Tyler, The Creator has hit out at the idea of ‘New Music Friday’, and instead suggested artists “should put music out again on Tuesdays instead”.
Speaking to journalist Narduwar, he said: “I know people think because of the weekend they can listen and stuff, and streams go up. I think it’s a lot of passive listening at parties, or [when] people get the time to go to the gym, so they’re not really listening.”
New music has been released globally on Fridays since 2015, with the date previously being Tuesdays in the United States. For the UK, singles dropped on Sundays with albums coming out the following day, while Europe saw albums release on Fridays. One reason for the change was to have a global date to limit the opportunity for potential pirating. However, Tyler insisted Tuesdays would be a better opportunity for listeners to really embrace the music on their commute. He added: “You really have that hour or thirty minutes to really ‘dive in’ and really listen because you know, once that’s over you’ve got to get to work.”
Meanwhile, the rapper also hit out at the idea of music being released at midnight, with people either sleeping or heading to bed. He argued: “To work on an album for so long, and put so much energy into it, for it to be released at midnight just seems so disrespectful.” Tyler thinks artists need to focus on their art too when it comes to promotional work, rather than gimmick videos. He explained: “Talk about your album. Talk about music. Talk about the 15 songs that you guys have spent time to get mixed and mastered and put your heart into and produced and did all these things. And then when the album comes out and it sells two copies, everyone’s confused. But it’s like, they don’t want to talk about the music or the album; they’d rather go eat chicken wings and sneaker shopping.”
