It’s no secret that massive, double albums have become the trend in country music.
And the one that really started it all came in 2021, when Morgan Wallen dropped his massive, record breaking 30-song album Dangerous.
Earlier this year, he took it up another notch and released a 36-song album called One Thing At A Time, which has also broken records and absolutely crushed it on streaming platforms.
And because of the success Morgan’s had putting out packed tracklists, artists like Cody Johnson and Luke Combs, who kind of did it with Growin’ Up and Gettin’ Old, have done similar projects, and it seems like that’s where the future of full-length albums is likely headed in the age of streaming.
While my personal opinion is that it’s often just too much, and the integrity of the art as a whole usually suffers, major labels especially see it as a way to make more and more money because of streaming, and so I don’t really see that changing because of the way we consume music now.
That’s not to say all double albums are “bad” or the artists are doing something wrong per se, but to me it just feels like something, somewhere is sacrificed in an effort to put out so much music all at once.
And in a recent interview on SiriusXM’s The Highway with Ania Hammar, Jason Aldean weighed in on the new era of music, saying that artists are having to work a lot harder to consistently put out new music to please fans:
“It’s definitely a different era right now, where fans expect more music more often. Which is cool, as a fan, that’s great.
As the artist, it just means that we gotta work a little harder to create that music and consistently put it out there. It’s kinda of a new way of doing it, you know, and it’s cool.
It kinda keep us on our toes a little bit lookin’ for songs and trying to stay ahead of the curve a little bit.”
He continued, naming his friend Morgan specifically and jokingly calling him out for “screwing the rest of us” as everyone else in Nashville tries to keep up…
And emphasis on the word tries, because absolutely no one in Nashville (or all of music, really), can keep up with Morgan at the moment purely from a numbers standpoint:
“So it’s fun, but it’s time consuming, it’s definitely work.
I mean, you got Morgan who just put out an album with 30-songs on it… I mean, he’s really screwing the rest of us here.”
It’s certainly an interesting and important conversation to be had, but it feels like the writing is already on the wall, so to speak, in terms of where we’re headed.
Unfortunately, I think major labels especially are going to continue to push their artists to constantly crank out one-off singles or massive, double and even triple albums, and maybe focus less on a 12 or 13-song, complete and perfect record.
It’s not how I would necessarily prefer it, but there’s still great music released all the time if you look for it, and I don’t think that parts going to change, either.
You can watch Jason’s full comments below:
