#Kanye west dark fantasy genius series#

David Bowie's “The Next Day” - Surprise album & the return of David Bowie 10 years later Daft Punk's “Random Access Memories” - 'Get Lucky' premieres on Coachella & 'Get Lucky' is everywhere Kanye West's “Yeezuz” - 'My Beautiful.' follow up Kendrick Lamar’s “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City” & Frank Ocean's “Channel Orange” - Two of the most teased albums of the year.

#Kanye west dark fantasy genius series#

The Weeknd's “House of Balloons” - A series of 3 mixtapes in just one year Jay-Z & Kanye West's “Watch the Throne” - Two of the greatest rappers alive PJ Harvey's “Let England Shake” - A video for every song Arcade Fire's The Suburbs - An incredible digital campaign and a conceptual album Janelle Monae's “The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III)” - A futurist conceptual album LCD Soundsystem's “This is Happening” - The last project's album ever (until this year) Kanye West's 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' - Every Friday a new song In the 21st century, the innovation is on the marketing campaign. Last century, music was the innovation: the rock and soul in the 60s, metal and disco in the 70s, hip hop in the 80s and, well, boy bands (?) in the 90s. Try to use every new digital innovation? Arcade Fire did it in 2010. Drop the bomb when nobody's looking? Beyoncé did it, Radiohead (again) did it, David Bowie did it and even Lecrae did it this past January. What are you going to do so you can get noticed? Ask people to pay whatever they want for the album? Radiohead did it in 2007. This idea of controversy as a marketing plan is not dead, but with so much going on every day, you didn't notice or tomorrow you won't remember that Elton John said that Rolling Stones are no longer relevant.

This idea of controversial statements was very rooted in the music industry. Bands/artists like Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, Robbie Williams and, of course, Blur. Ask the Gallaghers for instance, they built album promotions on provocative statements about their English rivals. Ten years ago, if you wanted to promote a new release, you'd say something controversial to some controversial newspaper like The Sun or NME.