This rapper is channeling his inner Beyonce. Kid Cudi released an album, Satellite Flight, and like Queen Bey herself, did it with hardly any prior promotion. Cudi's album drop follows the trend of other large stars who have released albums with little to no hype. Beyonce kept everyone in the dark about her self-titled album that dropped last December and her husband Jay-Z gave fans only two weeks heads up when he released Magna Carta Holy Grail.
This trend of musicians surprising us with albums instead of promoting them over the course of many months is interesting, and it makes me wonder if the trend could ever spread to other forms of media, like movies. Is a surprise movie a good idea or a bad idea? Let's weigh the options.
PRO: NO LONG MARKETING SCHEDULE
How boring does it get to see the same trailer 6000 times before the movie actually comes out. Sometimes you feel like you've already seen the movie and you're bored of it before it even hits the theater.
CON: TRAILERS GIVE FANS SOMETHING TO DO IN BETWEEN MOVIES
Movies take forever to come out and getting excited over trailers in the meantime keeps us happy. Like what if we actually had to wait until November to get any Mockingjay news? Fans of series like the Hunger Games and The Hobbit freak out when a new poster is released, so deprive them of any content and they might start their own rebellion.
PRO: NO PREVIEWS BEFORE MOVIES
CON: THEN YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO SHOW UP TO THE MOVIE ON TIME
PRO: NO FAKE OUTS WITH TRAILERS INCLUDING SCENES THAT GET CUT FROM THE MOVIE
There's something really annoying about a movie using a specific scene to market their whole film and then cutting it from the final version. No trailers, no problem.
CON: HOW WOULD YOU DECIDE IF YOU WANTED TO SEE A MOVIE?
The bottom line is that album drops are different: we already know whether or not we like the musician, but a movie? Unless it's based off a book or is a sequel, you usually want to know what you're walking into before you lay down the money to see it.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
It seems that for now, surprise releases should stick to music. What do you think?
