Yes, it’s possible for an artist to release too much music

Hezekiel Yonas, Co-Editor in Chief

Everything in life should be taken in moderation – water, exercise, sleep, even music. So I’m a bit perplexed by the idea that Future expects his fans to listen to all four of the projects he dropped this year.

Even dropping more than one album a year is too much from a musician. It should take a lot of time for an artist to publish their product so the end result won’t seem too rushed.

They should constantly be making edits and changes to their album before releasing it so they can unveil the greatest album they could have possibly made. They also need a break between projects to get their creative juices flowing.

It frightens me to see Migos drop countless projects in 2015 because it shows that they didn’t put enough time into each one as I would like them to. I understand that some of these musicians want to drop albums/mixtapes frequently in order to always stay relevant, but they don’t give us listeners a chance to miss them.

In August, hip-hop producer/rapper Dr. Dre dropped his first album since 1999 and now it’s one of the highest selling rap albums of the year. I’m not encouraging any artist to wait 16 years to publish their next album, but the point is that people were excited to see Dr. Dre come back on the scene.

For an album to succeed commercially, there has to be a lot of hype behind it followed by music that impresses its target audience. But if an artist has already released three projects in one year, it’s hard for there to be hype around the fourth one.

Some artists are supplying the public with too much music, but there just isn’t enough demand for it.

Rapper/singer Drake has brilliantly found a way to stay relevant but also not oversaturating his audience with music. His method is putting out singles between albums, even when he has no intention of putting it on his next project.

Songs like “0 to 100 / The Catch Up” and “Hotline Bling” have entertained his fan base while they anticipate his solo albums. It keeps them enticed, gives them something to look forward to, but for now, just something to entertain them at the moment.

It’s a more effective strategy than leading up to an album by constantly releasing rushed mixtapes that only have a couple of songs that are actually of quality.

It’s unfair for an artist to oversaturate fans with music. Sometimes it takes time for a listener to form an opinion of a project, so it doesn’t help when there’s always a new one by the artist coming out.

There are always exceptions to dropping more than one project a year. Drake and Future’s collaborative What A Time To Be Alive was not their first project of the year, but still a very enjoyable listen.

But for the most part, oversaturation is a real thing and artists need to give the public a decent amount of time to listen to their project before releasing a new one. So many talented artists released stellar projects this year; so why should I spend my time listening to a lackluster and hastily made series of mixtapes/albums over a project that took an artist over a year to produce?