This would have been fine if he had just released the album. Still one of his weakest, but I wouldn't have been disappointed. Now the entire project feels tainted. Just an odd, odd rollout. I'm wondering if he'll actually keep releasing stuff throughout the year or if he changed his mind on that too.
I just want to know what happened. Was he not getting enough traction on the EPs? Did a record exec somewhere get in the way? Was he unhappy with the single performance of "LOTW" and "SFLYM"? Is it a packaging thing to help with branding the tour? He sold out all the shows in hours, it can't be a sales thing. Ugh ugh ugh.
So dumb. On principal alone this is my least favourite album of his. Might end up being my least favourite in general too.
I have no idea. Maybe they just wanted a physical release. It seemed like the EPs were getting decent stream numbers. The whole thing makes no sense. Fuck, I was looking forward to getting 12 waves of this and then putting together albums from it. There goes that.
He said he still plans to release music through out the year which is cool, but yeah this is disappointing.
Guess I did right to not check these songs out as they came out. I typically only listen to music in album format so I was never very excited for this rollout
Based on the songs we already have this isn't going to feel like an album anyway. The songs are so disjointed. I felt like that was fine when he was doing the waves but putting out a standard album like that is just a bit weird to me.
I think it'll depend somewhat on how the last remaining new songs integrate into the tracklist. Even playing through the two EPs in order as they are now doesn't feel that disjointed to me, though. It doesn't feel super cohesive, either, but I haven't had the "woah, these songs don't fit together at all" moment yet. They're all kind of unified by the break-up album theme, for me.
I'm trying to read through and keep up, but help me out, the "waves" of new music are finished and he's releasing the album?
For me the ep's feel super disjointed. Almost every song on there feels weird after the previous one to me. Honestly I was thinking that was part of the reason for why he was putting them out in that way.
1. Still Feel Like Your Man 2. Emoji of a Wave 3. Helpless 4. Love on the Weekend 5. In the Blood 6. Changing 7. Theme from 'The Search for Everything' 8. Moving On and Getting Over 9. Never on the Day You Leave 10. Rosie 11. Roll it on Home 12. You're Gonna Live Forever in Me I've been listening to them a bunch as one eight-song album and it hasn't bothered me much. I kind of like that it's not too one-note. I think I'll end up liking this album, but the rollout has kind of soured me on the whole release cycle.
Thanks! Yeah, I feel like I'll end up liking this, mostly because part of me was nervous he'd pull similar and didn't listen to the eps a whole heck of a lot. Do we know when it drops?
It hasn't really bothered me because I've been listening to it as just little collections of songs. I don't think they work together as an album though. Maybe I'll feel differently listening to the whole thing? I still think I'll like it too, I like the majority of the songs he's put out so far but yeah the release strategy has me super sour at the moment.
I'll echo the others and state my disappointment that the album is basically the EPs. What an awkward roll out.
I'd be fine with all the variety if every song was actually good. Other than Helpless, Moving On, and Still Feel Like Your Man everything else sounds like a B-side to his earlier, better albums.
Point of clarification: do we know for sure that he's not going to drop another wave in April, May, etc? It could be that he (read: the label) wants a physical product to sell at shows, and that he'll keep dropping waves throughout the year. Either way, I'm really not sure why he's not come forward and done an interview on what the hell is actually going on. It's the no-duh PR move in this case.
Doesn't everyone that purchased a ticket get a physical copy of the album? Maybe that's why he had to roll it out so fast. Either way, poorly planned-out idea. Very few of those songs stick out.