The idea of major rock artists moving away from the album format and toward releasing standalone singles seems to be gaining steam. Slipknot's Clown said albums are slowly becoming a thing of the past, while Fozzy vocalist Chris Jericho feels the album format is futile when you have a bunch of great songs. And with the utterly insane amount of music being uploaded every single day, who can blame 'em? Standing out is hard!
Now Disturbed guitarist Dan Donegan is jumping into the conversation as well in favor of the singles method. In an interview with T95 The Rock Station, Donegan said Disturbed is starting to think that maybe singles are the way to go, adding "it's really hard to say what the future's gonna hold for us on that."
"It's hard to give an answer to that. Back in the day, in our day, you [went] from albums to cassette tapes and cassette tapes to CDs and CDs to MP3s. I know that the hardcore fanbase loves to have the whole body of work.
"I can't really say [what we will do]. I know that, yes, today's environment seems to just gravitate towards the singles and just [releasing] one [song] at a time. And for the artists themselves, it's frustrating to put your blood, sweat and tears, and all this time and effort and budgets into making a full album if seven songs don't see the light of day — if you only put out three singles and you have 10 songs on an album.
"So it's frustrating to think that you put all that work and effort and the same amount of energy into those other seven tracks that maybe a handful of the hardcore fans will love but the average listened may never get to. So, that's a tough call. It's really hard to say what the future's gonna hold for us on that. So, we'll see. I can't say one way or the other. But it seems like it's kind of headed in that direction for most."
Though really, major rock and metal artists can kinda do both. There's nothing stopping bands from releasing seven singles (or a handful of two-song EPs) and then assembling them all into a full-length album.
