Comment by BoingBoomTschak

ah, the standard trite, reductive anti-pop cudgel.

no, these days, pop albums are more frequently meant to be consumed in their entirety, often with full length visuals for each song that blend into each other in order.

* the death of radio has really meant that singles are declining in utility, especially in our social media era where the songs that pop off an album are not necessarily the record-designated singles

* the more parasocial development of pop encourages fans to invest more in merch and the concept of the album

* like everything else in the economy trending towards more expensive but meaningful experiences, tours are becoming larger productions to experience an album intensely

* in the AI era, we are now seeing artists pivot towards doubling down on experiences that AI cannot curate and provide meaning for

Rosalia this year is touring with a full orchestra and RAYE with a full big band, because these are intentional choices that the pop music industry has been trending towards for a while. There's always going to be trite drugstore music as long as there are drugstores, but what is charting is not really that at the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htQBS2Ikz6c&list=RDhtQBS2Ikz...