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At midnight on September 21,Taylor Swiftwas in her element.
The plan would be to unveil one per night pulled from a bingo-ball cage.
As luck would have it, she drew her favorite number first: 13.
It was a Taylor Swift we hadnt seen in years.
Swift isnt the only one.
The past 12 months have been full of traditional album rollouts from A-list artists that grabbedandheld fans attention.
1 off of records with zero lead-in.
Meanwhile, albums that had full pop rollouts, like Dua LipasFuture Nostalgiaand Katy PerrysSmile, underperformed on arrival.
By the time Swift unveiled the surprise-dropevermore, she was experiencing diminishing returns on the charts.
But she felt a similar impact on the Hot 100, where single willow debuted at No.
1 but fell to No.
38 in its second week.
Earlier in 2020, cardigan only fell to No.
But on the charts today, keeping attention is more important than getting it.
It has never been easier to game the system to score a No.
1 just look at the high turnover on the charts this decade.
Adeles Easy on Me stayed at No.
1 for ten nonconsecutive weeks, buoying30for six weeks on the album chart and a dominant 839,000-unit debut.
Yes, Swift and Adele are two of the only artists who can command the charts that well today.
As for the other?
Beyonce reaped different benefits from her pre-album plans.
While her surprise-release strategy wasnt broken, it had one bug: Beyonce hadnt earned a solo No.
1songin more than a decade (likely due to how holisticBeyonceandLemonadewere as visual albums).
That changed withRenaissance, thanks to Beyonce actually leading off with Break My Soul.
The feat is all the more impressive when you remember that Break My Soulstill doesnt have a music video.
StylessHarrys Houserollout worked similarly As It Was wouldnt now be one of the longest-running No.
1s in history without its head start a month-and-a-half before the album came out.
In fact, the release ofHarrys Househelped the song bounce back to No.
1 in June and July only interrupted for one week by Drake.
And crucially, Beyonce didnt give up all of the creative freedoms of a surprise release.
Similarly, Lamar and Swift could still forgo prerelease singles to apparently little consequence on the albums chart.
A well-timed music video for Anti-Hero will still likely all but ensure another No.
1 on the Hot 100.)
Of course, theres one major exception to the recent rollout rule.
Bad Bunny has spent 13 weeks at No.
1 withUn Verano Sin Ti, an album he released by surprise in May.
Whats more, it hasneverleft the top two, regularly posting more than 75,000 units per week.
If anything, its success shows how much legwork it can take to make a surprise release stick.
Nearly ten years ago, that wasnt the case.
With any luck, shell have people talking aboutMidnightsfor many more midnights.
