The days where an artist had to spend months at a time building up anticipation for an album’s release are now gone. Beyoncé, Jay Z and many others have seen to that personally. But that doesn’t mean that the option is all of a sudden obsolete.

Just knowing that surprise album releases are a possibility has given people an insatiable appetite for more. Artists want to be able to avoid the headaches of promoting a project half a year in advance and the build-up of pressure that comes with it. It’s also a way to combat the ever-growing problem of album leaks in the digital era. Fans have understandably fallen in love with the notion of waking up one morning to find out that their favorite artist has released an album no one knew was coming. I mean, who doesn’t like surprises?

But this is really just another display of an increasingly short attention span and an overall impatience within the culture. Sure, the occasional surprise album is great for the industry. It shows the true power of both the artist and their audience. If you can drop an album at will, with no singles or press, and still get a positive response, that’s an accomplishment you can brag on until the end of all time. I take my hat off to you. But here’s the reality of it. Not everyone can do this.

Today’s digital platform gives artists enough creative freedom to pretty much do whatever they want, which includes making spontaneous album announcements. It’s the new and exciting thing to do. But what happens when it’s what everyone is doing? It gets old and there’s no longer any shock value.

Some, if not most, artists actually need to spend months promoting their albums because, with the speed that new music comes and goes in today’s market, a misstep could lead to a wasted project. The strategy of releasing albums out of the blue comes with a high reward, but an even higher risk. – Keith Reid-Cleveland