This progress is good J.Cole is giving us a moment we won’t forget. Those Tuesday trips to Best Buy that have become calls to Comcast about WiFi issues will someday become 'trips' to the app store. As we cross one bridge, what is left behind will become an after-thought, a piece of an old regime. The seeds are being planted, sadly in digital soil.

We are stepping into the age where all the traditional rules and regulations are being dismantled before our very eyes. No need for blogs, or a mailing list to play middleman. I loved that about Yeezus, seeing Kanye speak about the project after it was received by the public. Really get their hands dirty, same with interviews – there’s no reason for generic questions when you have an album worth of questions waiting to be asked. Unless journalists adapt, embrace the surprise, enjoy with the public, and dissect in private. Blogs are too competitive about being first, without an advance copy, I’m imagining the album reviews will be 50% gifs and 50% memes, and very little substance. I’m not looking forward to the disastrous music reviews that will follow. All the excitement that is spawned by the sudden release is surged into social media the connection will also allow us to have a united experience, like watching The BET Awards, minus the fashion slander.

Cole is delivering nothing but music, and I love it.īut what if Forest Hills Drive is an aftershock that inspires even more quakes? Can you imagine waking up every day jubilant about the idea that an album is dropping and you have no idea what’s on it? Surprise releases create an experience, one where the product isn’t diluted by pushbacks, leaks or half the album being pushed to blogs (cough, cough). We need selfies in the studio, Breakfast Club interviews, behind-the-scenes footage of the coming soon behind-the-scenes video of the video. We don’t know the features, the song titles, we don’t know anything, and that goes against every marketing rule that has been implemented in the digital age. It’s safe to say Cole’s album is an aftershock of Beyonce's quake, inspired by the campaign-less campaign. Never-before-heard songs, never-before-seen videos, the beehive buzzed for days.

It was like people lacked the mental capacity to comprehend that a new Beyonce album appeared out of a magician’s hat. That night was pure disorder and madness. Deep down though, I wish we never knew, that the secret was still contained and December 9 had the magic of Beyonce’s surprise album.

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