The arrival of the digital era didn’t only make music marketing ,distribution and consumption easy, it somewhat reduced the urge to produce albums by so many artists. In a country like Cameroon, it’s common to see artists being questioned as to why they don’t release albums.
One question we might always ask ourselves is, what the intent of releasing albums? Is it to impress the audience, to compile a body of work or to make money? The bottom line is every artists wants to make money from their art.
You can best attest that in the past years, many artists would release more of albums, because marketing singles, was a big issue. Imagine an artist releasing a CD or cassette with a single track of about three minutes. This simply explains why many artists in those days would do bulk music, contrary to today’s reality. So those that mean bexause people can easily market singles nowadays, albums are now irrelevant or out of fashion ?
The answer is NO. Albums are still very much relevant, and artists with a good body of work, a good team and distribution channels nowadays will attest that making money from albums is easy, but the fear of compiling and not making the targeted financial target, is what is the nightmare for many artists, especially those Independent ones.
Most Cameroonian artists of the ‘new generation’ have been doing more of singles and Eps, however, some have not neglected the importance of albums too. Jovi stays on top of the patch, with four albums and five EP’s and a mixtape, with another album set to drop again this year, which will make it five. His guts should be saluted, because no one in this generation has put in that degree of work, and you can attest that it’s thanks to an ability to rally a solid fan base that encourages him to do more!
Would you do music if no one will listen to or buy? I don’t think. Reniss, Locko, Stanley Enow , MiNk’s, Mr. Leo, Salatiel, are some of the artists who haven’t sat on the idea of albums, and the list goes on.
While Mic Monsta Official is gearing towards the release of his third album , “The Stars Are Watching”, we’ve already been savoring a few tracks off Ko-c ‘s “Genesis”. Tzy Panchak ‘s “Love & War” is already available for streaming, and Blanche Bailly will also be releasing her first studio album this year after six plus years of being a singer.
One thing to pick from the above artists is that, they don’t release Albums to impress. Almost all of them have succeeded to build a reliable fan base, and there’s no doubt that each time they drop, there’s a population ready to consume. So should you wait and be sure about your fanbase before an album ? The answer is yes, or you have money to just tick a name that you too have released an album. If you don’t, calm down and be sure about the decision .
In a nutshell, most artists have been scared to release Albums, because they’re not sure about what the outcome would be like. Most of them have released EPs before and the feed back wasn’t encouraging, so an album is an obvious No, No!!
