Last year, Kanye West had begun to announce his new album that would undergo many controversies before release. Every time the title was changed or the album was delayed, it would hit the news, people would talk about it, and the album would garner more interest from potential listeners.

When Kanye finally released the album it was met with major commercial success, debuting as No. 1 on the Album Billboard and remaining there for a few weeks, eventually outselling his previous album substantially.

Featured on his album is alternative R&B artist Frank Ocean, who has just released his long anticipated album “Blonde”. Frank followed Kanye’s footsteps by shrouding his album in mystery, changing it’s name and giving multiple delays.

It seems Kanye West may have founded a new and effective way to market an album: change its name, lie about release dates, change tracklists and anything else you can do to gather controversy and attention.

The whole point of a marketing campaign is to spread word and pique interest in a product. Kanye’s new and chaotic way to spread awareness for your album does exactly that. The success of this method points toward a future where the release of each album is littered with delays, name changes, and controversies all in the name of selling more copies.

But how does this affect the fan? The person who follows the artist closely and is prepared to buy the album whenever possible.

RHS Junior Aaron Schroeder is one of these people. He followed the release of the new Frank Ocean album very closely and became frustrated at the amount of misinformation and release date changes round the album.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with a release date for an album,” said Aaron ¨I just want to be able to know the name of the album and when it is coming out.¨

Artists don’t make the same amount of money that they used to, mostly due to stricter record label contracts and reduced album sales due to the rise in popularity of streaming services. It seems the only way to make the type of revenue artists used to earn is to either tour for ridiculous amounts of time, or get as many people to listen to their music as possible.

This new style of marketing is not only easy to accomplish, but extremely effective. Artists will see the success of Kanye West and Frank Ocean and begin to mimic their strategy. Whether the public likes it or not, the new and modern way to market your album is through drama, lies, and theatrics.