a project, and streaming pretty much kills it off within a week of its release.

Why does this happen?

Imagine the world is filled with vending machines that hold an infinite amount of snacks, and everything is free. You’d sample a bunch of snacks, and some of them may be great, but because nothing about this is special, you simply eat, and move on. You may tell someone about which snacks you liked, but it isn’t a real talking point.

Streaming is the vending machine, and the songs from a new album are a dozen of the free snacks in it.

Now imagine a meal at a restaurant you’ve been wanting to try for ages. The day comes when you finally have a reservation, and you take your time with a great dinner. You end up raving about that dinner, telling all your friends about it, saying they need to try the place, and how you’d love to take them there. You go back again, and again, bringing different people with you each time.

The restaurant is the album, and the dinner is the songs.

See the difference, and why the latter has a greater impact?

It’s all about the anticipation, and the experience, creating excitement.

When it comes to the album format, we need to bring excitement back. I know it won’t be easy, because there’s no lining up at a record store at midnight anymore, or grabbing your friends to go to the mall on a Tuesday for the new releases.

Hopefully, a far greater promotional mind than mine will be able to come up with some ideas.

Heck, maybe we can bring back street teams, van wraps, and snipes. It would be a start!

Let’s get people excited about albums again!