Dear Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend, Nicki Minaj, Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem, Lorde, Haim, Sufjan Stevens, the National, Taylor Swift, St. Vincent, Jay Z, Grizzly Bear, the xx, Fleet Foxes, Tame Impala, Lana Del Rey, Spoon, Phoenix, Gorillaz, Beck, Sky Ferreira, Chromatics, and everyone else who did not release an album this year:
Thank you.
As you may have noticed, 2016 was a little... cluttered when it came to new music. A staggering amount of huge artists released major albums at a whiplash-inducing pace throughout this year. Remember the end of April and beginning of May? When we got new albums from Beyoncé, Drake, Radiohead, James Blake, Anohni, Death Grips all within the span of two weeks? How about September 30, when Solange, Bon Iver, Danny Brown, and Nicolas Jaar all put out albums on the same day? Or in August, when Frank Ocean put out two albums in three days??? Yeah. That was fun. The Pitchfork staff’s therapists were pretty busy those weeks.
It was all such a whirlwind that when the dust settled, we realized... shit. There might not be much left for us to write about next year.
So we wanted to send a little note to all of you, to thank you for not putting out an album in 2016. Thank you for leaving us something to look forward to in 2017. Thank you for not adding to our stress levels in this already stressful year.
Besides, it probably made good business sense not to drop your album this year, what with all the competition. You risked getting buried under a Life of Pablo-sized mountain of hype. How many people remember that Animal Collective put out an album this year? Or M83? See? Huge releases in any other year. Forgotten almost instantly in 2016.
So we would like to deliver our heartfelt thanks to everyone who showed some restraint. And yes, that includes you, Kanye, for not releasing those three albums you promised.
Love,
Pitchfork