"It started with music," some old guy says, coughing. He takes a nip of hot water from a tin cup, wiping the dribble from his Coachella beard, a reminder, he says, of simpler times. "Beyoncé released that album without warning and was branded a genius by every galoot from here to Governor's Island," he inveighs. "But where's the Queen now?" The leonine roar of a hovership passing overheard pulls the old man out of himself. He darts to the window, hoping today might be the day we see a Surprise Drop of food rations. The hovership cruises on and the man clumps back to his seat. "I'll tell you where. She's up in the space station built for the Surprisers when everything went to shit down here," he says. "After that album, everyone—artists, car manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, the White House—stopped telling people when goods, laws, medicines, whatever, would come out. Now, the world sits and waits. And waits. And waits."
…Is what could happen if we don't stop to think about how Surprise Drops will change America.
Yes, Beyoncé did it first with her self-titled fifth album. And it was both novel and crafty, a simple, effective marketing scheme that made her album the number one topic on Twitter and cost zero media dollars. So simple and effective, in fact, that other artists who are themselves not amazing at math easily saw the merit in letting word of mouth amplify awareness of their new releases. This all coming at a time when record label lawyers are having to navigate warrens of red tape just to clear a sample for one of so-and-so's interludes, causing, amongst other things, advertised album release dates to push back farther and farther, increasing the likelihood of a leak. The Surprise Drop, then, makes sense from revenue, legal and artist integrity standpoints. The result of which is America waiting by the phone all afternoon like Marcia Brady.
Months after Beyoncé, Nike announced that the Yeezys were on sale via a Tweet and, minutes later, announced via another tweet that the Red Octobers had sold out, hot on the heels of—and probably linked to—a sour split between Kanye and the brand. The move felt weird and unnecessary and insensitive. Especially when sneaker release protocol until that point consisted of promoting the shit out of a drop date, followed by two days of camping outside a Footlocker.
Your correspondent would be lying if he said he didn't feel cheated that he didn't have a fair shot at the Red Octobers. Which is not so coincidentally when your correspondent realized he didn't like Surprise Drops because, in the case of the sneakers, everyone actually missed out on something, while, say, music is there for the downloading whether you find out about it immediately or three years from immediately.
The Surprise Drop won't work for everything, obviously. Ticonderoga stands to earn nothing by releasing a new length of No. 2 pencils without telling anyone. But it's already proven to work famously for things people look forward to owning, which is what, like, 4% of shit sold? You might be saying to yourself, "Hey, that's not so bad." But then you should also say to yourself, "Shit, those are the only things I care about, though."
But look, guys, I know—I know—we're not yet in a place where Surprise Drops are ruining our lives, but just try to name something that ruined your life that didn't begin by not ruining your life at first. And it's already begun because several times this year alone your correspondent has woken up around when a CDQ version of so-and-so's song was rumored to have come out and wondered, "Is today the day we gon' eat?" And your correspondent wasn't even talking about food rations.
Yet.
If you're reading this it might actually be too late.
Rick Morrison is a writer living in North Carolina. Follow him on Twitter here.
