I've just got this feeling this will be Carrie's last album with Sony or whatever her label is. The way Brad has done his album, and Carrie's management changes, I think they are both moving on. Maybe their own label?
They definitely need to do SOMETHING different. I know I sound like Tee, getting all worked up into a frenzy, but I have read in a few articles lately in the comments section people saying things like Carrie is finished now that she has a baby, she's done, she's old news, etc...I remember one comment said "we lost Joan Rivers, Lady Gaga and Carrie Underwood all in 2014". That stung a little bit, because Gaga really is finished, I don't see her ever recovering from the mess her career turned into...and it happened so quickly. Gaga put out a new album and it was immediately a flop and she really didn't gain any sort of attention (other than the bad kind) and then she's just faded from view. Putting out a new album is always really scary. If the material is bad, you are going to flop literally within 3 weeks.
At least in the pop world. Which is why I'm glad we don't have that sort of scrutiny and pressure, but still, Carrie is a top leader in country, and she's got a small following in pop, so there is some pressure there.
2015 will make 10 years now, and everybody nows the 10 year mark is crucial. That's typically when you really start seeing a decline. I know it has to come some time, and I know it usually happens once the babies start popping out. So it's a very real chance a flop could happen. You never know.
BUT, a way to combat all that would be to shake things up and market the product a little differently this time around.
Take, for example, what Colbie Caillat or Leona Lewis did. Colbie Caillat kept her fans updated on Twitter about her working on her new "album". We got "Hold On" as a single and a music video for it in 2013. Hold On is really different from anything Colbie has ever done in the past...normally she's got a beachy Taylor Swift-like sound with a guitar and simple songs about love and silly things like that, but Hold On was way more pop, way more produced, it was amplified 1000 times more than her previous singles. And she collaborated with Ryan Tedder, a big name in pop.
I personally don't like Colbie's new pop sound, I don't think it fits her...but she tried something new and shook things up and took a risk. And Hold On is catchy and kind of cool.
But then she releases her "album" on iTunes in 2014 - turns out its not an album, it's a 4 or 5 track EP. She released Side A a month or two months ago and then bam, she released the full album, which had the 5 tracks from the EP on it. It's kind of a neat idea, and it's different from doing the standard album. But most importantly, "Hold On" wasn't even included on the EP. It turns out Colbie was just holding the fans over until she could give them more new material. That wouldn't be a bad idea for Carrie - just release a few new tracks on an EP, do a couple music videos. It wouldn't be as much work as an album. I don't know how country fans would feel about that, and I would probably be a little disappointed, but it would be something different.
And then Leona Lewis did a Christmas album last year instead of putting out her normal studio album. She made a couple of the tracks available as a FREE download on Amazon and posted the link on her website. It was a really cool thing to do I think, and it was nice for the fans. Leona really loves her fans. And she just teased a couple tracks as Christmas got closer and I thought it was really cool thing to do.
And then what Brad did with his new album - putting out full tracks on YouTube - a lot of artists are doing that. It may mean there are going to be less album sales, but really at this point in time that's going to happen anyway. Now people can pick and choose what songs they like and ignore the rest. The point of putting out an album is really becoming kind of useless now. It's so much cheaper to put out individual tracks at different periods of time and see what people like.
- Edit - And I forgot to mention Katy Perry doing a music video for "Love Me", a track from her latest album. That song is clearly not single material at all, and I don't think it ever will be a single, but she did a music video for it anyway. It was something different to do and you don't see that happening really at all, ever. Or Adele just releasing singles and not doing music videos for them. That's different. There's a thousand DIFFERENT ways you could do it without doing the same old "release single, release music video, release single, release music video, etc.".
Just my rambling for the day.
